geri_chan | Manga series on hiatus

MangaBlog linked to a very interesting article on the Tokyopop website about the need to support manga series and why they go on hiatus, and how they can sometimes come back from hiatus with enough support from the fans. Quite frankly, even though I have a Tokyopop membership, I only found the article because of the MangaBlog link--I almost never visit the Tokyopop website because it's so damned cluttered and hard to navigate. But I digress...

The author is a Tokyopop editor, and the article starts off with:

One of the things I most hate to see on manga-related forums are comments like, “I’m interested in this series, but I don’t know if they’re going to cancel it, so I’ll wait a bit and see if it continues.”

You know what practically GUARANTEES that something will get dropped from publication? Not putting your money where your mouth is and picking up volume 1.

This sounds snarky, and I know everyone has to prioritize his or her budget, especially in tight times, but seriously—this is a business that relies heavily on perceived demand, and how do we know there’s a demand for a title if no one is picking it up? I think there's an idea in the fandom that the manga market is a lot bigger than it actually is, and if you pass on a volume for now, enough people will still buy it that it'll stick around for a while. Unfortunately, this isn't really the case--Manga is a hit-driven business, and most series only get one chance to get out there and succeed.

Yes, she is absolutely right, but it does come off sounding a bit snarky. I count myself as one of the "good guys"--I put my money where my mouth is and buy the manga series that I'm interested, usually from Book 1 (although sometimes I'll check out the first volume from the library first to see if it's worth buying). And you know what? I still have a bunch of series sitting on my shelves which will probably never be finished. And quite frankly, many of those series are Tokyopop titles: Nosatsu Junkie, Genju no Seiza, Get Backers, Tactics, Dragon Voice, Platinum Garden, Off*Beat, and Steady Beat to name a few. (To be fair, some of those may be due to their license with Kodansha expiring.) And titles like Vassalord, Lagoon Engine, Aria, and Tokyo Pet Shop of Horrors seem to be on delayed schedules with gaps of months or even years between volumes. And I'm still waiting for volume 10 of Saiyuki Reload!

(I am also still mourning the demise of CMX and all their unfinished series, but that's a different rant.)

Several people have pointed out in the comments that like me, they do put their money where their mouths are, but are reluctant to invest in Tokyopop series because they've been burned so many times before, and Tokyopop seems to have a very long list of canceled/on-hiatus series. I feel quite safe investing in Viz series by comparison--they have a good track record of getting stuff out regularly. In my experience, if a Viz series is incomplete, it's usually because the manga-ka never finished it (X/1999 and Descendants of Darkness, I'm looking at you), or because the manga-ka is on hiatus due to personal or health issues (Honey Hunt, Nana, Hunter x Hunter). Del Rey's record is a bit spotty (will we ever see more of Nodame Cantabile?) but still better than Tokyopop. DMP/June seems to take the slow-but-steady route with some of their series, with long gaps between volumes (such as Kiss Blue or the Ring Finger light novel series), and I cut them more slack since yaoi is a niche market.

Don't get me wrong--I still think it's important to invest in the series that I love, but I feel a bit irked that I'm being asked to invest on faith with no guarantee of a return, especially when that particular company has such a bad track record. I think that Tokyopop needs to work on earning back the readers' trust. The return of some long on-hiatus series is a good start, I think--for example, the previously mentioned Vassalord and Lagoon Engine. And I was overjoyed to finally get the last volume of B'tx after a two year wait! (There's nothing that irks me more than having the series canceled on the second-to-the-last volume!)

On the other hand, I think it's unrealistic to expect fans to wait two years between volumes. I have a secure, full-time job and enough disposable income to buy a lot of manga, plus I'm fanatic enough to check the list of new manga releases each week, and to hang in there and keep buying volumes after a two year wait. Others will have given up and moved on to something else, and might not even be aware that (for example) B'tx is still around, and/or prefer to invest their limited funds in a series that's already finished or at least more likely to be finished.

So it seems to be a vicious circle in which fans don't buy books because they think the series won't be finished, and series don't get finished because fans don't buy the books, and frankly, I'm not sure what the solution is.

Despite all my griping, it was encouraging to learn that series on hiatus do have a chance of coming back: "So sometimes we put a title on hiatus to see if fans manage to find what copies we have out there before we invest in producing more. How fast things come back from hiatus is heavily reliant on how existing stock performs, and whether we see an increased demand as people browse and pick up the early volumes and tell their friends about them, and then their friends go and pick them up. We’ve had some things reemerge from hiatus and perform well (Silver Diamond and Your & My Secret are good examples of this), and some things that in spite of their apparent popularity among the fans and buzz in the blogosphere, just don’t quite pick up enough steady business."

The first thing I thought was, "There's still hope for Genju no Seiza!" (A series by my favorite manga-ka Matsuri Akino, and one I've despaired of Tokyopop ever finishing. Quite frankly, at this rate it would be faster to translate it myself, since I own all or most of the tankoban.) I think it might help if they get the word out to the manga community and let fans know that their series can be saved with increased sales of back volumes. That might encourage some fans to invest in the books that they'd been holding off on buying. That, and as I said, earning back the trust they've lost with past cancellations.

In closing, I will admit that I probably took this a bit too personally and read more finger-pointing in the article than the author intended, due to the frustration I feel over so many of my favorite series not being finished. It's hard not to feel that frustration when I look at my shelves and see all the manga sitting on them, and with most of them costing about $10 each, I'm thinking that I've probably spent thousands of dollars on manga over the years. And I know that there are many entitled manga "fans" who only read scanalations and don't buy the actual manga, even the popular and readily available titles, so we've all got to do our part.