Hangout MH Seinen Hangout

[Kaiten]

Part of the problem is business, rather than content. Until VIZ revamped there signature line in 2008 very little seinen was licensed, at least in the states. There were a handful of titles, Berserk and Monster for example, but few were very popular. Aside from Berserk I don't think many were promoted very well. This was partly because the major publishers wanted to push series that are easy for Americans to connect with; ultimately the big 3 are not so different from Marvel comics, super powers as a metaphor for puberty. Part was content rules, VIZ didn't license manga with adult content. They passed on the license to Gantz for those reasons. That has changed, VIZ has been aggressively licensing and marketing seinen titles while a number of smaller publishers are doing very well licensing classics and arty, obscure series. The long term effect was that the books weren't in the stores, fans didn't know about the series, so there was no demand for the chapters that weren't licensed. Seinen fell to HQ groups and older Manga Editors who released by the volume, rather than the latest chapter.

MH actually has a head start over some other forums. Years ago Zindryr, translator for Strays was an admin. Siedhr, the founder of Strays was a moderator. The look has changed considerably but they built the original seinen board and sub-forums. Most of the original sub-forums were Strays projects like Vagabond and Oretama, if any one was wondering.

Another issue is how much harder it is to get people to discuss completed series and series that aren't caught up with Japanese release. Since most seinen groups release by the volume or one to two chapters a month, most seinen have to be discussed in a way that is alien to those who are used to discussing a series whenever the next chapter is out. Baboysai came up with the idea for the discussion threads to help get fans used to having deeper discussion, discussions like this one. Maybe if convo's like this are applied to individual series (completed or ongoing), discussion could rise on the main board.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Part of the problem is business, rather than content. Until VIZ revamped there signature line in 2008 very little seinen was licensed, at least in the states. There were a handful of titles, Berserk and Monster for example, but few were very popular. Aside from Berserk I don't think many were promoted very well. This was partly because the major publishers wanted to push series that are easy for Americans to connect with; ultimately the big 3 are not so different from Marvel comics, super powers as a metaphor for puberty. Part was content rules, VIZ didn't license manga with adult content. They passed on the license to Gantz for those reasons. That has changed, VIZ has been aggressively licensing and marketing seinen titles while a number of smaller publishers are doing very well licensing classics and arty, obscure series. The long term effect was that the books weren't in the stores, fans didn't know about the series, so there was no demand for the chapters that weren't licensed. Seinen fell to HQ groups and older Manga Editors who released by the volume, rather than the latest chapter.

Now, these days it's certainly a question how the "manga on internet <-> manga in book stores" relation looks like.
Do people buy manga in book stores and then go to the internet and discuss it, and perhaps discover Edited Mangas that way so they can read unpublished series?
Or is it rather that people discover manga on the internet in form of Edited Mangas (perhaps over the detour of anime on youtube or somewhere else), and then perhaps buy some manga in stores?

Latter case -discovering it right on the internet- would mean, that the licensing etc. numbers of companies in other countries wouldn't even mean much anymore for what's popular and what's not. And I guess the percentage of this kind of readers is rather growing.

I'm quite sure that a large percentage of internet manga communities is mostly idependend from having manga available in shops nearby and in their language. If something's not officially translated, they just look at the internet (even those with a conscience towards the mangaka; after all it's easy to say "Hey I cannot read japanese and when it's only available like that legally, I'll get it on other ways - I simply can't buy a version so I have no other choice")

That's why I think that the publishers don't play that much of a role anymore about what's topic of discussion on internet boards.
However, perhaps it's just that manga indeed still mainly attracts children - who will mainly read Shonen -, these manga then become popular and thus are made an Anime, and this anime then gets spread around the world (TV channels are constantly looking for stuff to fill time with after all) and internet. And so it's rather the anime which become important to foreigners, and from there leading to the according manga - which then are Shonen again.

 

[Kaiten]

Since manga became popular internationally fan demand has played a big role in what was scanlated. Until relatively recently most fans wanted Edited Mangas of popular series like Naruto, OP, Inuyasha, and FMA to fill the gap left by slow rate of official release. Until 2008 Naruto was over 20 volumes behind in the states while OP was almost 40 volumes behind until 2010. When I joined MH it was not uncommon to see 7 different Edited Mangas of the same Naruto chapter every week while Bleach and OP would get four or five each. At the time it was rare to see any translated seinen, except for Gantz and Berserk. All of the other series popular back then were also well known shonen series, most licensed. D. Gray Man, Reborn, Fairy Tail, Prince of Tennis, and Eyeshield 21 come to mind. Before Naruto became such a huge hit a lot more seinen was being scanlated. The earliest manga groups (Manga Project, Hawks, Omanga, Mangascreener, etc.) had largely abandoned Editing shonen in favor of some very obscure seinen titles. When the speed scan era started, roughly late 2006 - early 2007, these groups largely disbanded or fell into inactivity. As publishers have developed a more diverse roster there has been a rise in the number of groups specializing in seinen again.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

I just looked through the Wikipedia article of Japan Media Arts Festival:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Media_Arts_Festival#Manga_awards

Most people will notice: It's almost(?) exclusively Seinen. There are many names amongs them which I don't know, but all I recognized myself were Seinen, and all I looked up were Seinen, too exept for a few Josei. I haven't found a single Shounen/Shoujo amongst those.

It's not like that would be unexpected. After all Seinen (and Josei) are made for a mature audience, and it's to be expected that an Arts Festival would rate accordingly, after all Seinen can be so much deeper. Yet this is so drastically opposite to the numbers of readers and sales lists - not only amongst the young readers, but also on pretty much every forum regardless of age.

