May 2007

MangaNews is looking for a Yaoi reviewer.  I assume you’d get free books.

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If not for MangaBlog, I would have totally missed this interview at ANN with John Ledford, CEO of ADV.  (Probably because the big ADV logo made me think it was an ad.)  One of the original founders of A.D. Vision, Ledford discussed a multitude of things rather candidly… the current rebound the company is having, the future with Japanese investor Sojitz… as well as reminisced on the many firsts throughout the company’s history.  (Man, the first time I saw an ad for Devil Hunter Yoko was in… Diehard Gamefan?  Wow.)

But what we’re really interested in of course is the manga side of ADV’s business, and after reading this bit on the fate of their manga licenses before that division’s hiatus, I made a sound that’s somewhere between blowing spaghetti chunks through your nose and the “Oh God!” death knell from Golden Axe:

Some of those have gone on to other companies, are you holding on to a lot of them for future releases? Are you looking to get rid of them? Have you gotten rid of them?

Most of the stuff we’d licensed back in 2003 and 2004 [have] already expired. The terms are very short for manga, so it’s like a pay or play, publish or lose environment. (Snip)

Money.  Down toilet.  Poor, poor money. 

Ledford later goes on to discuss the various strategic partnerships companies like Viz and Del Rey have with major Japanese publishers, and how that has changed their licensing strategy.

I’ve said before that new manga companies either need to have strong, near-exclusive relationships with Japanese companies, or specialize in niche markets in order to gain a foothold in the maturing manga market.  But ADV is that third possibility… they are an established multimedia company, a key player in the anime market and the owners of a cable channel.  Manga which have anime tie-ins distributed by ADV may be better served by also releasing through them for obvious reasons; Cromartie Highschool is one example.  It’s probably too late now for ADV to catch up to Viz or Tokyopop as they first intended, but they may yet find a comfortable spot in the upper-middle end of the market.  Now all they need to do is get the bleeds in the books right.

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Speaking of which, The Comics Reporter gets a copy of Yotsuba&! for review one month ahead of its release.

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Almost missed this too… according to gaming blog InsertCredit a proposed change in Japanese copyright to help combat piracy more efficiently may threaten doujinshi, the popular fan-produced publications that are often parodies of existing anime, manga, and games.  Under current law, the impetus is on copyright holders to take legal action against infringers, but the new changes would give police discretion on enforcement… which means if the Tokyo Police Department really wanted to, they may surround Tokyo Big Sight during Comiket and tear gas the heck out of the place.  I sure hope they’d do it on Girl’s Day.  And maybe animate it.

Somebody want to provide a more complete translation of this page?  Hmm?  Ehh?

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Aaaaand… one last link on the Nymphet affair, until next month, I promise.

I can’t say I agree with many of the sentiments in this post at Ikimashou.net in response to Jason DeAngelis’ second open letter on why Nymphet was cancelled.  However, these are sentiments… or furious outrage at a perceived betrayal, to be exact… which I believe are shared by many hardcore fans out there, but haven’t really been aired on the mainstream blogs and news sites… and that in and of itself makes it worth investigating.  However, enter at your own peril… there’s much hating on Seven Seas and the internet, and the choice of words is… quite epic.

Well, I’m still hoping for some kind of retraction, but barring that, Seven Seas’ Nymphet appears to be stillborn.  Here we’ll just discuss a few of the reasons (there are too many for a thorough examination, not here… ), so let’s take a look at the suspects, shall we?

The Market

He who holds the purse strings decides the fate of the book, and that’s the retailers.  As much as some may cherish the romantic ideals of publishing, it’s still a commercial business, with overriding financial concerns.  If retail support is insufficient, then it’s not only a waste of time and money for the publisher to proceed, but also a waste of effort for the artist as well.

Of course, the booksellers’ reticence may in large part be attributed to…

The Internet

Much of the coverage used scanlated pages from the book out of context, and careless tossed around words like “loli” and “shota” and “porn”.  And rage dumps are never out of vogue on the web, as multitudes of bloggers and forum goers bash the book sight unseen.

The Name

…or perhaps the entire way the book was marketed.  But the word “Nymphet” itself is quite provocative, and regardless of the fact that it was the artist’s idea or that it actually describes the main character’s personality perfectly, someone should have stepped in and said this was a bad idea.  But to be fair, this is 20/20 hindsight, I’m a jerk, and a direct translation may have been problematic as well.  (Kodomo no Jikan is literally “Child’s Time”, or with an added ironic twist, “Age of Innocence.”  And that definitely won’t work.)

Seven Seas

Ultimately, it was Seven Seas’ decision to cancel the book.  Perhaps they didn’t want one book to hurt the reputation of their entire line of manga, or maybe the retail support just wasn’t there, or perhaps they got tired of all the negativity being directed at them.  But they pulled the plug.

