Manga sales down 20% in North America
It seems that free online scanlations and a lack of big name T.V anime titles are the major contributing factors to the shrinking manga industry;
The ICv2 retail news source reports in its “State of the Comics Industry” white paper that North American sales for manga fell from US$175 million in 2008 to US$140 million in 2009 — a decrease of 20 percent. Manga sales in 2007 were US$210 million, which means that sales have decreased by a third between 2007 and 2009. ICv2 also wrote that the decline was more pronounced in standard bookstores than in direct market retailers such as comic stores.
ICv2 attributed this decline in manga sales to several factors. The first is that young teenage fans of shōjo manga who created the manga boom in bookstores have aged. According to ICv2, attempts to get shōjo fans to read josei manga have failed, and so these fans are turning to other activities as a result. ICv2 also attributed the decline to the lack of TV exposure for shōnen hits that accompanied the Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note manga releases. ICv2 also mentioned the problem of the availability of scanlations online, and the lack of “collector mentality” that manga fans have when compared to comic book fans.
The number of volumes of manga sold also declined from 1,513 in 2007 to 1,115 in 2009, and ICv2 projects around 968 different volumes for 2010. However, manga represented 35 percent of graphic novels release in the U.S. for 2009, and accounted for 38 percent of sales.
So they’re losing their customer base for a variety of reasons, but aren’t sure what to do about it?
> The first is that young teenage fans of shōjo manga who created the manga boom in bookstores have aged.
Did time stop, or is our population in such savage decline that the newer generation is so much smaller? Or are there no manga to cater to the younger kids either?
> accompanied the Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note manga releases
Sure there is more to shōnen manga than these three franchises? Is this a problem of advertising failure (or lack of advertisement?)
> availability of scanlations online, and the lack of “collector mentality”
Then why not switch to online distribution, offering atypical incentives for fan loyalty? Is this simply too difficult a market to break into, or it just that they haven’t tried yet?
Is there a researched reason the “collector mentality” doesn’t exist? I haven’t seen many “collector’s editions” of manga in the US, is this a possible reason, or am I just missing these items in my area?
I think one of the major reasons that manga sales have slipped at least here in Canada is because a lot of stations no longer play any anime at all.Naruto, bleach and other shōnen’s aren’t even on T.V here so its hard to get new fan’s to buy manga if they’ve never even heard of the anime.
That’s odd, considering that I actually bought some manga for the first time ever.
omg…
i know what you mean
here in the u.s. they took naruto off for a while….it was on cartoon network, but somehow got removed….so did all the other anime on that channel too….like prince of tennis sailor moon, and zatch bell….cartoon network no longer plays anime…adult swim still does…but when naruto came back on…it was on disney xd, which if you don’t have the higher channels, then you can’t watch it…all the anime are being removed…which sucks…i do buy mangas…whenever i can…but for some reason, tv stations don’t feel the need to play them…which is a crime…i love anime and mangas and have to go online just to watch them…i feel bad that they are losing money, but if it’s not on tv or advertise, how can we get to know anime better
Anime and Manga hit its peak potential in the early 2000s when there was actually anime on after school time slots of popular youth networks. The disappearances of Anime on that market is what has led to a wide spread contraction of the following Market.