Now I’m well past what may be considered my ‘prime manga reading years’ (given that most manga readers can’t buy beer yet …legally) and perhaps the wrong gender, but even from my point of view — not 180° opposite the intended audience but probably, say, 167° — there is a clear winner this week for

The Pick o’ the Week

Kitchen Princess
Manga by Natsumi Ando
Story by Miyuki Kobayashi
Published by Del Rey
Previously reviewed: vols 1 & 2

I haven’t read this one yet, but I saw it in our back room yesterday–waiting to be shelved–and snapped it up even before our customers had a chance at it.

Sorry girls. It’s a perk of the job.

To be fair, we did have one other copy and we’ll likely see a replacement for the one I snagged before Friday, so I’m not really putting any customers out (any other customers… I’m still the number one purchaser of manga from my store by a wide margin; thank several gods for my well-worn employee discount)

But I bought this one within 10 minutes of setting eyes on it. To give it higher praise I’d have to use quite a few more words.

Also purchased this week –
- Johnny Bunko: an older title (by scant days, but still a skosh older) that would have been the pick of its week if I were posting this feature on a more regular basis
- VB Rose vol 2: actually coming out next week but came in early as filler on a lower slot of a T’pop Sgt. Frog cardboard merchandiser — and so, likely available at a retailer near you also
- Kannazuki no Miko: which if it is too much like the anime version is likely going to suck a little, but how can I say no to a title that combines bubblegum Yuri with giant robots? In fact, I take that back: there is no way a yuri title with giant robots can suck. That’s almost the precise defintion of ‘guilty pleasure’ and while it might be bad, it is still a guaranteed sale to this (middle-aged, alcoholic, otaku) microdemographic.

Also worth a look: Gin Tama, Gon, High School Debut, Love*com, Nana, Nodame Cantabile, and Sand Chronicles.

Damn. since when have I been reading so much shoujo?

Full list after the break.
Read more »

Sources
Online Bookstores:
Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders (beta), Chapters of Canada, and Amazon’s Manga sales by Category
Other Sales Charts:
Amazon Hourly Bestsellers, Buy.com, Deepdiscount.com, Fye, Powell’s, Tower, and Virgin

##

last week’s rankings
About the Charts
Weekly Analysis and Commentary Posts

##

Consolidated Online Sales Rankings
For the Week Ending 4 May 2008
Your Executive Summary and Index:

Manga Top 500

1. ↔0 (1) : Death Note 1 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Oct 2005 [612.6] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Death Note 2 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Nov 2005 [604.6] ::
3. ↑2 (5) : Vampire Knight 3 - Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2007 [594.1] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Death Note 3 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jan 2006 [593.5] ::
5. ↓-2 (3) : Naruto 28 - Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2008 [583.1] ::
6. ↑3 (9) : Vampire Knight 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, May 2007 [578.9] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Death Note 4 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Mar 2006 [562.1] ::
8. ↓-1 (7) : Vampire Knight 1 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2007 [561.5] ::
9. ↑2 (11) : Death Note 5 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Apr 2006 [546.8] ::
10. ↓-2 (8) : Death Note 6 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jul 2006 [545] ::

[more]

Manga Top 50 Series

1. ↑1 (2) : Naruto - Viz Shonen Jump, Jul 2003 [1703.84] ::
2. ↓-1 (1) : Death Note - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Oct 2005 [1265.39] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Bleach - Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2004 [1064.48] ::
4. ↑1 (5) : Fruits Basket - Tokyopop, Feb 2004 [963.5] ::
5. ↓-1 (4) : Vampire Knight - Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2007 [749.12] ::
6. ↔0 (6) : Fullmetal Alchemist - Viz, Apr 2005 [599.06] ::
7. ↔0 (7) : Ouran High School Host Club - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2005 [539.16] ::
8. ↑25 (33) : Kingdom Hearts - Tokyopop, Oct 2005 [429.7] ::
9. ↑56 (65) : Hana-Kimi - Viz, Aug 2004 [414.21] ::
10. ↑1 (11) : Loveless - Tokyopop, Feb 2006 [400.97] ::

[more]
[tally of books and series by publisher]

Manga Midlist 500
What’s the Midlist?

