With the inundation of Streaming services and the exodus of content from broadcast television to the internet I ask what is the current state of the Manga industry?
With no Internet access I have to order physical copies of my favorite Manga. I have a subscription to Otaku USA, and will often make purchases based off of their recommendations. Luckily I have family members willing to order books for me from Amazon and I am able to enjoy storied that I otherwise wouldn't have access too.
Now that I am approaching the end of my sentence and will have the option to view Manga online I find myself still wanting to hold and read a physical book so I ask: are Manga still readily available out there?
What do you prefer physical or digital? Where do you find the Manga of your choice? I'd love to hear recommendations for stores or sites to check out as well as any series you would consider a "Must Read".
A favorite series I have read recently is "City" by Keiichi Arwaii. (Apologies for misspelling Arwaii san's name I'm going off of memory right now.) Does anyone know if this has been made into an Anime or if there are plans to do so? Thanks.
[EDIT: Made thread title a little more specific. Moved the thread to the Manga sub-forum, but left a shadow of the thread in Anime, since hardly anyone posts in Manga anymore. -TK]
Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9855
Location: Virginia
Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2023 7:49 pm
State of the industry? Hot, really hot. Volumes of manga routinely show up on monthly top ten lists of graphic novel sales. It is one of the few areas of book stores that is growing. You can get manga from most sources that sell books. Many comic shops also carry a selection.
You can get manga online from Amazon, Right Stuf! and Roberts Anime Corner Store. They carry most titles with some limits on Hentai (X rated) stuff from Amazon and Right Stuf!. Right Stuf! and Roberts publish lists of upcoming titles for pre order and both list each weeks arrivals on Tuesday.
Comic shops get volumes through Diamond's Previews Catalog. Each shop will have their own policies about what they carry, special orders, pre orders etc. My local shop is my primary source as I get a 30% discount from MSRP because I pay when I order and buy a lot. To give you an idea of the amount of titles, the July Previews Catalog manga section had about 40 pages of listings with six to 10 titles per page. So two to three hundred volumes a month.
Of book stores, Barnes and Noble have a large selection. Books a Million used to but they left town and I can't confirm they still do. Bookstores do tend to get picked over for new releases rather quickly. Unfortunately, physical book stores are dying out.
Most publishers and online shops keep a reasonable backlog of earlier volumes. If a volume had gone out of print there Amazon and E-Bay have a lot of third party sellers that can get what you want. May be costly for some volumes. Almost every long running series has one or two volumes that are hard to find.
I can't tell you much about digital manga because I don't buy them if I have a choice. There are several companies which supply digital copies in addition to the physical ones and some that sell manga not available otherwise. Someone else will have to jump in on that topic.
I don't know if you have encountered Japanese light novels. They are an expanding source of IP for anime. Most of the sources listed above carry them along with the manga and they come from the same publishers. I do have several titles in digital form as they are not available in physical copies. I use Amazon Kindle for these.
Last I counted, which was a couple three years ago, I had over 4000 volumes of manga. It has gotten a bit out of hand since then and lack the energy to count currently. Add to that a couple hundred volumes of light novels.
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