The Japanese manga industry has recorded the biggest slump in sales ever.
Industry figures for fiscal 2009 show a shocking 6.6% drop in sales on the previous year, to an admittedly still huge 418,700,000,000 yen ($4.6 billion).
Sales of manga magazines were particularly hard hit, plummeting 9.4% to a level not seen for years.
The drop is seen in the context of a long term decline in sales since their peak in the nineties, which it seems publishers have been powerless or too incompetent to arrest.
However, the reduction is far from evenly felt – Shueisha was only recently crowing about its record sales for the 57th volume of One Piece, at 1,691,000 copies the best selling yet.
A lack of fresh hits and a reserved attitude to buying on the part of consumers are thought to be key causes of the decline, along with changes in reading habits – manga cafes and other venues are thought to be contributing to a decline in sales.
Even mangaka themselves have at times decried the state of the industry – new blood is said to be hard to find. Publishers too are pursuing a business model essentially unchanged for many decades.
Could the fortunes of the manga industry, already locked in the throes of creative enervation and sapped by the economic malaise which grips Japan, get any worse?
With the onslaught of censors bent on stripping it of its creative liberties, it appears they could…
like in “One Piece” the golden age of pirates is among us, except in our case it’s digital pirating. And only the strongest(most interesting) of mangas will survive.
You can blame 60% on the dozens of manga reading sites online. 20% for manga that plain suck (stagnant creative period), and the final 10% for the shitastic economy the worlds stuck in ATM.
I would buy more stuff but in order to that I need to be working and right now eating and housing take priority. Finding work right now, is not a day at the park.
WTF do this people expect? The economy is lousy and people have a thousand things to spend there little money and time.
Judging from the billions of money going in the sales of manga they are just fine.
It’s stupid to expect to get record sales every time. I hate the fact that all companies expect every year to get bigger share and more profits and consider anything else as a failure.
They are acting like those pop singers who make a huge hit and they think they can sell all there songs with the same numbers.
The problem is, most manga either becomes “INCREASING MY POWER LEVELS” or Moe, or harem.
I read a one-shot that was actually pretty interesting, and a little out there but creative nonetheless.
it gets published and the first issue comes out, it is a COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what the one-shot was about. It was turned into a harem with excessive fanservice, new characters introduced to make it that way and all.
It was like “hrmm nice story and all, but hey, you know what would really sell? HAREM. turn it into a harem with carefully censored bits, it will sell like hot cakes”
the problem is the publishers, not the lack of fresh blood. Fresh blood comes in with some interesting ideas, and the publishers tell them “no, make it this way.”
It’s a lot like the US. “WE NEED NEW WRITERS” *new writers come in* “OKAY, THROW OUT ANY IDEAS YOU HAD AND MAKE THIS STOCK SCENARIO WORK.”
They know if they push it enough, eventually people will just accept it.