Manga Cross is Akita Shoten's new platform and I wanted to talk to it in more detail in its own separate post after the last post. I also want to explore other more successful digital platforms by bigger publishers to expand this post into a wider exploration of the rise of manga published in digital platforms.
The rise of digital platforms started relatively recently with Jump +, Magazine Pocket and publishers have put more effort into pushing them by publishing more and more series but also creating a great platform for reading in mobile and other platforms.
Manga Cross is obviously a lot newer, it's only now nearing its second anniversary and I do think it has found a great amount of success for the fact its from a smaller publisher. In addition, digital platforms do not seem to be as attractive to the big authors and new authors as being published in magazines possibly because of pay? I imagine digital offers a lower base pay rate and so it relies more on physical tankoubon sales for money. And of course being serialised usually means you will get a certain level of visibility targeted towards a certain demographic already whilst in digital a good series might be lost in the midst of other series. However, digital gives a more flexible schedule for release and debatably more creative freedom.
What I seek to lead this to was the fact that Manga Cross and these platforms usually tend to be filled with newbies or veteran authors that want a more flexible schedule. In Manga Cross's case, it has a couple of veteran but also newbies alongside authors that first started off publishing their works on social media and the likes.
The Dangers in My Heart
 |
| The Dangers in My Heart Cover 3 - Akita Shoten, Sakurai Norio. |
One of the few series in Manga Cross by a notable author and one that has had a past struggle with health issues during Mitsudomoe serialisation. Boku Yaba did start in WSC and was planned to moved to Manga Cross after its first five chapters whilst Rororro! continued there, Boku Yaba would be a monthly series with around eight to 10 pages. This allowed her to write this series alongside Rororro! and eventually when Rororro! it ended it became a biweekly series.
Boku Yaba is definitely the pillar of Manga Cross, it has been the most accessed series for the last few months and I believe its success shows a great deal of how digital platforms are more accessible because of the lack of a paywall to read. In addition, the lack of cost means it's usually more accessible for mobile users to just drop in to read a chapter or two. In addition these platforms can have significantly more series than a normal magazine as well as a bigger variation in genre, demographic and the likes. So digital platforms not only link naturally to social media and new forms of reading manga on mobiles and the likes and I believe these platforms will only expand more in the future and will become more attractive for new authors and veterans.
 |
| Volume 3 Cover (Published by Seven Seas) |
Part of this attraction will be because of how they will no doubt provide more chances for authors to write many different series. I touched this before when I talked about variety but here I seek to highlight and showcase this.
Monster Diary is an adult series with sex scenes between the main character and different monster girls. In addition, it also features blood and gore content. In short its the complete opposite to the sort of series Boku Yaba, a cute romcom between two innocent middle schoolers. In clear demographic terms Monster Girl would be in a seinen but one that would feature most likely in more ero leaning magazines like Young Champion and Young Magazine for example. In contrast Boku Yaba would feature in a shonen or possibly a seinen magazine with an older audience but one that favours more fluff series like Comic Alive and so on. However, digital platforms allow these vastly different series to be serialised in the same place and appeal to audiences with vastly different tastes.
This is something magazines can simply not replicate, and to highlight that even more i want to showcase a different series.
My New Boss is Goofy
| Volume 2 Cover |
My Boss is weird is a very popular series that was serialised on Manga Cross after seeing success on twitter. Its sales are close to Boku Yaba and it matches as one of the most successful series on the platform. However, in contrast to them it is a series for a female audience. In fact, Manga Cross categorises series for Otona (adult), shoujo and shounen so these platforms can catch more audiences then any single magazine could ever do as they can appeal to various different tastes. It can have any genre and even appeal to a niche.
This is where I want to compare it to Webtoon, the Korean platform and ACQQ, U17 and other Chinese platforms. These platforms like i previously mentioned monetise their series and physical releases are not a regular thing. However, what i want to continue to highlight is how diverse these platforms are. This ability to be more diverse and because of the free to read for limited time business model which naturally lends well into getting people to buy the volume in case they miss chapters. But most importantly, this low barrier of entry is naturally well fit for mobile phone readers and it also gets people directly to what they want to read instead of buying a magazine with another number of series one might not be interested in at all.
In other words, I believe Akita Shoten and other publishers should invest more in their digital platforms by boosting the amount of series and variety which will obviously mean an expansion in budget for servers and editors. WSC and other manga magazines have definitely seen an increasing decline in sales and even digital seems not to compensate for it as their price has risen substantially. In just recent years WSC, WSS and WSM and even WSJ have had price hikes. WSC specifically went from 280yen to 300yen to the current 320 with a space of three years. Tankoubons have likewise seen price hikes going from 440 to 499 in the same time frame. This is a bigger issue with shonen magazines since seinen magazines have not seen such drops and they are also pricier and not only the magazine but also the volumes.
I imagine this hike in price is a way in which profit can still be made from these magazines as they probably have a rather low profit margin for each magazine. However, the decrease in circulation makes it so the price of the magazine has to follow for a profit margin to even exist. It probably is the same for volumes. Investing in digital platforms will not solve this but it will provide an alternative platform that is bigger and more diverse, so it therefore could appeal to a bigger group of people than Weekly Shonen Champion could ever dream of. In fact, this is probably already the case in the current Manga Cross that has in two years given more hits for Akita Shoten than Weekly Shonen Champion. It is a tricky bet but publishers will have to adapt to a new age and there is no better time than now for Akita Shoten to divert its resources to continue building Manga Cross in a good platform for manga readers of all ages and tastes.
With the latest announcement of 4 new series for this July, three of which are weekly, Manga Cross will finally have an original series updating every weekday. Original series were previously only updated on Tuesday and Thursday. This is a big move because it should expand the number of original series running on platform by a lot. These new series are the only ones releasing on Monday, Wednesday or Friday, yet, so there is still a lot of new series coming in the future to boast these new days it wants to have original series releasing. It is a show of intent that Manga Cross will be a bigger focus and the names of the authors appearing also show that the platform is more attractive to authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment