Ask John: Why Do Manga in America Cost So Much?
|Question:
Many of the manga I buy in the United States cost about $10, but a similar volume in Japan costs only $5 or less. I know that when a manga is printed in the United States there is some effort for translation and research, but it seems like the profit margin on US printed manga must be very high. Is that true? Do you know how much it costs a US publisher to produce a manga?
One of the reasons manga is so popular in Japan is that it is very cheap. Even people who aren’t especially interested in manga can follow a series they like without spending a fortune. I wonder if US publishers aren’t shooting themselves in the foot. Only otaku are willing to pay $10 per volume, so manga will always be just a niche market. It can never become popular among the general public at the current prices. Do you have any insight into the pricing of US published manga?
Answer:
I’ve worked with domestic anime DVD releases, but not manga publishing. So I’m somewhat familiar with the profit margins associated with DVDs, I’m not very conscious of the precise costs and earnings of manga publishing. However, I do know of some of the expenses that manga publishing incurs, and I’m fairly familiar with the commercial workings of the American anime industry. Manga is significantly cheaper in Japan than America because it can be cheaper in Japan than America. A book that sells 100 number of copies at $10 may generate a similar profit to a book that sells 1,000 copies at $4 each. Japanese manga publishing is subsidized by other publications, media, and product lines sold by the publisher. Japanese publishers profit from spin-off merchandise related to the manga title. Japanese publishers don’t have to pay royalties and licensing fees to the master licensor because they are the master licensor. None of these circumstances typically apply to American publishers. Furthermore, Japan has exponentially more consumers that purchase manga than America does. So sales volume allows for lower per-volume price in Japan compared to America.
America’s anime and manga distributors are not greedy. Sometimes shortsighted, certainly. But they’re not trying to reap massive profit margins. They’re trying to earn enough profit to survive and hopefully expand. Last summer Viz Media formally raised the cover price on its Shonen Jump and Shoujo Beat manga lines from their previous $7.99 and $8.99 to $9.99. Viz explained the increase saying, “VIZ Media made the decision to stay consistent with the pricing in the marketplace for this industry, which in some cases might be a slight increase from previous years.†Similarly, select manga from Dark Horse Comics have also seen a dollar per volume price increase. Especially in a tight economy, no publisher wants to increase the price of luxury goods, risking the possibility of pricing them out of the comfortable spending range of average consumers. Domestic manga graphic novels aren’t cheaper than they are because domestic publishers simply can’t survive on lower retail prices and similar sales volume. The outside observer philosophy may suggest that lower retail prices boost sales, but due to the percentage nature of retail profit margins, a product at a lower price has to sell an exponentially greater number copies to generate the same revenue as fewer sales at a higher price point. Cutting the price of domestic manga by a third probably won’t increase sales volume by three times, thus the price cut ends up hurting the publisher more than it helps. Furthermore, printing a massive number of graphic novels is, itself, a risky proposition. When a DVD distributor distributes 10,000 copies of a DVD to retailers, after three months retailers may return thousands of unsold discs and demand a refund. At least, in that instance, the DVD distributor gets its unsold DVDs back. Book publishing is slightly different. After a publisher sells 10,000 copies of a manga to retailers, the biggest nationwide retailer chains may simply discard the unsold books and demand a refund from the publisher. That may not be especially fair, but that’s the way the business works, and publishers have to either work with it or work around it.
Icarus Publishing’s domestic erotic manga retail at $20 a book. That seems outrageous, but it’s actually about double the cost of the same book in Japan – which is parallel to the domestic cost of most manga. Icarus Publishing is also a small, independent publisher that needs to maximize profits on every book sold. Domestic manga publishers including Studio Ironcat, Broccoli Books, DramaQueen, and Comics One have folded. CPM Press died with its parent company. Infinity Studios seems inactive. ADV Manga is inactive. Presently the industry average $9.99 per manga volume seems to be the fulcrum between a price the market will sustain and the minimum domestic publishers need to function healthily. That $9.99 average does seem to be slowly inching upward, suggesting that rising costs and a consumer market that’s not growing significantly are making price increases an unavoidable necessity.
Manga is a culturally established commodity in Japan, although it seems to be increasingly moving toward digital distribution from traditional print. The same may not be the case in America. American newspapers continue to marginalize comics. I think it’s reasonable to anticipate that America wouldn’t see a dramatic surge of comic reading even if the entire American comic book industry dropped its average retail price to .25 a book. Price does have some impact on the American market potential of comics. I know I’d buy many more manga than I do if they were all a dollar a book. But for countless millions of Americans, the difference between a $4 and a $10 manga is irrelevant because they’re not interested in manga at any price. So domestic publishers have to bear that situation in mind and price their translated manga with a compromise between attractive affordability and a price that allows sustainability. The manga publishing industry is different in Japan than it is in America. And the consumer interest in manga is different in Japan than it is in America. So manga will never be as popular in America, nor as inexpensive in America as they are in Japan.
