Manga Publishers Part 2

Recently Ed Chavez of Vertical made a request for manga licensing suggestions. The main catch is that the manga must not have been published by any of the “big three”: Kodansha, Shogakukan, Shueisha. It’s an interesting request because almost all of the best mangaka end up working for one of those three publishers eventually. Some of the mangaka that I’m most eager to see get licensed were fortunate enough to have started their careers with one of them, like Minoru Furuya and Makoto Isshiki. Any ways, after pondering over the matter for a couple weeks I’ve come up with an arbitrarily ordered list of 16 titles that I’d buy if they were licensed.

Aqua Planet Chronicle by Masaru Ohishi (Shonen Gahosha, Seinen, 7 Volumes)

Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun by Ryoko Yamagishi (Hakusensha, Shoujo, 8 Volumes)

Maihime Terpsichore by Ryoko Yamagishi (Media Factory, Josei, 10 Volumes)

Not Love, Delicious Food by Fumi Yoshinaga (Ohta Shuppan, Seinen, 1 Volume)

Onmyoji by Reiko Okano (Hakusensha, Shoujo, 13 Volumes)

Maestro by Akira Sasou (Futabasha, Seinen, 1+ Volumes)

Shindo by Akira Sasou (Futabasha, Seinen, 4 Volumes)

Swan II by Kyoko Ariyoshi (Heibonsha, Josei, 1+ Volumes)

Shakariki by Masahito Soda (Akita Shota, Shonen, 7 Volumes (Bunko))

Panorama Toukitan by Suehiro Maruo (Enterbrain, Seinen, 1 Volume)

Sachiko to Neko-sama by Nawoki Karasawa (Enterbrain, Seinen, 3 Volumes)

Otome Youkai Zakuro by Lily Hoshino (Gentosha, Seinen, 2+ volumes)

Journey to the End of the World by Kyodai Nishioka (Seirinkogeisha, Seinen, 1 Volume)

Himitsu by Reiko Shimizu (Hakusensha, Shoujo, 6+ Volumes)

March Comes in Like a Lion by Chika Umino (Hakusensha, Seinen, 2+ volumes)

Usagi Drop by Yumi Unita (Shodensha, Josei, 5+ volumes)

I’m certain there are many other titles worthy of consideration to be found in the pages of magazines like Ax, Comic Beam, Comic Birz, Manga Erotics F, Feel Young, Melody, and others.

A Manga Quote to Remember

“I think that if shojo manga were to be introduced on a wider scale to the U.S., English-language publishers of manga could attract an incredible amount of new female readers.” – Ryoichi Ikegami, published in Vol. 1 No. 7 of Animerica, September 1993.

As usual, he was way ahead of the times, even in terms of another nation.

Sigh… scanlations

It seems some talk over scanlations has started up again recently, at least on mangablog, in response to a recent interview with Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson.

I’m not going to take a stand on the issue one way or another. What I want to say here is that I think publishers need to learn how to take advantage of the reality of the situation.

Take Viz for example. Their licensing strategy revolves around relentlessly licensing manga that have anime adaptations. Do they care if said anime is licensed and commercially released in North America? No, they don’t. I’ll leave you to figure out which titles I’m referring to… Now forget about the obvious fact that if a manga gets an anime adaptation then it must be popular in Japan and hence has a good chance at success in North America. The reality is that they know the anime will be freely available online through fansubs for all to watch. The result is almost equivalent to having that anime run every week on cable TV. There’s simply no better advertising arrangement for manga. I also believe that just because an anime fansub isn’t particularly popular doesn’t mean it won’t help out manga sales a lot, because as long it’s available and allowed to act as a previewing mechanism for potential buyers, it will help increase interest. And remember, manga is what anime fans actually spend their money on now. So in closing, don’t let any manga with an anime adaptation go unreleased, and good luck.