Forum - View topicThe death of the manga industry?
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1778 Location: South America |
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Some people have said that manga is a dying medium. It some ways it looks like it's true: physical magazine sales are now 1/3 of the level they were in the peak sales of 1995. However, that ignores the facts that sales of comic books when taking into account physical and digital sales have increased 40% from 1995 to 2016. Manga publishers usually make profits out of the books and not the magazines because the magazines are sold at dirty cheap prices to promote sales of books and merchandising. Hence the decrease in physical magazine sales doesn't represent a decrease in actual income for the publishers since the physical magazine production costs are nearly equal to it's sale price.
This image from Japan times shows how the manga industry evolved over the past two decades: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/02/business/manga-goes-digital-via-smartphone-apps-paper-comics-still-place/#.Whc_xjdryUk While physical manga book sales were 20% smaller in 2016 than in 1995 the sales of digital manga of nearly 150 billion yen, which I note are sales whose physical production cost is zero, hence meaning the publishers get the full return on that money, meant that the industry today is relatively healthy. And this quote:
So despite the fact Japan's population is aging fast it's dwindling young population is apparently consuming manga more than ever before. |
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
Posts: 329 |
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One of the main reasons is that Japan's current active generation is very ecologically aware and active.
I may not be happy should paper media be out of print and not an option, but it's great that they're cutting down on the paper. A lot of manga tends to get thrown out, and there's not much room for trash and litter. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1778 Location: South America |
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Back in the 90s Japan produced 6 billion books and magazines per year of which 2.3 billion were manga. Now they are cutting down on all that paper.
But they repcycled most of the manga. Recycled manga used to be one of the main sources for toilet paper in Japan actually. There was even a joke that hentai manga was consumed first as pornography and then it was recycled in the toilet paper used clean up the mess afterward. |
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
Posts: 329 |
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Now that's stand up material. |
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TeamTamago
Posts: 8 |
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Am glad to see trees being saved. Books are still popular with train riders here but I see more and more reading manga on smart phones. Kodansha's "Digital First" series is an example of how much the digital format is picking up.
Digital productions are not free though. They also cost publishers some yen when they make the jump to other languages and the initial cost of moving the art and text from off-line to on-line media. It is probably minimal though compared to sales. |
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#Sftcore
Posts: 3 |
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it's great that they're cutting down on the paper. A lot of manga tends to get thrown out, and there's not much room for trash and litter. |
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