To manga, or not?
Posted by Zeb in Anime & Manga on Jun 26th, 2007 | 7 commentsI’ve been a fan of anime & manga for almost 18 years now, and have lived as a fan in England as well as New Zealand. I have seen how the fandom has matured and grown world wide.
New Zealand is definitely behind the rest by atleast 5 to 10 years as far as maturity, complexity and detail. We’re only just starting to see rabid fangirls. Only just seeing the fanboys who think they’re “all that” because they download anime online.
(I do not count the early years of fandom in NZ when downloading was hugely prevalent, simply because we didn’t have a dedicated distribution company like we do now with Madman.)
Heck as far as informed anime blogs are concerned, I know of only 2 run by New Zealanders (but I am sure there must be more.)
So I find it interesting to note one particular hang up the fandom is going through here in NZ, that is in line with the rest of the world… that of figure collecting.
Ok so figures, statues, gashapon, models & trading card figures have been around for a while… but never as detailed and well made as they are… nor as readily available.
I remember buying the Bastard!! High End figures for prices that would make even the most hardened figure collector wince, especially considering they aren’t as well made as figures today. The scary part is that the Bastard!! figures were definitely on the “high end” of quality for that time (2001ish.) But to look at what we consider “cheap” these days re: figures, makes me both smile and groan.
I see the appeal in figure collecting. I own quite a few myself. They are a 3-D representation of a favourite character, a favourite artist, or are just beautiful to look at. A constant visual reminder. The act of collecting them for the sake of “collecting” can become quite addictive (again something I know very well… having finally woken up to this trap, and pulled myself out.)
And yet I wonder what happened to the down-to-earth basis of what makes this fandom?
The manga. The anime.
The anime is there, it won’t go away.
But the manga? Declining I think.
Am I wrong? Perhaps from my point of view I see fewer people concentrating on buying manga, and more and more concentrating on the figures, the merchandise etc. And saying that you download scanlations etc. doesn’t really count.
The excuse that manga is expensive doesn’t work anymore, considering how much manga used to cost.
Yes indeed, even as little as 5 years ago you’d be looking at paying NZ$50 for a single volume of manga. Ask any old school fan, and they’ll tell you this is true. Now you can get a single volume of manga for NZ$17, cheaper sometimes than even a low quality trading card figure!
And yet… you see more and more stores stocking manga. I have a picture on one of my backup discs that shows the single shelf of manga Borders had, way back in the year 2000. Now the manga shelves are massive… and well read. The same can be said for the manga shelves in places like Heroes4Sale. But are people actually buying. I’d love to see the numbers.
More importantly, I’d love to know your point of view re: manga, and how you “ingest” it. Do you buy the manga? Borrow from libraries? Download online? Do you prefer manga or do you prefer other things in the fandom? Tell me in detail 
7 Responses to “ “To manga, or not?”
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Manga’s main attraction for me would be getting the full (or even proper) story behind a series, especially for a title like Berserk that leaves you hanging. That and you get the story waay in advance, so people don’t spoil things for you (which anyone who knows me would know that I *hate* with a vengeance).
Sadly I don’t get manga for one reason only: I don’t want to start a new collection. I hardly have enough time keeping up with existing stuff as it is. I’ve already cut down on old hobbies so starting a new one is out of the question.
It’s pretty hard, though. Every time I go to Borders it’s really tough to resist picking up just one title. I can hear the conversation in my head: “Just one title won’t hurt. Try it out. You can always quit.” Yes, well, that’s what I said about X-Men: Alpha and you’ve seen the end result of that.
I have seen the result and I bow down to the awesomness of your collection @_@
But I guess for me, manga and comics are synonymous. They go hand in hand because they are essentially the same. I love reading so it seems perfectly natural for this to roll on to manga and comics. It’s anime that suffers for me. I only tend to buy a series if it’s going cheap at Armageddon these days.
You make a very valid point too, manga is most definitely a great way to get the full picture and a better understanding of a story.
Thanks Xavier
Maybe there are many antisocial girls like me, who buy lots of manga, but don’t really operate within any sort of community?
Mostly I buy because I like to own things. But I’d probably read more if I had some way of borrowing it – the Wellington Public Library has a pretty crap selection, and I don’t know anyone in RL who reads manga – at least that I haven’t forced upon them.
I think it would be different if I were watching anime, but I’m weird in that I don’t really like watching things. I know there are people I could be watching with, it just doesn’t interest me that much.
Also I don’t collect things other than for the story, so I don’t do figurines or anything. Partly because I just don’t have the room to display anything, and I value having space on my bookshelf for books and comics rather than holding things I can only look at. I’m not really a visual person. Any merchandise I do buy is generally because I’m really into the series.. I’m quite happy to drool over art, but I have to know the story first.
…so I like manga, a lot. But any sense of fandom I have comes from the interwebs, and even there I’m not very sociable.
Hello Kitsuchi! Thankyou for commenting
Thing is, those are the sort of people I’d want to get to know more. Because not only do they appreciate manga, they’re more than likely going to also be the sort who support the industry and are mature and knowledgeable enough to be able to have conversations with that don’t revolve around the latest “DBZ/Naruto/FMA” type show.
There are quite a few people in Wellington that are heavily into the fandom, and I know some of the older fans even share their manga & anime within their group. If you were interested in getting to know more people, I’d recommend lurking on some of the forums I’ve linked to in the links section and getting to know people
I am very much like you in the sense that I prefer manga over anime, but these days it’s really difficult to find a balance. I want artbooks, I want figures, I want manga and I want anime!
Anime is easy enough, I usually wait for the Madman sales at the Armageddon convention, but the rest? Not easy XD
Oh to win the lotto!
Hey, I saw one of your posts on someone else’s blog and came to investigate because my friends went through a period of calling me “Zeb.” It’s not my real name, which is Zi, don’t ask me why they called me that.
Any case, my views on the manga issue. I personally just download the scanlations because I know I will go broke buying every single volume of FMA, Tsubasa, D.Gray Man and everything I read that comes out. I do know a lot of people I know, however, that do constantly buy volumes and volumes of manga. I suspect that it’s a personal preference sorta thing when it comes down to it.
Hello Xerox! Heh talk about strange and roundabout, but thankyou for paying a visit
Yeah the problem with some manga is that they are so long, sometimes it can get too expensive to buy them.
We’ve got a cafe here called the Graphic Novel Cafe that has hundreds upon hundreds of manga available to read (like a library.) So when I do get interested in a long series, I’ll just pay for time to read at the cafe, instead of buying them outright. Then again, there are some series I like enough, that I wouldn’t mind buying because I know I’ll probably read them again and again.
I don’t read scanlations because I would rather read the original in book form.
I like manga for the very fact that you can get away from the computer screen for a few hours so scanlations ruin my enjoyment I guess. I do like to collect the Japanese versions where possible since the paper quality is better and they are just sol lovely in general. ^_^