Manga Publishers demand more UK shelfspace

An interesting story in The Bookseller by Caroline Horn. (Via GalleyCat and Ariel)

Apparently, UK sales of Manga are growing at a remarkable rate but the major retailers are adopting a wait and see policy.  Well... I say "major retailers" but I mean Waterstones and Borders as that's pretty much all we have left ever since the competition commission incomprehensibly allowed Waterstones to buy up both Dillons and Ottakars.

So why is this news?

On a cynical level, Orbit books have recently signed a distribution deal with Yen Press and I get the impression that they're going to make a big push to get manga out of the Japanimation ghetto and into the slightly more roomy ghetto of the SFF scene.  So chances are that there'll be a lot more SF sites getting free manga ARCs.  This means that you'll most likely see a lot more SF sites actually covering manga (especially as mangas take a lot less time to read and therefore allow us lazy scumbag bloggers to produce more content). 

On a more interesting level, I think that the big distributors are absolutely right to wait and see if manga is ready to go mainstream in the UK.  I think they're right to wait and see because I don't think that manga is ready to go mainstream yet.  Admittedly, the situation is a lot better than it was fifteen years ago.  When Akira got a release in the UK it was shown in arthouse cinemas and was generally of interest only to geeks and film nerds.  Nowadays though, pretty much everything Ghbli put out appears at your local multiplex.  As with Wu Xia and Japanese/Korean horror, cinema audiences are now familiar with the art forms and are happy to partake of them.  However, it's one thing to go to the cinema and quite another to actually buy a manga.

Graphic novels, for example, have never quite found their niche in British bookstores.  Oversized for your typical bookshelf, they require either special standing displays or special sets of shelves.  Understandably, this means that once you have graphic novels in your shop, you're unlikely to be able to use that shelfspace for anything else, so most big bookshops are content with a small standing display or maybe a top shelf containing some Batman and some Spiderman and a few copy of Watchmen or Maus.  Manga, does not have this problem.  Instead of being published in phonebooks as they do in Japan or as hardback graphic novels as they do in La Francophonie, British manga is punlished in small books roughly the size of a child's paperback.  This means that, unlike graphic novels, manga does not require special shelving and you can fit more books into less shelfspace.

However, there's one thing stopping manga from ever reaching mainstream acceptability in the UK and that is the cover designs.  Consider, for a moment, the page announcing the formation of Yen Press. Or indeed, the Yen Press page itself.

Now... can you imagine yourself sitting on the tube reading a book with something like this on the cover...

Now, I'm no prude but all three of them have pictures of sexily attired underaged-looking girls.  These covers are clearly designed to draw in manga fans who have made their peace with the Japanese tendency to... well... drool at Lolitas (and that's not an exaggeration either.  A friend of mine went to a videogame convention in Japan and the place was packed with sweaty guys taking pictures of young-looking girls).  Yes, I realise that this is partly a slander and due to the fact that actually, Japanese girls wear school uniforms up until they leave school so whereas in the UK school uniform means under 16, there is no such association in Japan.  But therein lies the problem.

Both Harry Potter and Discworld have seen their volumes re-released with adult covers.  Masking the shame of the casual fantasy reader and generally making fantasy seem a lot more grown up than would books with artwork aimed at kids and existing fans.  With this in mind and the huge barrier to mainstream acceptability that is buying books with pictures of very young girls on the front, I think the big retailers are right to wait and see whether manga is anything more than a slightly expanding niche market.

Comments

[Patrick H]

You don't mention it, but I assume you know that Gollanzc launched a manga imprint last year?

Your point about covers is well made, but a tricky one. Go too far, and your natural audience won't be able to find your books on the shelves.

For myself, I am just a dinosaur that finds the whole thing impenetrable.

P

[Jonathan McCalmont]

You are indeed right. Gollancz puts out Dragonball among others.

I agree about the need for balance but, if you look at places like Forbidden Planet and Blackwells, you'll see that both have little manga sections that are distinct from the SFF section. So if that becomes standard policy (which would be odd seeing as graphic novels never got their own section really) then you could have non-paedo-friendly covers that would be easy to find by virtue of where they are in the shop.

I also agree with you about Manga and Anime frequently being impenetrable. The problem is the tendency towards LOOOOONG series. The Japanese are so good at bloat that it puts modern fantasy writers to shame.

I think this is why something like Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex works well. It comes in series. Most Anime come in 25 volumes of 3 episodes. Much less easy to digest.