Ask John: Why is Manga More Expensive in America than in Japan?

Question:
While American released anime DVDs are usually half price or less of the Japanese releases, why does American released manga cost twice as much as Japanese published manga? It seems to me that it’s a lot cheaper to translate a manga than to dub, sub, and redo credits for an anime series.

Answer:
It is, in fact, true that Japanese animation on home video is typically much cheaper in America than it is in Japan. But manga is much less expensive in Japan than it is in America. The most significant reason for this discrepancy is the size of the consumer market, although corporate sponsorship also plays a big role. Manga is undeniably mainstream in Japan. Manga, especially manga magazines, are as common in Japan as newspapers and paperback novels. For reference, the best selling monthly comic books in America sell fewer than 300,000 copies. Japan’s best selling manga magazine, Weekly Shonen Jump, sells nearly 12 million copies a month! While a typical American comic book is 32 pages long and retails at $3, an issue of Shonen Jump may have 500 pages and retail at less than $2. A single volume of a hit Japanese manga series can sell well over two million copies while in America TOKYOPOP’s best selling titles sell 250,000 copies of all of their volumes combined.

Manga in Japan is able to sell at low prices because profits come from sales quantity. Even a tiny profit margin per issue adds up to a lot when there are millions of copies sold. Furthermore, reportedly some of Japan’s manga magazines have such low retail prices because the publisher’s primary profit comes from the sale of manga paperback collections rather than the magazines. The magazines serve as a sort of advertising for the more profitable “tankoubon” manga collections. Other factors that influence the cost of manga in Japan are the low pay rates that manga artists earn, the cheap quality paper and printing that manga publishers often use, and advertising revenue that can offset retail prices. Japanese manga magazines earn a lot of money from advertisers, which enables the magazines to lower their retail price without losing any profits. On the other hand, American manga graphic novels aren’t filled with dozens of pages of advertisements from video game manufacturers, food and toy companies, record labels and so forth. Since manga in America don’t sell remotely as many copies as they do in Japan, and because American manga publishers aren’t heavily subsidized by advertising revenue, they have to charge more for manga graphic novels to earn the profits necessary to stay in business.

In simple mathematics, manga are four times cheaper in Japan because they sell four times as many copies in Japan. Translating and publishing manga is, as you suspect, less expensive than producing translated anime DVDs. That’s why a typical English translated manga graphic novel retails at $10 while a typical American anime DVD retails at $30. Manga publishers need to earn a certain minimum amount just to stay in business. In Japan, manga publishers can earn that minimum necessary amount by selling X number of copies at Y price. The same equation is true in America, but the X and Y values are opposite in Japan in America. Japan sells a lot of manga, so the price of manga is low. America sells fewer manga, so the price of manga is higher.