Love Manga

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, its kinda busy at the moment but I shall be back in a few days.

Anyway that’s not going to stop me picking up on this topic which was emailed to me recently, because well it is something that I had hoped that would happen here.

Remember back in July I wrote a post on Del Rey’s edit of volume 02 of Air Gear. Okay, so it wasn’t a major thing really but still it was a cover edit outside the original Japanese release. I wrote back then that I was wondering if it wasn’t time we could allow a little thong through on a cover, it is hardly more sexually explicit then any other type of material you could see just walking down a busy high street. But many people did make pertinent arguments about the fact that a title like this would get shelved amongst many other “safer” titles and really in the end it is just one change to an otherwise good manga so should we just lump it anyway?

Well Tanoshimi (the UK version of Del Rey) it seems has decided that it doesn’t have the same social concerns that the US market faces and is planning their release of volume 02 in all its thongy goodness.

From Justine Taylor;

I know that there was some talk about the Del Rey putting stockings on the girl on their edition on your website a few months ago. I’m pleased to say that Tanoshimi has decided to go with the original Japanese artwork. We take the view that we’re a different market to the US, and - although I can’t say that we would never amend artwork - we’ll try to go with the original if we think it’s appropriate, although changing the inside material is always going to be tricky as it comes from Del Rey.

I was fairly staggered by this. I had secretly really hoped that something like this would happen. As I wrote back in July, the UK doesn’t always have the same concerns about material like this and we are exposed to it more frequently through magazine covers and advertising that it seems rather futile to suddenly become shy when it is a manga cover, but I was still a little sceptical considering Tanoshimi, much like Del Rey, is also part of Random House. Thankfully it looks like my fears were unfounded, and if anyone was looking for a reason to support the UK releases then this is it.

This is the real reason why I am so keen to see a UK manga scene take off over here (outside of price too!). Whilst even here in the UK we could not get away with some of the works that Japan releases, there is a certain proclivity towards the material which allows a greater flexibility and understanding; the Air Gear cover is a perfect example of this in action. Could we get to see future titles here in the UK which aren’t edited compared to their US counterparts? I don’t think its unrealistic to suggest so.

Of course, I am curious now. Will Tanoshimi shift more copies of volume 02 then Del Rey? The insides are pretty much identical so it is just the cover image you are buying. Will Tanoshimi see a large export of volume 02’s to the US?
Wouldn’t that be a reversal of the usual trend. ^.~
Can’t say I’m entirely upset with that idea either.

Tanoshimi, the UK imprint of Random House, opens their official website today and its a most colourful affair.

First impressions was that its a big improvement over the current non-event that is the Del Rey site. It’s bright, colourful, looks fun and has a fair amount of information for a debut; certainly all plus points. The site to me is designed first and foremost to grab the attention of its target audience and I think they’ve succeeded fairly well at that.

The addition of the characters who literally guide you all across the website are a nice gimmick. The sterotypical nature of them also allows for some judicial grouping of titles as to which type of person might like to read them. It’s not a bad idea and plays out quite well on the site. Much the same way as the download section does. It is a good idea and helps to re-enforce the branding element, but also someone at least had the foresight to include image downloads for the PSP and IPOD alongside the more traditional desktop download.

Though good all of those bits are extraneous to why I use a publishers site. I use publishers websites to get information on the books they publish (funny that ^.^) maybe release schedules and some biographical information; if I’m lucky a small online preview. Does anyone of that feature well in Tanoshimi’s website, well sort of.
Once you’ve signed up for the Otaku section there are small previews for each of their main launch titles plus creator bios which is great but the catalogue section is a little unhelpful. I wasn’t expecting a long list of their titles as that’s not the look they are trying to achieve, but having to guess where titles are based on links called Show Items 1-4 or Show Items 5-8 is a little annoying. Whilst it works moderately well now that page is only going to get more impractical the more titles that get added.

Overal the sites not that bad, there are definitely plenty worse out there and some that are a little better. But for one of the first UK Manga publishing websites its certainly a good debut.

Right now that all that’s done, lets get to the one glaring error that completely ruins all the above plus points.

The site only works in Internet Explorer.

Yes it loads in say Firefox or Safari but the formatting is completely ruined and to me you might as well not have a site. The only reason I persevered with it in IE was that I wanted to write about it, otherwise I wouldn’t touch the site if it cannot be browsed using another browser.
I’m more then a little surprised that the site hasn’t been designed with more then one browser support in mind, especially in this day and age and I really do hope that this is something they address sooner rather then later.

Ironically after posting a bit about Tanoshimi today I go and check my email and find the entire release schedule for 2006 in my inbox.
I like things like that. ^.^

Just having a quick peek at August alone there is just so much goodness coming out, 3 volumes of XXXHolic, Tsubasa, Negima and Guru Guru Pon Chan plus 2 volumes of Ghost Hunt and my personal fave Basilisk.

