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.