talkin' about manga packaging and target audience

I posted this in my 75 Books Challenge thread, then halfway through realized it might be something interesting to talk about here, too.

Yay! A Bride's Story is here! It's so dang pretty. It's rather interesting to me the way Yen Press packaged the book. They used a hardcover (and it's such a rich shade of brown with scarlet endpapers soooo pretty) and full-art dustjacket. The internal things that signal "this is a manga" are missing (though it does read right-to-left), which gives it a feel much more like the Western graphic novels I've been reading recently.

Actually, I've found that Yen Press does this for its adult-audience books anyway (see: Bunny Drop (josei - adult women) vs. Yotsuba&! (shounen - young people) ), but even so, Bunny Drop is very clearly "manga". I wish I could better describe what I'm talking about, but of course I can't because it's something kind of visceral.

I wonder if it's a conscious marketing choice on the part of Yen Press, or if it's something requested by the licensing party? Another series from the same publisher/magazine will be coming out in July and is also getting the hardcover treatment (and I preordered it two months ago >.>). Wandering Son is also arty with a target audience that probably isn't the typical group that buy TokyoPop and Viz titles like Bleach or One Piece.

 

I'm given to understand that manga in Japan is fairly standard in the way it's published - something like 8cm×5cm in size, 200 pages long, ¥400 or maybe ¥580 apiece. They're softcover, but with dustjackets. I wouldn't expect either of these two series to be treated differently, but perhaps they are? I don't know how to find out.

At any rate, having gone through the manga section of the bookstores I frequent several times, I can say that it's extremely rare to see a hardcover book on the shelves.

I have walked around quite a lot in Japanese bookstores and have never seen hardcover manga like American hardcover comics...
But I checked on the Japanese Amazon for A Bride's Story (here) and the size is of a normal manga: 17.8 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm .

Oops, looks like I mixed up the cm with inches in my post. :P

Good idea about looking at Amazon.jp - I've done that in the past, but it didn't even occur to me in this case.

But it does make me wonder what about A Bride's Story (Otomegatari/Otoyomegatari) and Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko) make for them to have the hardcover treatment that other manga don't tend to get. They're both Comic Beam series, but one is licensed by Yen Press and the other by Fantagraphics.

I have been looking forward to this for months and I am glad I will be able to get it soon. My bookstore still doesn't carry it but hopefully by next week, it will be available.

I don't know either why certain titles receive different treatment in packaging and so. The same for Spice and Wolf. It is nothing about the packaging but Yen Press uses different covers than the original in order to target more audience, as they said. You can still get the original cover if you removed the dust jacket, though. I think the covers Yen Press uses for Spice and Wolf don't give the impression that this is a light novel and that it has anything to do with manga and stuff. Well, I cannot complain since I get to have it and that's the most important thing.

Wait, are you talking about the S&W light novel or manga? One of the things I am grateful to YP for is the paperback Haruhi novels. I really like that they created new designs for the covers that aren't all moë Noizi Itoh illustrations. I mean, that's fine and all, but it's a bit much for me, and I really prefer the simple designs - especially since I don't really like having people think poorly of me for it! (I'm so tired of my family ragging on me for what I read/watch.) Plus, the paperback designs are really clever, from the way text is used to the use of transparent gloss to add depth to the little drawings/symbols.

I really like the S&W light novel covers that I've seen, the English versions. They're actually making me more inclined to try them out (that and a friend of mine says the first book is quite good).

I was talking about the Spice and Wolf light novels. I actually prefer the original covers but I wouldn't complain if it means getting more that way and if they are selling better with those covers, it is fine and good.

Just to be contrary on the finer details in life, I suppose...

>2 mene:
There are some hardcover manga in Japanese, although it's a special edition. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles is more known for the hardbacks... and I believe at least a couple of Yazawa Ai's series have been given a hardcover edition.

