Mag Talk Magazine Sales

[Negative Syndicate]

Monthly Shounen Magazine should be number three, behind Weekly Jump and Weekly Magazine only (unless I am missing something). Sunday is number four, Corocoro is a kids magazine, not shounen.

Monthly Shonen Magazine is third highest selling manga magazine which is kind of suprising for me because I don't recall any series from MSM that is high enough to lead the magazine (I know there are some series that regularly makes Oricon top 30, but not as high as Fair Tail or Ahiru no Sora).

---------- Post added at 06:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:42 PM ----------

I have a question, but I'm not sure whether this is right place.

Is increase of price for magazine means that the magazine is expanding its page number or a financial reason?

***

 

[Kaiten]

Monthly Shonen Magazine is third highest selling manga magazine which is kind of suprising for me because I don't recall any series from MSM that is high enough to lead the magazine (I know there are some series that regularly makes Oricon top 30, but not as high as Fair Tail or Ahiru no Sora).

Could be as simple an explanation as readers buy the magazine but don't buy the tankobon. For me it is harder to grasp the monthlies circulation due to how rare it is for any series to be scanlated or licensed. There are a few but Beck was the last one I can remember that was very well known.

I have a question, but I'm not sure whether this is right place.

Is increase of price for magazine means that the magazine is expanding its page number or a financial reason?

Could be a lot of reasons: rising costs, change of demographic, change of release schedule. It would have to be a dramatic rise in the number of pages to warrant charging more money. That does not happen very often and a rise in price, if there is one, would reflect serializing more manga rather than the paper cost, which would be a marginal expense.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

Sunday finally drops to 50s range. I think Sunday is getting danger if keeps doing this.

 

[OPN]

Sunday finally drops to 50s range. I think Sunday is getting danger if keeps doing this.

i agree but its funny how it starts going down once kekkaishi ends maybe it was a large reason for people buying it and now that its gone theres no need to buy it but its probably something else.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

i agree but its funny how it starts going down once kekkaishi ends maybe it was a large reason for people buying it and now that its gone theres no need to buy it but its probably something else.

I'm not sure. Sunday did lost Kekkaishi's fan, but the editors replaced with Arakawa's fan. I think main problem is Sunday doesn't really have high selling series than Jump and Magazine.

 

[Asarii]

Detective Conan is still running -though I'm not sure how popular it is right now- so it's not like Shonen has no more hit series. As Negative Syndicate mentioned, the drop is probably because the other two magazines have a number of popular series running- it's the difference between having one star player on your team versus a strong line-up.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

I think the only way for Sunday to survive is bring bunch of famous authors from their publisher or outside, rather than giving a chance to newbies.

 

[Kaiten]

Circulation has been steadily shrinking for fifteen years, this has nothing to do with a single title or "hits" or anything like that. With a few exceptions every magazine has seen major declines in circulation since the mid 1990's, not just Sunday. Sundays decline has been more pronounced due to the heights it has fallen from though.

Talking of hits based on tankobon sales is completely ridiculous. There is no magic number for what constitutes a hit, the only thing determining a hit is profit margins. That is the only thing publishers (or any business) look at. No one expects every series to be one of the top ten in sales, what is expected is that they recoup the money invested and earn a profit for the publisher. 99.9% of manga never even approach, don't even come close to, the type of sales held up as hits in this forum. The reason they survive is that such a hit is not necessary to make money for the publisher. To even believe that the continued existence of a magazine is dependent on finding a major hit is ridiculous and makes no business sense. Shounen Sunday is a fifty year old brand and the flagship of the second largest publisher in Japan. They are not going to discontinue because some imaginary line has been crossed. That is not how business is done, not when the name of the brand alone is valuable. Even if all they do is let it straggle on into irrelevance the home of classics like Detective Conan, Touch, and Urusei Yatsura will likely not be closed because of circulation numbers. Maybe they will try changing direction or style, maybe not, but Shounen Sunday is not Young Sunday or Monthly Young Jump, it is part of Shogakukens identity. Talk of survival or cancellation without being able to see the money makes no sense.

