Mag Talk Weekly Shonen Jump [2014] - Discussion and TOC Talk

[Kaiten]

To be honest, I do not see why they are printing 4 million for OP again. The previous few volumes barely made it above 3 million even after many months (talking about the top selling volumes list of 2013). Not that 3 million is not a huge ass number in itself or anything.

Stahp. That's how it works for every book, CD, greeting card, and assault rifle manufactured around the world. Somewhere in Japan, at some point, some day there will be a bookstore that needs to restock One Piece and they are not going to want to wait for a reprint. Shueisha hopes to have those extra copies waiting in a warehouse somewhere, ready to load on a truck, to deliver as soon as the need arises. The same applies to every book they publish. They print more than they think will sell so that later they have enough if a retailer runs out. Sometimes they run out of a title and need a reprint, it can't always be helped.

Oh, I guess that means One Piece's 18 million+ copies sold in 2013 means nothing then. Thanks for clarifying.

---------- Post added at 11:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 PM ----------

My explanation was probably poor so you misunderstood but I didn't mean sales by reach, but only the people that know of the series. I was only talking about what I experienced in France (2nd paper market in manga after Japan), where Bleach is as well known as OP and Naruto for example. In Japan I assume this is basically the same, Bleach is really well known and I think it's reach is more important than HxH simply like you said because the age targeted isn't the same. I think Bleach targets like you said too early teen while HxH older teen between 14-16. Or for example Kuroko no Basuke has a really important reach towards female readers.
And while sales is a poor measure of reach and overall popularity I think it's still an indicator of the popularity of the manga.

The international market is very different than the Japanese market. In the US Bleach also has always been as well known as One Piece and Naruto. Five years ago it was better known than One Piece. The anime used to air on Adult Swim, a popular night time animation block. Bleach aired with popular non-anime like Family Guy (Adult Swim revived the series after it was originally canceled by Fox) and Futurama. Beyond sales I don't know very much about how Bleach was received in Japan. I know that the anime market was very different when Bleach was at it's peak. Everything I have seen suggests that now Bleach is a title in decline. It's decline in sales and TOC rankings suggest to me that casual Japanese fans have mostly abandoned the series. It's been left with enough fans to still sell well, even after a sizable decline. losing 200 - 300,000 copies per volume in sales could not have made Shueisha happy.

It is very hard to find demographics for individual manga. A few years ago NHK conducted a poll to see who is buying One Piece. It turns out that 88% are 19 or older. I would expect Hunter x Hunter to be about the same. Bleach I don't know. The anime was marketed at that 12 - 15 range, but that does not necessarily apply to the manga. In it's day Bleach was a lot like Kurobas or Haikyuu, very popular with women.

 

[vinceled]

The international market is very different than the Japanese market. In the US Bleach also has always been as well known as One Piece and Naruto. Five years ago it was better known than One Piece. The anime used to air on Adult Swim, a popular night time animation block. Bleach aired with popular non-anime like Family Guy (Adult Swim revived the series after it was originally canceled by Fox) and Futurama. Beyond sales I don't know very much about how Bleach was received in Japan. I know that the anime market was very different when Bleach was at it's peak. Everything I have seen suggests that now Bleach is a title in decline. It's decline in sales and TOC rankings suggest to me that casual Japanese fans have mostly abandoned the series. It's been left with enough fans to still sell well, even after a sizable decline. losing 200 - 300,000 copies per volume in sales could not have made Shueisha happy.

It is very hard to find demographics for individual manga. A few years ago NHK conducted a poll to see who is buying One Piece. It turns out that 88% are 19 or older. I would expect Hunter x Hunter to be about the same. Bleach I don't know. The anime was marketed at that 12 - 15 range, but that does not necessarily apply to the manga. In it's day Bleach was a lot like Kurobas or Haikyuu, very popular with women.

Sure, the title is in decline and well market wise with the decline in sales, anime ended it could be a good option for Shueisha to end it now. But the fact is that with Naruto ending soon, having them end Bleach next year (or 25-50 chapters) would be a bad move for them, seeing has they'd lose more than 1,5 millions sales from the two series combined that they currently have no way to recover right now so my call is that the title will most likely be pushed to the exit but will continue at least 1,5-2 years before ending the time Shueisha finds series that can the sales they're having now and have the same popularity as Bleach with an anime that targets women and men equally. Kuroko no Basuke has already had its age come, had an anime effect; Toriko will never reach the same amount of popularity and that leaves only Shokugeki no Souma and Ansatsu Kyoushitsu and I don't see for now any of them making it as big as the mentioned two series before.

 

[calimike]

Assassination Classroom OVA is out with eng subs. It was fun and funny!

 

[susanoo13]

AC still hasn't reached it's full potential, a good anime can bring it up to a point it could replace Bleach. Now in terms of sales WSJ has 5 series ongoing at the same time with above 500K sales in the first 2 weeks and such a case didn't happen since Death Note ended AFAIK.

 

[Kaizou 10]

AC still hasn't reached it's full potential, a good anime can bring it up to a point it could replace Bleach.

Didn't AC already bscially replaced Bleach's place?

 

[101nemesis]

Didn't AC already bscially replaced Bleach's place?

Yup. It has. Bleach is 5th in WSJ right now. One Piece, Naruto, Kuroko, AC are before it. HxH, we have no idea if or when it would return.

 

[Schabrak]

The international market is very different than the Japanese market. In the US Bleach also has always been as well known as One Piece and Naruto.

Meanwhile Bleach hasn't gone past book and a couple DVD releases here in europe it seems.

 

[SharkBait]

Meanwhile Bleach hasn't gone past book and a couple DVD releases here in europe it seems.

