Vertical Observes Domestic Manga Trends

During its New York Anime Festival panel discussion this past weekend, Vertical, Inc. representative Ioannis Mentzis stated the fact that many consumers and industry observers know: American consumers aren’t interested in vintage manga. With the exception of select works by Osamu Tezuka, which presumably attract attention because of Tezuka’s reputation, Vertical’s publications of older, classic manga do not sell well because American consumers aren’t interested in older, classic manga.

Vertical also revealed that due to its stature as a smaller publisher, the company has difficulty acquiring publishing rights to contemporary manga titles from Japanese publishers that are more interested in working with higher profile distributors. As a result, Vertical has been concentrating on acquiring publishing rights to Japanese fiction and Japanese books about and related to manga & anime.

Source: Anime News Network