And Conan is a mega-hit, one of the most popular manga ever. After 17 years every volume is still among the top fifty sellers, the anime is one of the top rated on TV, it gets periodic movies, and there is a massive amount of merchandising available. Detective Conan is an iconic manga and massive media franchise, a major hit by any definition. There is more to being a hit than tankobon sales, but Conan moves a massive amount of copies anyway.

 

[perroloco]

I too think Shonen Sunday should approach more veteran mangaka like they did with FMA's mangaka.
Also more anime adaptations.
Though, its easier said than done lol

 

[ruggia]

I too think Shonen Sunday should approach more veteran mangaka like they did with FMA's mangaka.
Though, its easier said than done lol

It sort of is what they have been doing in recent years. Most of the new series from Sunday these days are come-back series of major/minor hit mangaka. It's actually harder to find a new manga from a complete newbie these days

 

[Negative Syndicate]

It sort of is what they have been doing in recent years. Most of the new series from Sunday these days are come-back series of major/minor hit mangaka. It's actually harder to find a new manga from a complete newbie these days

Not exactly: 9 out of 12 2008 series are by not well known authors, 8 out of 10 2009 series are by not well known authors, 6 out of 8 2010 series are by not well known authors, and 6 out of 10 2008 series are by not well known authors. Plus, even with those known authors, some of them are not really big power house for Sunday.

Sunday is still majorly focusing giving a chance to newbies or not well-known authors. I'm not saying this method is bad, but I think they should focus on getting famous authors for its magazine sale increase. For example, Sunday did manage to increase (just little bit) its circulation on January to March of this year; I think the increase was caused by Arakawa's joining to Sunday.

 

[perroloco]

I also think is interesting that a Pokemon manga is being run on Sunday.
Pokemon Reburst and also Pokemon had a Special Issue of sorts in the north american Shonen Jump.. Maybe it was Shogakukan way of trying new waters for their Pokemon franchise, see if it gets more readers..

 

[Negative Syndicate]

Pokemon Reburst and also Pokemon had a Special Issue of sorts in the north american Shonen Jump..

Wow, Pokemon released in north american Shonen Jump? Is that possible?

I'm saying this because Shogakukan has right to released any manga-related Pokemon media, but Shueisha doesn't have it. Thus, it is impossible for Pokemon to release in north american Shonen Jump since Shueisha don't have right to release Pokemon.

 

[perroloco]

Sorry, maybe my post was not correctly written since it might have given the impression some pokemon manga was released on the US Shonen Jump, which isn't the case.

What happens is this, Shonen Jump USA is made by Viz Media which is owned by both Shueisha and Shogakukan, now SJ USA isn't doing as hot as it used to (In fact it will end in april 2012 IIRC) so I assume that in order to gather to more audience they included LOTS of articles about Pokemon in an issue of SJ USA.

I had bought SJ USA from first issue (IIRC December 2002 or 2003?) to lik 2008 and from what I gather I hadn't seen any non-Shueisha property even on adds.. but my mind might be playing games with me.. Perhaps Inuyasha anime adds were added or something like that, but I can't remember..
Here's a vid with what it was on the issue.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

Based on video, it is not about releasing Pokemon's manga, it is about an information for Pokemon Best Wishes.

---------- Post added at 11:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 AM ----------

http://news.ameba.jp/20111116-157/

There is currently poll about most favorite weekly shonen manga magazine. The current results are:

Shonen Jump = 81.6%
Shonen Magazine = 9.5%
Shonen Sunday = 6.8%
Shonen Champion = 2.3%

 

[Asarii]

Circulation has been steadily shrinking for fifteen years, this has nothing to do with a single title or "hits" or anything like that. With a few exceptions every magazine has seen major declines in circulation since the mid 1990's, not just Sunday. Sundays decline has been more pronounced due to the heights it has fallen from though.

Can you elaborate on the bolded part? Sales in all publication has definitely been going down in recent years, but I don't understand why Sunday is doing this badly in comparison.