Oh and the full website launches tomorrow too.

To see the full schedule you can view the PDF here

Hige V’s Otaku has some worrying but interesting thoughts on the state of the UK Manga scene.

I say worrying because like me there seems to be a disparage between the quality of the US versions of titles compared to that of our new UK versions. To be fair I’ve not checked out the new Tanoshimi books yet, that’s a job for this weekend, but the overall conclusion is that things are not as good as they should be.

This topic is more then a little concerning, both of us would dearly love to support the domestic market I think that goes without saying, but we are also both painfully familiar with the product produced in the US. If the domestic version isn’t up to scratch is it right of fair for us to have to settle for an inferior manga just to support the UK?

Starting out with a look at Gollancz (Viz Media);

With this my initial (and somewhat superficial) reaction related to the noticeable drop in paper quality. It may have been fastidiousness on my part but the paper quality definitely felt lower in quality… There could be a host of explanations for this - relating to British bylaws on using recycled paper for printed media, for instance – but my knowledge of these things is too limited to use as a legitimate excuse. I’m more inclined to think it was a cost-cutting measure and this really soured my motivation to ‘buy British’.

My money would be on the cost-cutting measures too. My relationship with Gollancz is purely one of hate/hate. So far I think their product extends to 9 different series and, I know you’ve got to start small to grow this market but wow! I mean Viz Media alone yesterday released 14 volumes from 14 different series. Now I’m not for one second demanding that Gollancz matches Viz Media’s output the UK just isn’t that big a market (again another reason for cost-cutting measures), but and here’s the tricky part, but if you want to compete against your biggest competitor the grey import market then you’ve got to offer a bit more then just 4 volumes of Flame of Recca or One Piece.

This though is why I was do desperately keen for Tanoshimi to succeed. With the smaller back catalogue that Del Rey currently has it would only be a matter of time before Tanoshimi could catch up and start releasing on par with the US. After reading the release schedule they had planned that time will be arriving a lot quicker then planned, I think in the 5 months to the end of the year they will have 45 volumes released.
To me they had clearly grasped how to hit the UK market, they also clearly believe that there IS a UK market and are prepared to cater to it. Or so I thought. Again I’ve not actually got my hands on any Tanoshimi releases yet but here’s what the article had to say;

After looking over a couple of Tanoshimi manga, including xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa, their presentation standards were a little higher but still not on par with the US equivalents. With xxxHOLiC there were no colour pages to speak of and a few of the nice touches featured on other US releases were missing… From what I could see the content, what really matters, is reproduced faithfully. All the meaningful touches that make Del Rey such a great publisher were there, including the top translation and the always-informative linear notes.

So yes nearly but not quite. I think both of us know the reasons behind this, there just isn’t the big market for this yet. We are getting these Manga at a fantastic price, both Gollancz and Tanoshimi are great deals when compared to importing from the US (though with the current exchange rate I can still import say Air Gear for £5.88 compared to Tanoshimi’s £6.99), so with that kind of deal should we in the UK expect all the bells and whistles too?
Well yes, quite frankly.

Yet, when it comes down to deciding which versions to buy – whether to support the home team and buy domestic or import and generally get more for your extra quid - this stuff is important. And it’s a deal-breaker. Until both companies learn from Tokyopop and Dark Horse, who both offer identical domestic products without any needless, ugly rebranding and production corner-cutting, my patronage is sticking with the yanks.

I’d have to agree wholeheartedly with the Tokyopop comment. Their UK version isn’t so much a UK version as just bringing over the US version and releasing it legally here in the UK, which you know is not exactly a problem, everyone knows what they are getting. Though Tokyopop do tend to suffer a little from the Gollancz issue of not enough new content over here, but there scheme of selectively picking only the titles they think will sell does mean that certain series are nearly on par with the US releases.

I guess in the end all of this comes down to is the size of the market. The UK is incomparable in size to the US but it isn’t insignificant. As time goes on and these publishers get their wares established in bookstores and the like in much the same way that they have in the US; as the UK scene itself develops and people here find their own voice and raise their own demands on what they want; then maybe we can start expecting all the trimmings that we’ve come to like from the US equivalents.
I just hope that the cost cutting methods employed at the moment don’t cause people like me to forsake our domestic product just because we know their is something better to be had.

This is mainly stemming from the post by Brigid at Mangablog where she talks about the censoring of the Del Rey Book Air Gear. I say censoring when it really is just the cover which gets a small modification - now you see the Thong, now your don’t kind of thing.