1. (40) : Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories vols 1-2 box set - Tokyopop, Oct 2007 [351] ::
2. (43) : Dark Hunger — Feehan, Zid - Berkley, Oct 2007 [340.7] ::
3. (45) : Hana-Kimi 23 - Viz, Apr 2008 [336.8] ::
4. (49) : Fullmetal Alchemist 16 - Viz, Mar 2008 [332.9] ::
5. (50) : Berserk 22 - Dark Horse, Apr 2008 [331.5] ::
6. (51) : Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - Viz, Jun 2005 [327] ::
7. (52) : Ouran High School Host Club 1 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2005 [326.5] ::
8. (59) : Ouran High School Host Club 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2005 [310.9] ::
9. (63) : Pokemon Best of Pokemon Adventures Red - Vizkids, Oct 2006 [301.6] ::
10. (65) : Ouran High School Host Club 5 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2006 [300.3] ::
11. (66) : Wallflower 15 - Del Rey, Apr 2008 [300.3] ::
12. (67) : Warriors 3 - HC/Tokyopop, Apr 2008 [299.5] ::
13. (68) : Warriors 2 - HC/Tokyopop, Dec 2007 [294.5] ::
14. (73) : Loveless 1 - Tokyopop, Feb 2006 [286.3] ::
15. (75) : Warriors 1 - HC/Tokyopop, Apr 2007 [284.9] ::
16. (77) : Necratoholic - DMP June, Apr 2008 [284] ::
17. (80) : Red River 21 - Viz, Apr 2008 [273.6] ::
18. (84) : Pokemon Best of Pokemon Adventures Yellow - Vizkids, Dec 2006 [262.8] ::
19. (85) : Negima! 17 - Del Rey, Mar 2008 [262.6] ::
20. (86) : Inuyasha 33 - Viz, Apr 2008 [261.7] ::
21. (88) : Tsubasa 16 - Del Rey, Feb 2008 [256.8] ::
22. (91) : Loveless 6 - Tokyopop, Aug 2007 [251.9] ::
23. (92) : Ouran High School Host Club 10 - Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2008 [251] ::
24. (93) : Gentlemen’s Alliance† 5 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2008 [249.9] ::
25. (94) : Nana 9 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2008 [248.6] ::

[more]

##

Complete Charts Follow:

Read more »

Bob hasn’t posted in a coon’s age but he’s still active (in an odd definition of the term…)
–here’s an excerpt from a recent email (me to Bob)

You’re watching Eva right now: that’s a 12 year old anime but it’s a classic — evergreen, always of note; combine it with gundam, macross, and patlabor and you have very strong case for defining ‘giant robots’ as a genre: in that light Voltron can be painted as a pared-back, dumbed down version for the kids, Transformers is a cool toy line that ended up as an adaptation for the western market, Eva itself was an update of earlier tropes for the mid 90s (as Macross was for the 80s) and the whole robot thing goes back to astroboy and tetsujin 28(gigantor) and that shit is 50 years old — and this is *all* still worth talking about.

SO, fanbase, here’s a question:

Yeah, sure, the fan boys & girls are posting on any & all anime and manga that are so brand freakin’ new they’re not even available in the States yet, but that doesn’t begin to cover the admittedly short history of the medium — Where is the criticism? Where’s the analysis?

Even reviews (of which there are legion) break down into a “yeah I like” “gods I hate it” dichotomy, but where is the insight? Is it enough to say, “this is good stuff here,” without context? I’m not looking for scholarly papers (OK, so maybe I am) but past that — What about the ‘backlist,’ properties from just a couple of years ago, or even a decade ago: is there a readership for reviews that go further than the shiny-new-novelty of the very latest reviews? I mean, I have a stack of Erika Sakurazawa manga just to hand (even closer than the beer, even) and I think it’d be great to break these down in series of reviews. But would anyone care? …not to mention the giant-robot-essay that I managed to outline–off the cuff–in an email to a friend of mine. Obviously I could write that up in a couple of days (or a week) but what’s the point?

Folks only link to the new new new.

Flip that around: As bloggers, yeah we like the new, too, but we’re also looking for links and readers. We only cover the very latest, because we think that’s what the wide internets want to read…
and yet, there is this big black hole of even a couple of years ago where lurk properties that really should be discussed but no one will bother because it’s not now.
I don’t know if this is something that can be fixed, but damn, I’m going to take a hard look in the next few months and see if this isn’t something that someone can address.