>1 keristars:
And while the majority of manga in 'regular' binding are like that.. some of the labels have a different standard. Shoujo manga have pretty much one 'standard' size (with exception to specials, of course... ie, Usagi Drop under the Feel Young label, Papa Told Me under the Young You label, titles under Rakuen Le Paradis label, etc). Shounen manga seem to have two 'standard' sizes... manga under the JC, GC, SS, etc, labels running the same aforementioned size, and DC, YK, Jets Comics, etc, labels running at slightly taller, wider, and thicker (again with exceptions like a few Kadokawa Comics titles).

But I think I'm preaching to the crowd...

When Tsubasa first came out I was in Japan and I only saw the paperbacks, but maybe they published them in hardcover afterwards?

7> thank you, lilasia! I was hoping that someone who is familiar with the Japanese editions would come in and give some more details. :)

It's interesting that Usagi Drop is a different size - it's a good deal larger in the US editions than any others I have, too.

>8 mene:
That's odd. I also remember when they first came out, although I was, and am, stateside. The HC (deluxe edition) and PB (standard edition) were stocked at the same time at our local bookstore, which means they could only be up to two weeks apart from each other.... but, Amazon lists their releases on the same day (except vol 1, for some reason, with the HC coming out 3 days earlier than the PB) and the books themselves show the same publication dates for PB and HC.. (I was buying both editions for the first 3 volumes.)

>9 keristars:
re: Usagi Drop, it might be the label. If I remember correctly, the other titles I've seen for the label conform to the same size. (And I just realized I represented the wrong FC in my previous post.... It should be Feel Young Comics not Flower Comics... It was 4:30am, I swear!)

As for the hardcover treatment, I always thought it was a little odd to see translated editions released in HC when the original was PB. I thought it was an American thing (especially seeing re-releases of some children's books in HC when the first few pressings were all PB)... but, hey, there are some really awesome Japanese LE DVD releases of foreign (ie, American) movies... which may come with some awesome stuff never offered in the original country's releases.

As I mentioned earlier, I've only seen a few HC manga... but, they're mostly well-known and well-loved titles with a huge fanbase. (Pretty much true for most re-releases to more expensive formats... ie, Shaman King.) CLAMP is the only one I've seen where the HC comes before/concurrently with the PB... but we all know CLAMP has huge selling power, sooooo.... If I were to guess, I'd think it might mostly be about cost/price against an oversaturated manga market in Japan.

I like size uniformity, though... makes them easier to store/shelve.

Anyway, this is all just from what I've seen. ^^;

>10 lilasia::

Ah well, the bookstore I visited frequently was almost next to my school, but that school was in a very rural area (one hour southwards from Nara City). So maybe they just didn't stock the hardcover editions. If I had been in a large city, I might have seen the hardcovers!
I can't think of any other reason why the bookstore wouldn't have had the hardcovers (all manga they had was in paperback format). It was quite a small bookstore: ground level was half books (4 rows of manga, 3 rows of normal books) and half CDs/DVDs/cassette tapes, upper level was rental videos (almost only video tapes, no DVD).

the art for A Bride's Story is nice.

The only hardcovers I've seen are the multi-volume books and the library binding.

I should've come back and mentioned it, but it slipped my mind: I found out that the hardcover treatment and much larger size for Wandering Son is definitely because Fantagraphics are trying to reach a different demographic than would normally pick up manga.

Matt Thorn (you may have heard of him :P) even wrote a fairly detailed explanation of honorifics and personal pronouns and why they are important to this story in particular for the book, which is completely different from any explanation I've seen in the other books I've read. (Not least because it is tailored to the story, rather than being a copy/paste job.) I suspect the treatment of this section will make it feel more "grown up".

Also, there's LOTS of color pages in the book, but no contrast between the b&w matte pages and the glossy color - they're all on the same kind of paper.

I think it's a fantastic book, and I hope it sells well enough to continue with this kind of quality. It's definitely worth it.