Ask John: If Manga is Cheaper to License, Why Isn’t More of It Released?

Question:
Given the high expenses of distributing anime for US release combined with low sales, it would make more sense for an anime title to be delayed, dropped, or have its future releases in doubt than manga titles which would be cheaper to distrubute. Yet this isn’t the case. I own at least seven manga titles that never had subsequent volumes released after their first or second volume, even though they have several more volumes released in Japan. And I’ve seen several more titles disappear from store shelves without new volumes coming out. For anime, I can’t think of any title that has met smiliar fate recently. Can you explain why this is the case?

Answer:
I don’t know all of the details of America’s publishing industry or exactly how manga distribution in America works, but I think I can fill in some of the corporate details that average consumer level fans may not be aware of. It’s true that manga is less expensive to license and distribute in America than Japanese animation, but that doesn’t make manga cheap. Major manga titles can also be relatively expensive to license. In fact, in response to increasing demand from the American market, a manga title that may have cost several hundred dollars to license a few years ago, may now cost several thousand.

Furthermore, even though manga may be less expensive to acquire than anime, when a product doesn’t recover its expenses, distributors suffer, regardless of how small or big the loss is. Manga has literally exploded in America over the past few years, but the state of the manga publishing industry suggests that consumer purchasing hasn’t grown at the same pace. Through my experience with specialty retailer AnimeNation I’ve seen domestic manga that don’t sell a single copy, even at drastically discounted prices. I’ve personally seen manga graphic novels remain unsold even at one dollar each! There are now literally so many different manga titles available in America that some literally go completely overlooked and ignored. And no matter how small the investment is, no business can steadily spend money on releasing manga that don’t generate any income.

A major difference between manga and anime distribution that average fans may not be aware of is the fact that manga may not be returnable, depending upon the distributor. Bookstores and comic shops that purchase manga may not be able to return unsold books to the publisher or their distributor, which is different from the situation with DVD. Not being able to return books and having no idea how well they’ll sell may make retailers hesitant to carry obscure manga. Naturally, retailers don’t want to lose money by selling manga at less than cost just to get them off the shelf. On the other side of the coin, influential retailers that don’t return unsold books may still demand to be compensated for their investment. And unsold books often end up diluting the market. A major retail chain like Best Buy may purchase thousands of copies of a DVD. If that DVD doesn’t sell, Best Buy returns the unsold copies to the distributor for a refund. Major book retailers may likewise demand credit for unsold books. But they don’t actually return the books, so the publisher loses both the profit and the merchandise. Instead of returning unsold books to the publisher, big retailers may liquidate the unsold manga at pennies per volume, or may simply discard them. Those books often turn up for sale elsewhere, such as at anime conventions, at steep discounts that undermine the sales of new, full retail priced books. This all sounds draconian, but it’s the reality of the publishing industry.

Knowing that American manga publishers may never see any profits from the books they publish, and knowing that manga once published may literally saturate the market and cost the publisher more than they earn, it’s not difficult to understand why many of America’s manga publishers have ceased publishing underperforming titles. Allowing a manga to go out of print, or canceling the continuing release of a manga series may be a waste of the licensing fee. But continuing to publish a poor selling title may cost even more, and may cause even more harm to the publisher than outright canceling the title. Distributing a hit manga can be very profitable, but a “miss” title can be very costly. Because licensing manga is less expensive than licensing anime, manga is an easier entryway into the American anime industry. But distributing manga may be, in fact, riskier than distributing anime, which may explain why several of America’s anime distributors have not expanded into licensing manga; why numerous domestic manga titles have gone out of print or been canceled; and why many of America’s manga publishers have reduced the number of titles they release.

Article revised April 14, 2006