Remember when this used to be a regular feature? Yeah, me either.

I can’t believe I got this long of a list on a week, seemingly, without Tokyopop or Viz releases. (Now, before you complain or ‘correct’ me, I’ll just note I’m not using Diamond’s release info but instead dates that are available to me at the bookstore where I work. [*cough*] Not that I’m looking up manga on the computer while on the clock or anything. …I’m sure the Viz and T’pop titles will be showing up next week.)

If the formatting looks vaguely familiar, chalk it up to one part house style and one part vast smoking tyranical engine of a spreadsheet — the same one I’m using for the Manga Charts. Handy sucker, that thing is, mighty handy.

It’s almost too much to choose from. Oh, I suppose I can find at least one…

Pick o’ the Week

Hollow Fields, vol 2.
Madeleine Rosca
Seven Seas

What can I say about Hollow Fields that I haven’t said already? Rosca won a little award for this, maybe you read about it. Sight unseen, I’ll take this over the rest of the pack, easy.

In fact, I’m a couple weeks early, methinks. While my sources show a release date of 29 April, Seven Seas is saying May. Sometime.

##

Honorable Mentions: Gon 4, A Geisha’s Journey: My Life as a Kyoto Apprentice, Avalon: Web of Magic, Teppanyaki Barbecue: Japanese Cooking on a Hotplate.

Oh, and kids, would you please stop buying this thing:

I’ve been coming across this title (as a preorder) on the source charts for my manga bestsellers for weeks now, and it still creeps me out a little. I know I’m not the target demo for this — but really, it’s not the yaoi that bugs me but the vampire bit and that gods’ awful title…

If you have to buy it, order it from a store so it doesn’t come up on online sales sites — and so I don’t have to look at that cover six times a week. I’m begging you, please.
Full list after the break

Read more »

In what I hope will become a longstanding tradition, once again I get to blatantly steal from helpfully re-print a selection from the readers’ comments on last week’s commentary:

Comment from Marfisa
: April 26, 2008, 12:18 pm

“Fullmetal Alchemist” was never serialized in the English-language edition of Shonen Jump, because it didn’t appear in Shonen Jump even when it was initially published in Japan. FMA is serialized in Japan through another, smaller shonen magazine which I believe is put out by a different publisher. (I think the magazine in question is called something like Shonen Gungan, but I couldn’t swear to it.)

I don’t know how precisely, if at all, the trend I am about to describe correlates with the relative sales figures for the manga over the past two or three years. However, I did notice a perceptible decrease in the amount of FMA fanfic, art, etc., posted in the various FMA-related LiveJournal communities shortly after the anime concluded its first run on Cartoon Network about a year and a half ago, followed a few months later by the (very) brief run of the follow-up FMA movie “Conqueror of Shamballa” in selected theaters and its subsequent release on DVD.

In other words, at least some FMA fans’ interest in the series was no longer intense enough to create fan art and fan fiction about it once all the FMA-related anime we are likely to get had already been released.

There’s more to be read at the comments on the previous post

Marfisa’s comments actually answer two questions I had — the first being, of course, what’s up with FMA, and next why some titles were published as Shonen Jump/Shojo Beat titles while others that seemed to fit and would benefit from the tie-in (FMA and Fushigi Yugi, respectively) were instead published as plain-vanilla Viz Media titles. Now we all know, and knowing is half the battle.

##

No one has bothered to ask me any questions re: the charts yet, but if they did it might look something like this:

##

Why Manga, and not graphic novels in general?
#1: I like manga. #2: Manga are a special case, in that there are a lot of them, but the vast majority are still relatively new; series can be easily defined (and they have a finite number of volumes) and the online sales market is fairly dynamic and worth looking at week to week.

last point first: let’s say we look at a top 25 Graphic Novels, right now. Even before I load it up, I know we’re going to find Watchmen (’86), and Dark Knight (also from ‘86) and Calvin and Hobbes (’85 to ‘95 — though the collection is from ‘05) and tack on a Peanuts book (from the 60s — whichever Fantagraphics reprint is most recent will show up) along with a slate of movie tie-in books (V for Vendetta, Sin City, 300, whatever) …and we’re almost done.

