Is it better elsewhere in the world? Here, they're like almost double the original price. How can they ask us to pay $10 for something that's 530円 back in happy-land? sheesh...
Because more people buy manga over there. Bigger market blah blah blah.
Still, it'd be nice if manga was 390円-530円/volume here.
I'd make a lot more impulse buys and won't shy away from longer series.
Isn't manga dirt cheap in France and Italy as well?
It's still better than the $20-40 a volume we were paying before the $10 pricepoint caught on. I don't think we'll ever see it as cheap as in Japan, because the translation and editing always adds some cost. Still, it's not something that should anywhere near make the price double. I wouldn't expect another significant price drop until there's more sales volume. After the glut of new manga a year or two ago, it's become harder to make money on titles that aren't already big names, according to the iterviews I've read.
I believe it is possible to get it to the same price point as Japan, because the time taken to translate should be comparable to the time taken to write the original scenario. The problem right now is a problem of circulation. Until the same number of volumes are sold in the US, the economies of scale won't allow manga to drop to the same price.
Anyway I don't know what you're complaining about. In Australia we pay 16 AUD (13.50 USD at the time of writing this) normally and occasionally 20 AUD for no particular reason -- e.g. for Hellsing. That's just ridiculous, at over three times the original Japanese price (right now 1 AUD = 100 JPY almost exactly.)
There's also pricing disparities over here. Most of the major publishers still leave color pages as greyscale, use ok but not great paper, and have simple paperback covers. Then you have some like Shinobuden offered at the same $10 price with higher quality paper, color pages in color, and even a dustjacket like they have on japanese tankobons. Although it's anyone's guess how well that's working out for the publisher, economically.
My local Japanese bookstore sells manga in Japanese at very near local prices -- generally around U.S. $5.99. So just learn moon language and save yourself some cash that way.
>>6
That's not local prices. Come back when you can get them for $3.50.
>>5
That's one thing that really annoys me, when you have a bunch of colour pages and they get printed in greyscale. For ages I was wondering, why go to the effort of shading these pages when they look better in sharp black and white. Then I saw a Japanese issue of the same GN and it clicked.
Let's see....
Starting Price: $3.50
Company that helps spread the word of Japanese comics: + $2.00
Need to pay the translators: + $3.50
Lack of funds due to no popularity: + $1.00
= Ten. I blame materialists and fuckhead teens.
>>9 is a disgruntled employee of the US manga industry.
>>10 is a /b/astard. GET HIM.
By the way, you blame materialists that binge alcohol and say that getting high brings upon your imagination while killing your brain cells.
>>2
Yes here in Italy they're dirty cheap as well
It's better then it used to be.
Anyone remember when manga cost $15-20 a volume and was printed so poorly the books fell apart after being read five or ten times?
>>14
It's better now, but it can still be a whole lot better!
In Japan they have many second hand book shops like Book Off. Sell manga in near new condition for about $1 each. Japanese language of course but fun reason to keep learning.
actually, good mangas aren't dirt cheap, but shitty overrated shonens like bleach or Naruto runs for something like 5-6 €, whereas quality managas cost around 6-8 €, sometimes more for collector editions (for example, I bought a GITS 1.5 with the Bonus Dvd for 15 €, and the enhanced edition of I's cost something like 12€).
Oh, Im' french BTW
>>17
Well then I guess the Franks don't have it any better than we do.
How much is it for each volume in happy land? each issue (magazines)..?
I'm fairly sure it comes from the costs of US Comic Trade paperbacks (several chapters of printed comics bound into one book), which are usually in the $10+ range, especially for nicer ones. (The Sin City trade paperbacks are all ~$17 from Dark Horse, fairly nice paper and printing. Of course, there are also the Marvel Trade Paperbacks, which have very nice paper (glossy & in color) and printing (though less nice bindings), and cost around $8). Most of the manga translation and distribution is done by these same comic publishers, so they expect to see the same kind of returns. Since they're distributing less volume than the Japanese publishers, to cover the costs of transportation and printing, they charge more.
>>20
Yes, but still. I want cheaper mango, dammit.
What really suprises me is how when they're hard cover over here(not sure if this happens in japan), they'e a lot cheaper. I saw Akira volume 1 in hardcover for like 15 bucks in Barnes & Nobles, while the original sells for 25. Trigun is also cheaper by a couple of dollars. This confuses me to no end. As to everything else, the logical sense would be the translators, but I think the companies also have something to do with it. Viz sells for 7.95, Tokyopop for 9.99, and Del Rey for 10.95 (Drak Horse is usually 12.95 and up). These are all estimations are some are cheaper or more expensive, but generally it's this price. Does anyone else notice this and have any ideas as to why the differences in prices?