Personally I'll take that list as a recommendation list for now. I loved all the manga and mangaka amongst those I already knew of that list, and it doesn't only contain well known names (Pluto, RED, Real, Historie, 20th Century Boys, Blade of the Immortal, Vagabond, Kokou no Hito, Monster etc.) but even way more I did not know yet (although it's probably hard to find Edited Mangas or even official translations for those )

 

[MattC302]

I just looked through the Wikipedia article of Japan Media Arts Festival:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Media_Arts_Festival#Manga_awards

Most people will notice: It's almost(?) exclusively Seinen. There are many names amongs them which I don't know, but all I recognized myself were Seinen, and all I looked up were Seinen, too exept for a few Josei. I haven't found a single Shounen/Shoujo amongst those.

You overlooked Yotsuba&!. That is the only shonen I see though. It got an excellence prize. It is very deserving because Yotsuba&! is most excellent.

That is a very respectable list of manga. Many of them are already on my reading list. Those that are not, I might have to check out. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Kaiten]

That is a damn good list, you could do a lot worse. It's not all seinen (mostly, not all) but the Manga Taisho Awards are always good too. Whatever genre or demographic they always select great series. Not just the winners but all the nominees.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

That is a damn good list, you could do a lot worse. It's not all seinen (mostly, not all) but the Manga Taisho Awards are always good too. Whatever genre or demographic they always select great series. Not just the winners but all the nominees.

Aye, not bad either. Still so far I think I preferr the media arts festival awards.

Historie is a very enjoyable read, but I don't see how it won against Kokou no Hito. Perhaps it's just the scenario beeing a little more interesting for Japanese readers? After all I guess that I'm much more familiar with greek/macedonian/persian ancient history, personalities and sagas than most Japanese students are, simply because of the geographics and culture of Europe.

 

[Josef]

That is a damn good list, you could do a lot worse. It's not all seinen (mostly, not all) but the Manga Taisho Awards are always good too. Whatever genre or demographic they always select great series. Not just the winners but all the nominees.

Um, th winner 2010 caught my attention a long time ago, but I just could not find that manga scanned, I knew it was a good manga since it even won this award, but I'd better ask my fellow seinen fans if there is a group that is scanning Thermae Romae, I just love historic series?

Also glad Historie also won an award, it is connected with the history of my country after all.

 

[baboysai]

yeah I'd also been interested in Thermae Romae for a long time and couldn't find anything.

 

[Josef]

yeah I'd also been interested in Thermae Romae for a long time and couldn't find anything.

Yeah the best I can find of it was two volumes to download raw in think but no trans or scan, sad really and it is an award winning series, I suppose many online readers did not show interest.

 

[Kaiten]

Hopefully someone develops an interest in Thermae Romae, the raws look awesome. And it's from Comic Beam, a sure sign of quality as far as I am concerned. There are some interesting looking series nominated this year too: Omo ni Naitemasu is by the mangaka of Kuragehime, a series I really enjoy. Daisuke Igarashi's new series is nominated. Brides Story, by the mangaka of Emma, is nominated. Great series and fully tranlsated. I hope I am a Hero wins this year. Great manga, great main character.

 

[Josef]

Does the magna Saint Young Men have a thread? I searched the forums but I could not get clear results?

 

[Roflkopt3r]

No clear results usually means no. Feel free to open threads for such series if you aren't sure after using the search function
And if the thread looks nice I'll probably go ahead and start reading it soon, too

 

[Josef]

No clear results usually means no. Feel free to open threads for such series if you aren't sure after using the search function
And if the thread looks nice I'll probably go ahead and start reading it soon, too

Thanks I felt like the series needed a thread and attention, I would also try to recommend it in the featured series thread. It is a comedy seinen.

 

[baboysai]

Hmm.. I think it does have a thread, Benjamin. Iirc, it was stickied a long time ago, back when Agrias was a seinen mod...

---

and here you have it: http://mangahelpers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57186

 

[Kaiten]

Is it wrong that I actually like Arakawa more than St. Young Men. I love both but Arakawa appeals to my sense of humor. And Hoshi is epic

 

[baboysai]

I like both equally. But for different reasons. I like Arakawa for Nino (obviously- avatar?) and Ric. I like St. Young Men for the whole idea itself. But the humor of both appeal to me.

 

[Josef]

I always felt them to be similar, I would put Yotsubato! with those two manga as well, I mean sure it is not from the same author, but Arakawa Under the bridge, Saint Young Men and Yotsubato! pretty much belong to the same genre of seinen comedy.

Any similar manga to them?

 

[Kaiten]

I like both equally. But for different reasons. I like Arakawa for Nino (obviously- avatar?) and Ric. I like St. Young Men for the whole idea itself. But the humor of both appeal to me.

I love both but I love how silly and warm Arakawa is. The humor is similar in both but something about Arakawa is so human.

I always felt them to be similar, I would put Yotsubato! with those two manga as well, I mean sure it is not from the same author, but Arakawa Under the bridge, Saint Young Men and Yotsubato! pretty much belong to the same genre of seinen comedy.

Any similar manga to them?

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. It's shonen but it may be the most cynical manga ever. The anime is even better than the manga. Pyu to Fuku Jaguar is similar but it's also shonen

How could I forget! Super Cruel and Terrible Tales of Mangaka. If there is a just and loving god someone will translated Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, if they can somehow find raws. It's out of print now but I've read the first volume of the old VIZ version of volume 1.

 

[baboysai]

I agree with Zetsubou, Kait. And it never crossed my mind that it was actually shounen.

Yeah I've seen scans of that VIZ version of "Even a Monkey can draw manga" coz I think you mentioned it at some point, Kait. It's a surprise that VIZ even decided to do it. Dark Horse was probably more up to it.