The only reason to attempt such an effort (and I gave it a shot for a month or three) is to point the readership past 20+-year-old comics to Jeff Smith or Jeff Kinney or Shaun Tan, and that is better accomplished directly through reviews and recommendations.

Graphic novels are fine, but with strong sales through both the direct market and bookstores, the fraction that is left as online sales doesn’t lend itself to this type of analysis. That and the market is so fragmented: Strip collections, so called ‘lit comics’ (autobigraphical and indy GNs), collectors editions, mainstream (dc/marvel) GNs, kids books, humour titles, classic reprints, and yes, the manga — it’s all too much. Track any one chunk, sure, but try to do it all at once and there’s no way to untangle that jumble.

Why 500?
I’ve always been willing to post as long a list as the data itself supports. Right now I’m tracking 11 different sites, loading up 3500 listings a week (and since I consider two weeks’ worth of sales that’s 7k) which after the first pass through the spreadsheet yield 1200+ manga (and manga-ish) volumes.

Pulling just a top 500 from that seems almost conservative.

The very last title on the chart (Japanese in Mangaland Workbook vol 1) scored 388 points. This means, at the very least, that it shows up on at least two source charts (since even on one of my bookstore charts as #1 it would only score 300) and in fact it shows up twice: at #94 and #118 on the Amazon Manga Category listing in consecutive weeks.

(in fact JiMl:W1 is tied for 500th place with MÄR vol 15 but these days I employ a hard cutoff so even with a tie score MÄR didn’t make it. Sorry.)

So to even place in my chart a manga has to a) appear twice and b) do so at #1 on a secondary chart, or at least 100th place on a primary, online bookstore listing. Maybe that puts the numbers in perspective for you.

7000!? how long does that take?
I’ve complained about the time commitment before. Things are better now; I’ve streamlined, my spreadsheets are set up well, auto-completion is a godsend… so here’s an update.

I can (relying heavily on OpenOffice Calc’s auto-completion feature just mentioned) enter between 600 and 800 line items (individual manga volumes) each hour, including the time spent loading up sales websites and the occasional distraction (“oooo… Voiceful, what’s that?”).

So data entry now takes me about 5-6 hours a week. I have to add on an additional hour or so to double check all data (i.e. Boys over Flowers does not equal Boys Over Flowers… hint: case matters) but after the source data has been prepped and massaged, it only takes a half hour or so to produce the four charts.

Yes, it’s all about the quality of the source data. (think of it as reverse GIGO.) I’ve had a lot of time to tweak all the fiddly little bits; I’ve taught my spreadsheets well. If the data is ready to go I can post within the hour.

In the past I’ve used any time savings I’ve scraped toward finding additional input. Now that the process has more or less stabilized we’ll have to see what I do with the extra time.

So, 500. Just how big of a chunk are we looking at?
According to B&N, there are 5,888 manga titles
According to Amazon, there are 15,190 manga titles, but they include things like japanese originals as imports, spanish translations, library-edition hardcovers, used books, stupid Disney tie-ins, random Christopher Hart titles, Indiana Jones, and My Favourite: Strangers in Paradise, vol 3 en español.
Borders clocks in with 3,804; Books-a-Million with 6,519; Chapters with 3,903; Buy.com with 6,917; Deepdiscount.com with at just a shade under 3,500; and Powell’s with 6,331.

It’s interesting to note the breakdown between those at less than 4,000 — and those over 6,000.

Actually, 6,000 is the number I pull out of [*ahem*] thin air, though I know that includes a number of titles (Oh my Goddess, Uzumaki, Vagabond, Cardcaptor Sakura) that were reprinted as ‘2nd edition’ titles subsequent to their first release, and probably a fair number of titles that while not technically out of print just aren’t going to be generally available.

A top 500 is one-twelveth or 8.33% of the total — or as much as 12.5% if you subscribe to the there-are-fewer-manga-than-we-think school of thought.

And of course there are more titles being released every week.

What’s with all the volumes of [insert Ecchi-Omnimanga-Robot-et-al.]; I hate that crap. Why aren’t you looking at good manga?
Oh, the tyranny of numbers.

