One publishing experiment I’m wondering about is the recent movement of manga companies into the YA fiction market by publishing novels based on manga. I’m not sure what the sales figures for these are, and I don’t have a comprehensive list but it looks like some of them are:
Viz
Fullmetal Alchemist novel 1, 2
Socrates in Love
Kamikaze Girls
Ghost in the Shell
There’s also the novel for Battle Royale, which I seen shelved in the fiction section of bookstores. With the other books listed above, if I’ve seen them anywhere they’ve been shelved with the manga.
Tokyopop’s novel line at least has a standalone page on their web site.
Titles include
.hack//AI buster
CLAMP School Paranormal Investigators
Devil May Cry
Gravitation
Love Hina
Mobile Suit Gundam Seed
Slayers
And they are just now formally launching a YA fiction line with titles like Scrapped Princess.
I hope that these projects do well enough that some Japanese fiction that was the source material for anime and manga gets translated. But I wonder what the sales have been on this type of book so far? I would love love love to read Fyumi Ono’s 12 Kingdoms novels, but I’m guessing that series might be a little too obscure.
I suspect that not many libraries are buying these novels yet. I did a bit of spot checking in WorldCat a little while ago, so some of these numbers might have increased:
6 libraries have the 6th Slayer’s novel
69 have .hack/AI Buster volume 1 and 23 have volume 2
167 libraries have the Battle Royale novel, while 63 have the first volume of the manga. I’m guessing that the numbers are lower for the manga due to graphic visual content, and since the book was the source material for the cult movies and the manga, maybe more people are interested in reading it as opposed to reading a book series spun-off from a manga? The book is also packaged more like a regular trade paperback than some of the other novels based on anime or manga.
12:38 am on May 3rd, 2006 1
We tried selling the manga novels when they first came out, and no body wanted them at all. People who would happily buy books based on Magic cards snubbed them as being too gimmicky.
But, they must be selling well somewhere, as they keep coming out.
1:21 am on May 3rd, 2006 2
They have to be selling somewhere, I guess. I just don’t see how they’d be selling all that much.
7:38 am on May 3rd, 2006 3
I don’t find the idea of a manga novel very appealing, but as I was looking at the Tokyopop news release I was thinking “These books sound pretty cool.” I think what they are doing is a little different and more sensible: They are marketing novels that were successful in other countries, rather than manga repackaged as novels. They have already developed a market of readers who like the exoticness of Japanese manga, so it makes sense to see if that cachet can transfer to novels. When I separated them from the manga context, the books actually sounded more interesting.
Also, having once whiled away a long train trip reading the Pokemon chapter books to my kids, I can testify to the fact that children will read lots of things that adults won’t touch.
8:34 am on May 3rd, 2006 4
I haven’t read any manga novels yet but I would be interested in reading Twelve Kingdoms too. The Scrapped Princess books might be good. The manga doesn’t tell the same story as the anime.
So what does L.I.B.R.A.R.Y. stand for???
9:03 am on May 3rd, 2006 5
Well, one of those books features a talking anthropomorphic motorcycle, so maybe it is ok after all.
I dunno maybe something like:
Logistics
Intervention
Book
Reading
Association
Regiment
Yeah!
12:00 pm on May 3rd, 2006 6
One key factor, IMO, with Batle Royale was that this came out before manga really boomed, coming out at a time when Tokyopop and Viz still publishing a lot of 32 page comics. It came out soon after Viz lost the rights to publishing the english language version of Koji Suzuki’s Ring and before the manga version arrived.
BR also has something about its packaging that separates it from the manga. Maybe it’s the way the book is written up, attempting for a literary sheen, declaring the book a “Lord of the Flies for the new century” maybe the different publishers have ensured that this book doesn’t get associated with the manga. But, somehow, BR just looks like a novel in a way Socretes in Love (another translated novel that was adapted into manga) doesn’t.
Maybe, with BR, the factor is the audience. BR appeals to fans of J-Horror, including J-Lit fans who are picking up Suzuki and Out. Meanwhile, the target audience for Viz and T-pop’s other novels seem to be manga readers.
12:49 pm on May 3rd, 2006 7
I do think that the packaging and marketing and fanbase for Battle Royale make it something different than Socrates in Love.
I guess I don’t see many libaries buying a ton of these - if you have a limited budget for collection development, why not just buy manga and YA books that you already know are good, instead of this hybrid that will likely appeal to a smaller audience?
2:50 pm on May 3rd, 2006 8
I’ve read five of these so far, I think. I’ve had a mix of reactions to them. Hated Hated Vampire Hunter D, liked Boogiepop Phantom, was a little bored by the rest I read. I find it hard to tell if the problem is with the original material or if it’s the translation that doesn’t work for me, though. That’s why I keep trying.
I think it also depends on how original the story is. The Gravitation novel is 1/2 filled with a recap of the manga, which is good for new readers but kind of bored me.
DMP is also starting to put out some shonen-ai/yaoi novels. Only the Ring Finger Knows: the Lonely Ring Finger has already come out and I thought it was pretty good, but very short!
RE: Battle Royale. We couldn’t keep the novel on the shelves when we first got it in at our bookstore. Something that adds a sheen of “respectability” to it I think, is that it’s a normal, trade size book. Manga novelizations are all short (so far) and look like the manga they’re based on. Harder to shelve them with the “regular” books.
The good thing about the three formats is that they all focus on different aspects of the story. The movie is mostly action, the novel goes into the politics a little more and the manga deals a lot with the students back stories. Keeps things a little more interesting.