That’s reasonable enough: Middle America probably isn’t ready for a panty shot on the cover of a book, especially one that’s going to be shelved with books for younger readers, and it’s hard to buy a book if bookstores won’t carry it.

I agree, and if you add to that the fact that Del Rey is owned by Randon House you can appreciate them being more cautious then others.

Posting today we get another manga with potentially explicit covers, this time from Tokyopop in Kamiyadori. Ed voices his concern over at Mangacast;

But honestly I wonder why they would when the cover below should alone be cause for concern. The covers vary from scissor gun carrying beautiful people to naked people (volume two has another girl naked in the snow). Good to see them release seinen (well techinically this is shonen??!!) but I hope this is shrinkwrapped and has the original cover reprinted inside.

Fairly similar circumstances (though to me the Kamiyadori is more explicit then just an exposed thong), but that to me is the crux of my problem with it.
I think everyone knows by now I’m from the UK where we are certainly a little more lax about such things. That’s not to suggest we’d get an uncovered thong or what not from Tanoshimi when Air Gear is released (they are after all owned by Random House too ^.^), but certainly levels of nudity particularly in magazines and advertising is simply accepted as the norm for want of a better word. The tide is certainly changing here in the UK especially for ‘lads mags’ like Maxim and Nuts where people are campaigning to get them relagated to the top shelf with the official porn mags, but were not quite the 51st state just yet.

As more and more titles get licensed I think the chances of us hitting this problem again and again is only going to occur with greater frequency, is it not time that you know, just maybe we could let a little thong get through? I personally think that is such thing definitely bares re-examining I mean it’s not nudity, she is semi-clothed/semi-naked depending on your predilection. I’m sorry in Tokyopop’s case I think, rightly, that the cover will have to be changed for the western market (I also don’t like that either, but I’m much more realistic that those covers go much too far to argue for), but the Air Gear example is being over-protecting.

This is just my opinion and I’m not suddenly expecting everyone to agree with me (because that would freak me out!) but is a thong really going to destroy the moral fabric of society as we see it? The obvious counter argument is that bookstores will not take it, and if it cannot get into bookstores then publishers aren’t going to release… and the vicious circle slowly closes, but whats stopping the bookstore from taking it?
Are they stuck on that concept that manga is for kids only, is that what they are trying to protect against (both for themselves and their consumer).

Nothing is going to change for Air Gear, and that’s fine, Del Rey are releasing it and they are the last publisher I would look at for taking a risk like this. But just once in a while, it would be nice not to have to resort to such over-reactions such as this when really everywhere else you look is far worse in terms of content.

It is not really a launch of the Tanoshimi website but the holding page has a couple of things I wanted to mention.

First off is a launch competition to name the websites characters who are currently living under their respective colours. If you win then all the volumes released in August will be winging their way to you plus the extra chance of winning an Ipod Nano.

I like Purple (great taste in music) though I tend to look more like Green ^.^

Oh and the other thing was the Tanoshimi tagline. Couldn’t have chosen two better words myself. ^.^

Got this in my email yesterday from Random House UK.

It is the initial press release for the Tanoshimi imprint which launches in August.

STARTING AUGUST 2006
RANDOM HOUSE PROUDLY ANNOUNCES ITS NEWEST IMPRINT

Random House will launch 15 titles in August 2006 priced £5.99 each (including the bestselling series xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa by superstar manga creators CLAMP) with 45 titles over seven series to be published by December 2006. These will be supported by a dedicated interactive website featuring exclusively created characters and competitions launching early July 2006.
www.tanoshimi.tv

For the whole Press Release click this link for a PDF of it.

Yes I tried the website link as well, but it does say it will begin in early July.

I know I’ve talked about Tanoshimi before, and really there is not much ele to say before an imprint has even launched, especially one who is releasing titles already available in the UK via grey imports from its American counter-part. But I did want to highlight the incredible speed at which they are going to be releasing these titles.

Starting off with a mammoth 15 title launch is fairly ambitious already, but in just 5 months they are planning to have a staggering 45 volumes released. Though it does sound scary and in some ways suicidal I do believe it is essential if Tanoshimi are going to compete here in the UK against itself (i.e. Del Rey). I already own most of the launch titles and in as much as I’d like to support Tanoshimi I would find it hard to justify re-buying them all. But, if they release this quickly it will not be long before they are on par with Del Rey’s release schedule and then it becomes an entirely different matter.

So much so, that I have already stopped ordering Del Rey titles in preparation to continue picking them up from Tanoshimi. Who cares really if the spine symbol will say Del Rey for one part and then Tanoshimi for another. The cost alone is impetus enough, but the key really is being able to finally support a UK company who is attempting to do what the US has been achieving for a while now.

Talking of symbols here is the one that accompanied the press release, not sure if it is the official one, but it looks funky enough.