I know the top ten occassionally looks like a Viz wasteland with few (if any) oases of good manga, but then again the Viz titles aren’t all bad (and they certainly sell well) and this isn’t an opinion column or a top ten recommendation list.

These are sales numbers.

They’re comparative rankings, actually, since (much to my regret) no one is feeding me actual sales figures (…yet) but even with that caveat, the comparative rankings, um, compare how individual manga volumes [wait for it…] rank on numerous online sales sites. So no matter what your beef may be with Ecchi Omnimanga Robot and its ilk, if they show up in the top 10 of my source charts, then they’re outselling other, ‘better’ manga in the marketplace.

The most you can do (besides complain on some random dude’s website) is buy two or three copies of everything you like.

Assuming you’re buying it at all… do you perhaps subscribe to the internet ‘truth’ that content demands to be free?

I sense some snark in that last response. Are you trying to say fansubbing is wrong?
Yes, it’s wrong.

That said, I need to buy another terabyte drive in the near future.

This is a complex issue (and so, I guess I’m blogging about fansubs next week…) and while one could defend it in numerous ways, piracy — no matter how convenient — is still piracy, and this is a much different world from the 80s and the days of nth generation VHS tapes passed via snail mail between True Fans who were sure (back in the day) that there was no way Japanese TV shows would ever be available generally to the North American viewing public, let alone the really weird stuff like harem shows or anime based on visual novels.

And time marches on and proves us all to be fools.
(and did I just commit to writing another research paper for the blog? [*sigh*] I should never have mentioned it.)

What’s Next?
More of the same, for now.

I also plan to resume a weekly posting of new manga. After all, I’ve developed a system to track 1200 titles a week; I think I can use that to help me process the new releases each week.

If you have your own [real] questions, you should ask. I’m writing a commentary post each week and (as this week may or may not demonstrate) who knows when I’ll run out of topics…

Do you really like Angelic Layer that much?

While the 5 vol manga is, frankly, a bit crude (I guess Clamp couldn’t afford a QC department back then) the characters and concepts were laid out in their basic form, and then were expanded on and transformed when the title made the jump to the 26 ep anime.

Yes, I like the Angelic Layer anime bunches. I’ve posted on that before (methinks, on the other blog) but I’m not even going to bother with a link because rather than research past reviews for your benefit, I’m just going to watch it again. The only question is whether to watch it with the original dialog, or with ADV’s rather fine dub. Decisions, decisions.

For those of you who haven’t read the Charts FAQ, my only vague, non-guaranteed guideline (no promises) is having the charts up by 8am Monday Morning.

–I’m all kinds of early this week. This aberration is not indicative of a new posting schedule, or even of an early post this week: The numbers happened to be ready, so I posted them

…but hell I have 5 more beers on ice, way more unwatched anime DVDs than one person should legally be allowed, (not to mention downloads), (I said don’t mention the downloads), a couple of Hirameki computer programs (and two of their interactive DVDs) — all recently purchased since the company went down in January, as I figured it was get them now or forever wonder what might have been missed — and on top of all that I’ve a stack of manga taller that I am (no hyperbole) so yeah the numbers are up but I’m taking the rest of the night/morning/afternoon off.

and sleep. some sleep may be involved as well.

So. Commentary on the manga rankings to follow Sunday evening, if you’re lucky, and if you’re really lucky I’ll muster up a post on the new manga releases for Monday morning. I guarantee nothing. And I’ve an itch to marathon Angelic Layer again, so there’s 13 hours off the top…

Sources
Online Bookstores:
Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders (beta), Chapters of Canada, and Amazon’s Manga sales by Category
Other Sales Charts:
Amazon Hourly Bestsellers, Buy.com, Deepdiscount.com, Fye, Powell’s, Tower, and Virgin

##

last week’s rankings
About the Charts
Weekly Analysis and Commentary Posts

##

Consolidated Online Sales Rankings
For the Week Ending 27 April 2008
Your Executive Summary and Index:

Manga Top 500

1. ↑1 (2) : Death Note 1 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Oct 2005 [611.5] ::
2. ↑1 (3) : Death Note 2 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Nov 2005 [604.1] ::
3. ↓-2 (1) : Naruto 28 - Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2008 [595.1] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Death Note 3 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jan 2006 [586.1] ::
5. ↑3 (8) : Vampire Knight 3 - Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2007 [575.9] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Death Note 4 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Mar 2006 [568] ::
7. ↑8 (15) : Vampire Knight 1 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2007 [558.9] ::
8. ↓-2 (6) : Death Note 6 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jul 2006 [543.7] ::
9. ↑2 (11) : Vampire Knight 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, May 2007 [543.1] ::
10. ↑2 (12) : Death Note 8 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Nov 2006 [543] ::

[more]

Manga Top 50 Series

1. ↑1 (2) : Death Note - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Oct 2005 [1255.69] ::
2. ↓-1 (1) : Naruto - Viz Shonen Jump, Jul 2003 [1202.82] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Bleach - Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2004 [937.9] ::
4. ↑1 (5) : Vampire Knight - Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2007 [726.92] ::
5. ↓-1 (4) : Fruits Basket - Tokyopop, Feb 2004 [666.05] ::
6. ↔0 (6) : Fullmetal Alchemist - Viz, Apr 2005 [453.81] ::
7. ↔0 (7) : Ouran High School Host Club - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2005 [422.71] ::
8. ↑8 (16) : Dark Hunger — Feehan, Zid - Berkley, Oct 2007 [339.6] ::
9. ↑9 (18) : Gentlemen’s Alliance† - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2007 [288.88] ::
10. ↑10 (20) : Millennium Snow - Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2007 [283.3] ::

[more]
[tally of books and series by publisher]

Manga Midlist 500
What’s the Midlist?

1. (39) : Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories vols 1-2 box set - Tokyopop, Oct 2007 [368.4] ::
2. (40) : Hana-Kimi 23 - Viz, Apr 2008 [351.7] ::
3. (42) : Fullmetal Alchemist 16 - Viz, Mar 2008 [348.5] ::
4. (45) : Berserk 22 - Dark Horse, Apr 2008 [344.6] ::
5. (46) : Dark Hunger — Feehan, Zid - Berkley, Oct 2007 [339.6] ::
6. (54) : Pokemon Best of Pokemon Adventures Red - Vizkids, Oct 2006 [320.8] ::
7. (56) : Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - Viz, Jun 2005 [319] ::
8. (59) : Ouran High School Host Club 1 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2005 [311.5] ::
9. (62) : Red River 21 - Viz, Apr 2008 [303.8] ::
10. (64) : Ouran High School Host Club 5 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2006 [301.3] ::
11. (65) : Warriors 3 - HC/Tokyopop, Apr 2008 [299.3] ::
12. (66) : Tsubasa 16 - Del Rey, Feb 2008 [295.5] ::
13. (67) : Ouran High School Host Club 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2005 [293.9] ::
14. (68) : Pokemon Best of Pokemon Adventures Yellow - Vizkids, Dec 2006 [293.8] ::
15. (69) : Warriors 2 - HC/Tokyopop, Dec 2007 [291.9] ::
16. (71) : Negima! 17 - Del Rey, Mar 2008 [289.4] ::
17. (73) : Warriors 1 - HC/Tokyopop, Apr 2007 [284.5] ::
18. (80) : Inuyasha 33 - Viz, Apr 2008 [268] ::
19. (82) : Ouran High School Host Club 10 - Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2008 [264.6] ::
20. (83) : Gentlemen’s Alliance† 5 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2008 [263.6] ::
21. (84) : Millennium Snow 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2007 [262.7] ::
22. (85) : Pretty Face 5 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Apr 2008 [261.7] ::
23. (86) : xxxHolic 11 - Del Rey, Mar 2008 [258.4] ::
24. (91) : Kingdom Hearts vols 1-4 box set - Tokyopop, Oct 2006 [255] ::
25. (94) : Fullmetal Alchemist 15 - Viz, Dec 2007 [253.2] ::

[more]

##

Complete Charts Follow:

Read more »

[commentary and actual analysis (oooh, shiny) on this week’s sales rankings]

I know you folks don’t bother to read comments, or any of my posts for that matter unless a kind friend of the blog happens to post a link, so I’ll take it as a given that you missed the discussion & commentary on last Monday’s article “Soliciting Feedback.” As might be guessed from the title, I was looking for a few opinions on how the rankings looked to my intended audience, and if any changes in format were needed or wanted in the name of clarity.