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“Many of the manga I buy in the United States cost about $10, but a similar volume in Japan costs only $5 or less.”
Actually, that varies, depending on the manga. For example, they’ll charge whatever the hell they want on doujin at Japanese cons. But if it makes you feel better, English-translated manga used to be a minimum of $15 a volume, up until the mid-to-late 90s.
“I know that when a manga is printed in the United States there is some effort for translation and research, but it seems like the profit margin on US printed manga must be very high. ”
Actually, depending on the title, companies might barely break even on it.
“One of the reasons manga is so popular in Japan is that it is very cheap.”
You’ve got it backwards. Manga in Japan is cheap, because it’s popular.
“Only otaku are willing to pay $10 per volume, so manga will always be just a niche market.”
Manga’s still out-selling the American comic book market and it’s still cheaper than the average text-only Harry Potter and Dan Brown books. Not to mention that SJ’s survived in an almost-dead market. So the genre must be at least beyond the “niche” market by now.
John: You also have to take into account that one of the reasons manga is published so cheaply in Japan is because the artists and/or authors are paid according to how many copies they sell, not according to the popularity of the publisher. And it seems like the industry over there is actually losing money on manga in general right now, which might force similar price-hikes in the near future, just to keep up with inflation.
Anyway, while you think this is pricey, at least it’s not as bad as the American comic book industry, where you’re forced to cough up $20 for less than 80 pages of the likes of “The Killing Joke”, just because they decided to sell it in HC. And even if it sells, the publishers will still look for ways to dick you out of your share of the revenue.
“…they’ll charge whatever the hell they want on doujin…”
Doujins are a different animal, so it doesn’t really apply to the market discussion of manga here. Manga generally is as low as $3 to $9.($1 = Y100 math here) There are the occasional $12 to $18 but its incredibly rare.
“You’ve got it backwards. Manga in Japan is cheap, because it’s popular.”
They’re both right. Its the hen and egg argument. Its able to be cheap because its popular, its popular and therefore cheaper, making it more popular.
“So the genre must be at least beyond the “niche†market by now.”
It’s still really niche. Maybe in a generation or 2 it will change. But until then, good luck calling it ‘mainstream’
“Anyway, while you think this is pricey, at least it’s not as bad as the American comic book industry…”
You can’t even create series with a beggining and an end in the US. Other people constantly drawing other peoples super heroes with new spin off stories that may not relate to each other officially or may with 100’s of different artists and books and pasts and etc…. and to top it off it all stems from the fact that the publisher has the artist by the balls….. how sad.
sid: “It’s still really niche. Maybe in a generation or 2 it will change. But until then, good luck calling it ‘mainstream’”
It’s noticeable enough to get movie rights to certain titles. So it must be doing somewhat well.
BTW, I have to add that the person who asked John is probably right, in the case of the sped-up release of the One Piece manga. That series is nowhere near Naruto in terms of popularity, even if FUNi’s handling it, instead of 4Kids. So Viz would do better to discount those upcoming volumes and get them out of stores, because they risk taking a real loss from unsold copies. But, really, what the company should have done is sped up the release gradually, since it’s not even close to finished in Japan yet. [Or is it?]
GATS, manga is definitively doing something right. But that still doesn’t make it mainstream. I’m somewhat confused since your point and mine don’t conflict whatsoever, you in fact supported my point.
But I do ask, what manga do you refer to that got movie rights? DBZ was clearly on the success of the tv show, and the final product was an incredible embarrassment to the original source material and arguably disturbingly racial as the main character was white for no other reason than him being white…
Well, the easy stuff to get movie rights to, and not fuck up, would be Crimson Hero, Sand Chronicles, Appleseed, Pluto, Eyeshield, PoT, Dirty Pair, Cobra, Silent Mobius, YYH, and others with little fanfare. The stuff I’d like to see adapted, if the studios cared about doing a good job, would include Mars, Devil Man, any of the Go Nagai mecha anime, Fist of the Blue Sky, and Moufflon. And the main character in DB: E was white, because Hollywood doesn’t like casting minorities in positive lead roles, unless the actors are established, or can pass off as white.
It`s so sad how racist Hollywood is. Are they feeling inferiority compared to The Japanese or what? Sidjtd is right in his conclusion: American comics (+cartoons) have lost all creativity. Or the publishers are dead afraid of creativity outside of what they know. So they try to sell same shit again and again in new packages.
Manga (or anime) will never become mainstream in USA, or in my country & other western countries because of that racism & inferiority complex whole entertainment industry in the western world.
Manga and anime have already developed too far in diversity and creativity for western mainstream to ever comprehend or most ppl here to understand.
It is a whole new world & too overwhelming for most westerners to get a grasp on.