>>22
Actually, I've seen Viz generally sell manga at $9.95. It's their Shonen Jump mangas that are $7.95, and I'm not sure about Shojo Beat but I think it may be the same.
I've never seen any hardcover mangas in my local bookstore - heck, I didn't even know they did such a thing - so I wouldn't know, but one would think that hardcovers would be a lot more than regular paperback mangas because they're much more expensive to make... eh, it just doesn't make any sense. O__o
I'm not sure about Dark Horse since I've never read DH mangas, but I've noticed that Del Rey mangas are generally of better quality than the Viz mangas. Del Rey usually prints on nicer paper and has really good translation notes and a lot of author notes and extras. I don't think Viz even does translation notes or a whole lot of the extras you find in Del Rey and Tokyopop manga, so not as much to translate = lower cost for translation = lower price on the manga. I dunno... that's just my thought on it all.
>>22
You could chalk it up partly to economies of scale. The cheapest books are the Narutos and DBZs that sell enough to get into top100 lists of regular books. Tokyopop pretty much set the $10 unflipped standard everyone else followed, and carved out most of the shojo market for themselves. Dark Horse is focused mainly on mature seinen manga, so naturally their audience is smaller. However they also have cheaper stuff like the Oh My Goddess revised editions at $10.95.
>>23
I love Del Rey's translation notes but in terms of material quality some of the smaller houses like DrMaster and Infinity Studios are outpacing all of the major players, and at the same $10 price too.
Not on topic, but thanks to >>24 for clearing up something I was wondering about AMG. The comic stores already seemed to have volumes 1-N and then a tiny number of later ones and I wondered why there was such a big hole. I gathered these new 1-N were second editions but I couldn't find any information confirming this on Amazon or elsewhere.
Australians pay around $12-$16 per volume. Very rarely will it be cheaper. But I have a member card which gets me a 10% discount at Kinokuniya Sydney so it saves me a few dollars.
Don't forget Hellsing which is like $20 per volume.
I have a Kino member card too. We should start a member card club.
I hope you're not one of those fags who just sits there reading shit for free and blocking the way of people who are searching for the next item in their collection. If I had a little less restraint some of those guys would eat book every time I go there.
>>24
Wait, doesn't DrMaster publish Tsukihime? Those books are printed on toilet paper. Or did you mean something else by "material quality"?
>>29
I meant mainly Infinity Studios thanks to their gorgeous editions of Shinobuden and Blood Alone. I haven't read Tsukihime, but DrMaster have some nice color pages in High School Girls Vols 7+(after they took over from Comics One).
#27 Here.
You forgot to mention how they ruin the fresh new copies for people who actually buy them. Although I could just reach and go for the ones at the back of the shelf, I'd prefer if they didn't ruin them anyways.
yeah, that's true. I'm finnish, but I do buy english mangas too. Finnish translated mangas are all priced from 5 euros to 6.70, so I really prefer to buy them translated, even if many people say they become an teen's mass-phenomenon that way. Hey, many people have meet manga that way. 15 euros for yaoi is really too much, because they really aren't so expensive in japan.
The 11th volume of Monster was only $13 before my discount, and I was like "lol wut?" because I thought I had already given them the discount card, but I hadn't, so it ended up even cheaper than that.
(and meanwhile it's still 2 times the price I really wish we had to pay.)
wow i normally get mine from the bookstore or even online and sometimes, online its alittle cheaper..
Online is a lot cheaper before postage, but the postage rapes you, especially if you're outside the US.
The problem I've had with Amazon is books come dog-eared, ripped, scratched... in all cases they have done replacements, but I don't see why it happens so often.
Remember that Japanese manga volumes are published in a smaller format. Still, I'd rather have that format, especially if it lowered prices.
The cost of books isn't the paper anyway.
i buy online. much cheaper, but i live outside US so its a drag
The solution to high shipping costs for stoof you purchase online is to [b]buy in bulk[/b].
Pretty much all the major online shopping sites, including Amazon, will ship small enough merchandise together in one box for you, so you only have to pay shipping once as opposed to five times.
I generally find pricing of Japanese goods to be moderately acceptable. They are also of a high quality, but unfortunately are often assembled rapidly.
OH SNAP ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!
>>41
If you buy $25 or more you can get free, but slower, shipping on amazon.com (Super Saver Shipping)
It doesn't apply for most items besides books, DVD's, and CD's though.
>>41
But Amazon have an "additional shipping cost per book" which really rapes you when all the books are small.
Why don't you just find scans?
Weeaboos.
random
ikkitousen or battle vixens as its called in USA
is it just me or is it hard to read?
did snoop dogg[y dogg] translate it?
What's really annoying is that the stuff clogging the bargain bins usually isn't manga, but Korean manhwa. Why do they license so much of that stuff if it isn't selling?