Regarding hit series: I can see why the heads of a magazine wouldn't care much about creating a big name for every series, but readers won't buy a magazine if nothing attracts them to it. (My definition of a hit btw is something that has a sizable fandom and is relatively known to the public; I actually wasn't thinking of sales/money at all.)

 

[Kaiten]

I forget the exact numbers but in 2007 Sunday's circulation was close to a million copies a week. Sunday had already fallen out of the top five at that point, now it has fallen out of the top ten in circulation.

 

[Estranho]

Does anyone knows the circulation of Shonen Champion? I'm curious about it.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

Magazine Circulation from October to December on 2011:

Kodansha:
Monthly Shonen Magazine = 755,000
Weekly Shonen Magazine = 1,472,084
Magazine Special = 64,000
Monthly Shonen Sirius = 12,000
Monthly Shonen Rival = 52,000
Afternoon = 91,667
Evening = 133,667
Morning = 311,000
Morning 2 = 26,000
Young Magazine = 686,667
Nakayoshi = 175,000
Bessatsu Friend = 77,967
Kiss = 95,400
The Dessert = 82,500
Dessert = 65,334
Be Love = 128,129
Aria = 12,000

Shueisha:
Ultra Jump = 63,000
Weekly Shonen Jump = 2,845,000
Jump Square = 350,000
Saikyo Jump = 300,000
Weekly Young Jump = 675,834
Grand Jump = 280,000
Super Dash & Go! = 45,000
The Margaret = 108,000
Bessatsu Margaret = 225,000
Margaret = 75,000
Ribon = 210,000
Office You = 86,400
Cookie = 80,667
You = 138,900
Cocohana = 130,000

Shogakukan:
Corocoro Comic = 733,334
Sunday GX = 20,667
Weekly Shonen Sunday = 565,584
Shonen Sunday Super = 13,667
Bessatsu Corocoro Comics Special = 145,000
Gessan = 43,667
Ikki = 11,000
Big Comic = 426,334
Big Comic Original = 672,834
Big Comic Spirits = 241,417
Big Comic Superior = 169,834
Shojo Comic = 165,000
Cheese! = 86,000
Ciao = 637,500
Betsucomi = 80,000
Puchi Comic = 102,334
Flowers = 33,000

Shodensha:
Feel Young = 31,434

Hakuensha:
Young Animal = 158,334
Young Animal Arashi = 134,000
Hana to Yume = 179,000
Bessatsu Hana to Yume = 61,167
Lala = 157,667
Lala DX = 69,250
Silky = 49,500
Melody = 49,450

Kadokawa Group Publishing:
Shonen Ace = 67,667
Dragon Age = 29,334
Gundam Ace = 118,000
Asuka = 28,334
Ciel = 38,000

Leed-sha:
Comic Ran = 208,967
Comic Ran Twins = 134,367
Comic Ran Twins Sengoku Bushou Retsuden = 85,950

 

[Kaiten]

Can someone please explain the difference between Margaret and the Margaret. I keep seeing The Margaret on these circulation listings, it always has a higher circulation than Margaret but as far as I know The Margaret does not exist, it and Margaret (a very old, venerable Shoujo magazine) are one and the same. Shueisha Media Guide only lists one Margaret, along with it's monthly sister magazine: Betsuma (Bessatsu Margaret) and bi-monthly Deluxe Betsuma. All of Shueisha's shoujo/josei magazines should be listed here: http://adnavi.shueisha.co.jp/mediaguide/2011/w_comic/index.html It should be:

Ribon/Mascot Comics:

• Ribon - Young teen, competitor of Ciao and Nakayoshi.
• Cookie - Older Teen, competitor of Cheese and Dessert.

Margaret Comics (Flagship Line)

• Margaret - Aimed at middle school age readers. Bi-weekly competitor of Shojo Comic and Hana to Yume.
• Betsuma - Aimed at high school age readers. Monthly competitor of LaLa, BetsuComi, and Betsufure.
• Deluxe Betsuma - Bi-monthly companion of Betsuma.

Josei Magazines:

• You - bi-weekly
• Cocohana - monthly, formerly titled "Chorus"
• Office You - OL magazine

• Cobalt - Light Novel anthology, marketed to teenage girls.