The meteoric rise of manga in the UK, according to Japan

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
The English section of the Japanese newspaper Asahi.com have posted an interesting article (complete with multiple interviews) on the meteoric rise of manga (and anime) in the UK, which is apparently culminating with the launch of comics publisher SelfMadeHero's "Shakespeare Collection"; comics drawn in a manga-style by Sweatdrop Studio's Sonia Leong (Romeo & Juliet) and Emma Vieceli (Hamlet). Both of these graphic novels are set to launch in the UK on March 1st.

It's worth noting SelfMadeHero's publications will be sold in Japan too.

Generally the article covers a whole range of points relevant to the UK based fan, talking about NEO magazine (which apparently boasts a monthly circulation of 15,000 issues in the UK) and how £500,000 was spent on advertising the Manga Force bi-weekly DVD magazine, only for "fan sites" to be "unimpressed when the commercial's voiceover narrator mispronounced the name of a classic series."

Thanks to Colin Palin for reporting this news!
 
I quite like the idea of British made comics, drawn in the manga style, appearing in Japan. It's an interesting subversion of global pop cultures and influences :)

Anyway - great to see such a positive article about the UK industry. It's rare we get such an insight into the hard figures behind some of these ventures.
 
Very intresting indeed. Also good to see Neo Magazine seems to be doing well selling about 15,000 a month although I did think they did more for some reason? Might I also point out £500,000! I didn't think Manga had that much money to spend on advertising! I only hope its paying off for them. Wonder when we will find out if it has?
 
That Man said:
Very intresting indeed. Also good to see Neo Magazine seems to be doing well selling about 15,000 a month although I did think they did more for some reason?
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I didn't think they sold that much.
It is a good magazine though.

I was also surprised to read about Manga Entertainment spending £500,000, but they did advertise a LOT during prime time TV, but they seem to have stopped now. Or maybe I'm just not seeing them as much :?
 
random_pie said:
That Man said:
Very intresting indeed. Also good to see Neo Magazine seems to be doing well selling about 15,000 a month although I did think they did more for some reason?
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I didn't think they sold that much.
It is a good magazine though.

I was also surprised to read about Manga Entertainment spending £500,000, but they did advertise a LOT during prime time TV, but they seem to have stopped now. Or maybe I'm just not seeing them as much :?
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Yeah, it does cost a lot to advertise in primetime TV slots. These things only tend to get advertised up to the launch week and then disappear after the second issue goes into distribution.
 
random_pie said:
That Man said:
Very intresting indeed. Also good to see Neo Magazine seems to be doing well selling about 15,000 a month although I did think they did more for some reason?
Click to expand...

I didn't think they sold that much.
It is a good magazine though.
Click to expand...

I agree never imagined it would be that many a month but it is a good mag so it deserves that sort of sales
 
Lupus Inu said:
Let's hope nothing bad happens while it's on the increase.
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Well getting rid of these so called documentaries about the more extreme things in Japan would be a start. They are entertaining but it's so painfully clear that people aren't ready to except them as just pure entertainment yet and take them as fact.
 
WTFDaveMustaine said:
Lupus Inu said:
Let's hope nothing bad happens while it's on the increase.
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Well getting rid of these so called documentaries about the more extreme things in Japan would be a start. They are entertaining but it's so painfully clear that people aren't ready to except them as just pure entertainment yet and take them as fact.
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OSBOURNE!! *shakes fist* >:C

You know that thing you get with videogames these days? Where you get those so totally hip hosts proclaiming "Videogames, they SURE aren't for geeks anymore! LOLOLOL". Dunno about you but they really annoy me, I'm terrified something like that'll get to manga/anime. >_>

The day we get a manga adaptation of '8 Mile' or '2 Fast 2 Furious' will be the day I go into total nerd rage.. Actually it needn't go that far, a manga Harry Potter'd be enough. XD;
If the comics are centered around new ideas for stories then I'm fine with them, though. And yes I am somewhat "blarg" about the idea of turning shakespeare into manga.

In a non ranting/kneejerk fashion, yay for positive news.
 
I think fan sites were more unimpressed about the magazine being **** and being able to buy the DVDs either cheaper or for pennies more online.

And LOOOOOL @ £500k on advertising. I've seen the advert TWICE on TV, and I haven't seen anything else promoting it anywhere.

I'm guessing around £5 on that amount went on that awful website.
 
Raujinn said:
Actually it needn't go that far, a manga Harry Potter'd be enough. XD;
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Wa?! Surely you can't be angry at this?
I normally hate Harry Potter, but even I can't help rolling about on the floor in delight when I see Koge-Donbo's version. Cho-Chan is just soo unimaginably cute! And I don't even normally go for that bishôjo look, either.
 
Wow, I didn't think Neo had that many readers. :shock: The more the merrier I say, hmmm, *ponder* maybe Pokemon did some good afterall. lol :D

And maybe if more western manga gets accepted and read in Japan, it'll stop all these people who poo-poo peoples work and call it 'not-manga' just because it wasn't created in Japan by Japanese. The way I see it, if you like something, who the heck cares how it was created - I used to love (and still do, even though I havn't bought any for ages,) Adam Warrens stuff and he's not Japanese. If you like it - you like it, if you don't like it - you don't, but don't slag something off without trying it, just because it was created by a bloke called Brian in a shed in Bristol. :roll:

(Sorry I always get wound up when I talk about that. :roll: lol )


Also...

Going slightly off on a tangent - I was mooching in the Manchester HMV at lunchtime, wandered upto the anime section and ... it wasn't there. :cry:

They'd decided to move it closer to the tills near the computer games area, directly facing the DVD new releases/top sellers wall. They'd also increased it's size by 50% (giving it 3 complete racks of shelves rather than 2), and an end of row display. :shock:

Now I don't know if them moving it to where they did is a good or a bad thing yet, it's too soon to tell, but the amount of space devoted to anime now has to be a sign that things are on the up, dosn't it?
 
Ryo Chan said:
how is uk-anime more popular than this site anyway?

personally i can't stand the uk-anime layout
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Whatever happened to UK anime fan solidarity? ;)

I quite like the UK-A layout actually, although I'm a bit biased because I know a few people on there! They've been around for years though, which helps with search engine rankings and so on. Plus the site has quite a lot of contributors who've gone on to do anime-related stuff professionally.
 
Turtleheart said:
Raujinn said:
Actually it needn't go that far, a manga Harry Potter'd be enough. XD;
Click to expand...
Wa?! Surely you can't be angry at this?
I normally hate Harry Potter, but even I can't help rolling about on the floor in delight when I see Koge-Donbo's version. Cho-Chan is just soo unimaginably cute! And I don't even normally go for that bishôjo look, either.
Click to expand...

*FUMES WITH RAGE* XD
 
Ryo Chan said:
how is uk-anime more popular than this site anyway?
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My speculative guess is that aside from the NEO magazine website, Anime UK News is the most popular UK anime website, we're just not on the "industry radar" in the same way as others.
 
anime-uk gave Grave of the Fireflies 4/10 for being 'too depressing'. I give them a 2/10 score for being 'a pile of amateurish faeces'. They can't even do being complete crap without any professionalism.
 
I like UK-anime. The layout is unimportant. From my experience while AnimeUKnews reports the news UK-Anime are more for digging for a story like how they broke the MVM-Funimation break off.

However that might just be me.
 
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