>>49
I like some manhwa...Dokebi Bride especially, it's sort of like a bizarro, dark version of Kamichu.
Just buy on the last day of conventions, on online sales, and from sites like buy.com with google checkout (oder $25 worth, free shipping, -10 from GCO = $15).
Other than for the newest boogipop, I haven't paid more than $5 for a manga volume in years, with sometimes only paying $1 or $2.
>Isn't manga dirt cheap in France and Italy as well?
Not really, prices in France are 6.60eur to 8eur per volume, in USD that's $10.30 ~ $12.50.
And here we got a strict law on book prices, wherever you buy them, nationwide, the price will remains the same. Maximum allowed rebate is 5 percent on the MSRP, no more.
Only way to get our mangas cheaper is either to import from the US, either to buy used ones.
Light Yagami(even though this does happen)
as an aside, music, dvds, and especially anime are RIDICULOUSLY over-priced in Japan. I know it seems impossible, but it's true. this occurs (i assume) because there are so many fanboys who will buy things no matter what that they can charge silly prices like that. I'm talkin' like 30 bucks for a regular CD, or like 100 or more bucks for like 1 season of a show.
VIZ and Tokyopop are starting to lower prices on more mainstream titles.
Like 7 or 8 dollars for stuff like Naruto, Death Note, what have you. I guess that vindicates the "economy of scale" argument.
In waterstones, manga costs either £5.99 or £6.99
Generally, Naruto and Bleach cost the former, and most of the other manga cost the latter.
Still, in my store, they have a three for two on all manga at the moment, so I can buy 6 volumes and end up with 9 overall!! Not that I normally have enough money to do that... Still, buying 3 volumes and getting a 4th is pretty good going.
meh, until the industry can compete with the fan community, I see no reason to be supporting them.
>>59
Let's see how well the fan community would do without the industry at all.
And don't say "the R1 and R2 manga industries aren't related at all." There are even companies that publish for both markets, ie, Broccoli, NetComics, VIZ (owned by Shogakukan and Shueisha).
Depends what you mean by industry. If you mean the guys actually drawing the anime, then sure, it would mean there would be no anime. If you mean the guys spinning off the DVDs, then it wouldn't make much of a difference if they vanished.
As a side-note, using R1 and R2 to distinguish language markets is silly. Both the UK and Japan are in R2. But 90% of US citizens are unaware that there are any countries other than them who speak English, so I suppose you're forgiven.
I'd love to live in the US, you huys got some damn cheap manga! Back here in Sweden we pay about 110 SEK ($18.5) for one english translated volume in our local manga bookstore.
One funny thing is that it's the english translated manga sells better than the swedish translated, even tough the swedish ones are usually pretty cheap ('bout $9).
Anyhow, most of us pays 18 bucks to get one volume, and that's expensive!
It used to be around $15 for manga in Canada but they charge the US price now, which is alright for me. I only buy a couple vols a year anyhow.
I bought the whole of Welcome to the NHK recently because I felt like reading it again, it was absolutely awful quality. Turns out I prefer reading manga on a monitor anyways, so I only buy stuff that I really like now and want to own a physical copy of.
That's not a load of series. Why not just pirate manga, or get fan translations? For whatever reason, I really like the book form better, but I don't have much money these days so I go for getting them online.
My policy nowadays is to read online, then buy if I feel like ACTUALLY supporting good artists.
Sadly, they keep delaying my fave publication, Yotsuba!&... goddamn.
Same here, except sometimes there comes across a series that you just have to buy because it's that awesome.
You know what I mean?
wat. It used to be $16 for most series in America, about ten years ago. I remember even paying $23 for a book once. And you kids think $10 is a big deal. Sheesh. There are some books that are sold for $8 now.
Just go online/irl and buy used, or find a good friend with whom to swap every so often!
have u ever thought of why are they so much? and during christmas sells after it and black friday u know those manga's and all slecations are about $2 to 25 cents!!! lol me out!!! XD
I buy manga on the last day of a convention. Most of the booths don't want to carry all the books back to their car so they cut the prices. Unless the booth is run by Barnes and Noble, or Borders, they're fucking lame. But the privately run booths the manga is drastically reduced. Like 3-4 dollars per volume. And sometimes they'll even do buy two get one free.
The Barnes and Noble booths don't do any discounts on the last day, and they even charge tax. Which is bullshit when you can walk two booths down and buy the same manga for significantly less and no tax.
When purchasing manga (and pretty much everything else imported) you have to consider that you are paying two contributors instead of one. If you go to Japan and buy manga you are paying all the people in Japan who created and produced it but if you buy a licensed import somewhere else you are paying the people in Japan while ALSO paying the people in your native country who worked on translating and producing it.
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