I thought Tite Kubo is in love with places in Europe, always seems like places are inviting him each year for exclusive interviews and such a large following over there. Meanwhile, I cant remember anytime he has done anything in United States.

 

[101nemesis]

Meanwhile Bleach hasn't gone past book and a couple DVD releases here in europe it seems.

He was there last year in Germany for an exclusive interview and limited edition Bleach books(I think).

I thought Tite Kubo is in love with places in Europe, always seems like places are inviting him each year for exclusive interviews and such a large following over there. Meanwhile, I cant remember anytime he has done anything in United States.

Kubo was present at San Diego Comic-Con in 2008 if I ain't mistaken.

 

[Schabrak]

He was there last year in Germany for an exclusive interview and limited edition Bleach books(I think).

I think the avaiable episodes did run on Animex, a digital channel, probably pay TV, but that's it. Lot's of tankobons though.

http://mangahelpers.com/forum/showt...nese-Mangaka?p=3474204&viewfull=1#post3474204
http://yoko-lost-in-japan.blogspot.de/2013/03/event-leipziger-buchmesse-2013.html

 

[Kaiten]

Meanwhile Bleach hasn't gone past book and a couple DVD releases here in europe it seems.

The international market can be so fragmented. What's true in one market does not always apply to others. It's easy to forget that online. Bleach in the US was almost the mirror image of One Piece. One Piece was famously stuck with that terrible 4Kids license, really hurting it's initial popularity here. Bleach had an outstanding English dub, airing on a station that knows how to break anime, is popular with college age viewers, with a line up not limited to anime. Adult Swim also broke Cowboy Bebop, Inuyasha, Fullmetal Alchemist, GiTS: SAC, and Samurai Champloo in America. Things reversed themselves in recent years, with One Piece passing Bleach, but for a long time Bleach really was second to Naruto in the States.

 

[Stark700]

As goofy as the One Piece dub was, that was one reason I liked the series. I remember I got pretty pissed when the dubs got switched on me at one point because at the beginning, it felt like the voices had no life in them. It was some time after Baroque Works with the English version of Hikari e.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5svxuS3L9_s

At that point, I quit watching the dub completely, though I liked the OP.

Yayo yaaaaaaa yoooooooooooo~ lolol.

 

[meeedoooz]

Five years ago it was better known than One Piece. The anime used to air on Adult Swim, a popular night time animation block. Bleach aired with popular non-anime like Family Guy (Adult Swim revived the series after it was originally canceled by Fox) and Futurama.

isn't Bleach still being aired on adult swim and rating more than Naruto Shippuuden and OP ?

 

[xi0]

isn't Bleach still being aired on adult swim and rating more than Naruto Shippuuden and OP ?

It still airs, but it only has a season and a half left of content, or thereabouts. I guess it'll stick around in reruns, but Shippuuden and OP are still ongoing.

 

[SharkBait]

isn't Bleach still being aired on adult swim and rating more than Naruto Shippuuden and OP ?

Typically Naruto Shippuden and Bleach have smilar ratings while One Piece is considerably less at least in the numbers they give out each week. Though perhaps One Piece just gets affected by airing later.
EX:

TOONAMI – SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014

11:30PM Space Dandy 0.9 HH, 1.211 million viewers (tvmediainsights.com)
12:00AM Bleach 0.8 HH, 1.136 million viewers
12:30AM Naruto: Shippuden 0.8 HH, 1.119 million viewers
1:00AM One Piece 0.6 HH, 791,000 viewers
1:30AM Blue Exorcist 0.6 HH, 838,000 viewers
2:00AM Soul Eater 0.6 HH, 799,000 viewers

 

[Maxy Barnard]

TOONAMI – SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014

11:30PM Space Dandy 0.9 HH, 1.211 million viewers (tvmediainsights.com)
12:00AM Bleach 0.8 HH, 1.136 million viewers
12:30AM Naruto: Shippuden 0.8 HH, 1.119 million viewers
1:00AM One Piece 0.6 HH, 791,000 viewers
1:30AM Blue Exorcist 0.6 HH, 838,000 viewers
2:00AM Soul Eater 0.6 HH, 799,000 viewers

Boy, that's a lot of shows aimed at early teens airing at stupid o'clock in the night, huh. Shame.

 

[xi0]

It's not really aimed at early teens, the audience is much older here.

 

[meeedoooz]

so i guess Bleach ( or at least it's anime ) is still going strong there though i don't know if these are good rating or what, i'm used to following ratings of my favorite tv shows but i don't know what to expect for anime series.

all i know is that OP's first episode on adult swim ( water 7 i guess ) had almost 1M

------------------------------------------

11:30PM Space Dandy 0.9 HH, 1.211 million viewers (tvmediainsights.com)
12:00AM Bleach 0.8 HH, 1.136 million viewers
12:30AM Naruto: Shippuden 0.8 HH, 1.119 million viewers
1:00AM One Piece 0.6 HH, 791,000 viewers
1:30AM Blue Exorcist 0.6 HH, 838,000 viewers
2:00AM Soul Eater 0.6 HH, 799,000 viewers
2:30AM Naruto 0.6 HH, 722,000 viewers

it's good to see both Naruto's there, though part one is airing in a terrible timeslot

 

[Maxy Barnard]

It's not really aimed at early teens, the audience is much older here.

which in itself is disconcerting. Like why is there such a disparity between some of these shows country of origin and western territories, demo-wise? You'd think with better marketing they'd have a shot at having these cartoons be less of a... insular thing, regarded as something "other" by so many people. I'm not necessarily decrying their current audiences and timeslots, but it sucks a bit that that's how it is.

 

[XwellS]

Cover Jump #15 HQ:


Maybe someone will come in handy.
p.s. sorry for english