Are The Manga Series That Show Up In Best-Seller Charts Exhausted Titles?

I don't know quite how to use the Nielsen chart compiled by comics business and news analysis site ICv2.com. There's something about yet another book chart that made me shut down when it came to figuring out my expectations for its general accuracy/inaccuracy. I'm not saying I'm ready to start using it, but I'm ready to fake-use it, for sure.

In that spirit, last time I drew attention to this chart on CR I went right to conventional wisdom and assumed that all of the manga represented were late-run manga -- certainly the ones I recognized were. The idea cradled within that viewpoint is that manga will experience an overall further sales decline than projected because the popular series are cycling near their conclusion -- as is the case when many of the hit television shows are in their sixth and seventh years as opposed to their second or third. I was corrected in that there were indeed some early volumes on the list. So I wanted to pull the series that placed on the next chart and list where they are in their series' run to date.

#1 Vampire Knight: Volume 7 of 11
#3/#17 Naruto Vols. 43/45 of 47
#5 Fruits Basket: Volume 23 of 23
#6 Rosario+Vampire: Volume 8 of 10
#7 Black Bird: Volume 1 of 8
#9 Fullmetal Alchemist: Volume 19 of 23
#12 D.Gray-Man: Volume 14 of 18
#13 D.N.Angel: Volume 12 of 13
#16 Otomen: Otomen Volume 3 of 8
#17 Naruto: Volume 43 of 47
#18 Bloody Kiss: Volume 1 of 2

Vampire Knight, D.Gray-Man, Blackbird, D.N.Angel, Otomen and Naruto are listed in their wikipedia entries as ongoing, which brightens the list quite a bit.

So: while this chart doesn't fully support the conventional wisdom view -- although I imagine this entire arena of comics will miss new volumes of perennial sales ass-kicker Fruits Basket -- it's not exactly the market position of three to five years ago, either. I would nudge the exhaustion theory away from the list of things we can assume, but keep it on the page as something to watch. Manga would likely be suffering that much more right now if there were suddenly a big push-away on vampire stuff, but I think as a culture we're on at least our 112th year of that general phenomenon so I'm guessing it doesn't end next week.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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