I listed the factors for Nymphet’s demise (excluding the controversial nature of the book itself; visit the many places of discussion and make up your own mind) to make this one point, especially to the hardcore fanboys/girls out there: publishers are battered at all times, from all sides, by external forces far beyond mere sales sheets or the simple faith in and desire to publish a certain artist.  Some books require localization, while others need no more than delicate marketing, and then there are some that can’t be published at all.

Most importantly, publishers have responsibility not only to serve the readers, but also licensors, the retail market, and above all, the creators… responsibilities that scanlators and even the fans themselves will never shoulder.  That’s why publishers sometimes need to make unpopular decisions.

So I ask the fans out there to be understanding of Seven Seas, a company whose staff wear their hardcore otaku credentials on their sleeves with the properties they choose to license, who have shown real faith in those books.  They took a risk and realized they bit off more than they could chew, but nonetheless they took it as far as they could.  They license books for a special segment of readers that have been underserved by others.  And they’ve still got He is My Master, Venus Versus Virus, Neconoclasm, and Strawberry Panic coming down the line.  Support them.  Support variety.  One misstep is no reason to turn your back.

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There is one thing that truly worries me from all the recent net outrages, including the Nymphet ordeal: the rise of websites and bloggers from both sides of an issue whose sole raison detre appear to be inciting acrimony between different sectors of fandom and the belittlement of opposing dissidents, and the willingness of many to lend credence to them.  That general attitude is troubling, as it portends a shift in strategy by such grass-roots causes from advocacy, to the smear-and-ridicule tactics more befitting of political or religious extremists.  Rather than taking a step up, the call has increasingly become for everyone else to take a step down.  That is not empowerment.  These spontaneous umbrella causes do not truly concern themselves with promoting the interests of individual people whom they count amongst their members and place on their banners, but the advancement of singular ideology and the desire for everyone to march in lock-step with it.

The sucess of genre-centric manga such as shoujo and boy’s love certainly wasn’t built on the charred corpses of others, but by brave publishers who were willing to buck institutional assumptions and conventional wisdom about the market, and readers who exercised their right to seek out and enjoy works that speak to them.  Yet it is these very same forward-looking publishers who pioneered new genres and have done much to dispell the image of comics as a boy’s club, that are most susceptible to the factors that felled Nymphet, and thus most at risk of becoming victim to any special interest evangelical group employing the same slash and burn tactics.  Be wary of what you sow.

According to ICv2, Nymphet has been cancelled completely.

Edit: Seven Seas editor Adam Arnold has posted a short bittersweet entry on Kodomo No Jikan, including a plea for people to stop blaming Anime News Network for the cancellation.  (Thanks to Ana for the heads-up.)

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The thrilling conclusion to the unauthorized Doraemon saga… “Give Us All Your Money.”

Actually, far from the doujinshi-killer many feared, the last quote from Fujiko Productions president Yoshiyuki Ito is almost reassuring; this case was what it was because of the exceptional circumstance of an amateur publication pulling in not so amateur-like sales at mainstream retail venues.

Well, at least one person from Marvel was willing to stand up for the artist behind the Heroes For Hire cover, instead of playing dumb or outright denial… it’s CB Cebulski, on this week’s LITG.

Of course, from the very beginning I felt this was a lapse in judgment on the part of editorial, and this doesn’t change it.

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As spotted by LordShade in the comments section a couple posts below, Seven Seas has since removed all pages and references to Nymphet.  Meanwhile, ANN finally picks up on the story, resulting in a forum discussion of… um… widely varying degrees of intellectuality.

If Seven Seas does end up not releasing this title, I hope they won’t be doing it because of fear of prosecution, but because they’re re-evaluating whether the hardcore otaku audience they hope to appeal to is actually a commercially viable audience in the U.S..  Yet their obvious fannish licensing proclivities is exactly why I respect and appreciate the people at Seven Seas as the kind of specialized manga publisher we need more of.

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On a semi-related note, here’s why Doraemon hasn’t been distributed in the US either…

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Perhaps it’s because of all the bad news that I completely missed a couple of items on Broccoli Books coming out of Fanime Con.  Broccoli’s own blog chronicles their three days at the con; MangaCast sits down with Inui Sekihiko, the artist behind BroBook’s Murder Princess, plus the latest PR; animeOnline has a brief but interesting summary of Broccoli’s panel at Fanime, particularly the difficulty the company faces in bringing their first BL title to bookstores that is similar to the headache Seven Seas currently has, except in scale.  (Link via ComiPress.)

Broccoli also teased con goers with hints of a new type of book based on the Disgaea property.  Hmmm… it’s text-heavy, and based on an RPG… is it a “choose your own adventure” style book?