As predicted, I had next to no response. One of my two respondents mentioned that a “a single, long list” might be best, and while I could transition to a Manga 1000 and screw the derivative charts, I actually really like the derivative charts. (In fact the whole mess — two weeks of data entry, the spreadsheet, the top 500 & series rankings — might be described as the necessary-but-disposable-math to the get to the Midlist 500.) In this case I decided to interpret the request as a call to move all the charts into a single, very long post — and also make it that much easier for other bloggers to link to.

If one really wanted to, one could still separately link to The Manga Top 500, the Top 50 Series, the Publisher’s Scorecard, and the Midlist 500, because I planned ahead and managed to remember/research enough HTML to keep that functionality, but as a blogger I know you’re all a lazy, self-centered lot and it’s almost asking too much to get the one link each week. Well, there ya go: I almost broke WordPress with it but yeah, it’ll fit in one post.

At the top of said post I’ve inserted a summary — the clips you’ll see above the fold if you were just browsing past the article on the Comicsnob main page. I don’t know if this strikes the proper balance between casual readers and the data-mining manga-freaks, but that was at least part of my intention in designing the new post format.

##

So let’s go back to Monday — some good stuff there. Speaking of the guy who responded to my formatting questions, Glenn Kardy took me at my word and asked an open-ended question about some of my results. Since it is not only of interest in and of itself but also points up some of the problems with and limitations of my methods, I thought I’d bump this to the main page for everyone to read:

Comment from Glenn Kardy
: April 15, 2008, 4:17 am

We’ve been watching your lists with great interest here at Japanime/Manga University. We think what you’re attempting is wonderful, and hope you will continue your efforts.

Answer to question #1: We feel a single, long list is always the easiest to digest.

Answer to question #2: An executive summary would be great — the more info and feedback, the better!

And, #3 (our open-essay question): We wonder why our imprint’s two most popular titles — “Manga Moods” and “The Manga Cookbook” — fail to make your lists, while our “Kanji de Manga Vol. 1″ is on the list week after week.

“Manga Moods” and “The Manga Cookbook” outsell “Kanji de Manga” by about 3-to-1 (according to the data we receive from our distributor and Nielsen Bookscan). And “Kana de Manga” (one of 7 volumes in the “Kanji de Manga” series) sells just as many copies as “Kanji de Manga Vol. 1″ but also never shows up on your lists.

Just curious — and hopeful!

Thanks,

Glenn

My Response

“Glenn:

“The persistence of Kanji de Manga vol 1 on the charts has an easy explanation, one I almost don’t have to reference the spreadsheet for: bn.com

“At bn.com, Kanji 1 comes in at ~#100 in their manga category this past week - a mark that it hits fairly consistently week-to-week, in fact. It’s number 103 this morning [edit: #102 at this very moment]::
http://browse.barnesandnoble.com/browse/nav.asp?No=100&N=989444&Ne=989444&visgrp=fiction

“I usually only look at the first 300 titles from any source but last week I just happened to load up a top 500 manga from B&N on April the 10th (I *might* be looking to expand my source data) and the Kanji de Manga box set was #338 in the manga category at that time.

“As one of my actual-bookstore-sources, and a big one at that, bn.com is checked three times a week, so the solid perfomance of Kanji 1 week to week has a cumulative effect that may be distorting, when compared to actual sales numbers.

“Here are some sales rankings (compared to all books, not just manga) to put things in perspective:

Kanji de Manga 1
B&N: 17,961
Amazon: 235,461
-

Kana de Manga
B&N: 21,906
Amazon: 162,519
-

Kanji de Manga vols 1-3 box
B&N: 55,979
Amazon: 371,204
-

Manga Cookbook
B&N: 75,850
Amazon: 36,491
-

Manga Moods
B&N: 303,583
Amazon: 253,940
-

Manga Sisters
B&N: 367,916
Amazon: 567,703
-

50 Things We Love about Japan
B&N: 746,418
Amazon: 761,723
-

“(similar data isn’t available from borders.com yet)

“It looks like Kana de Manga might/should show up occasionally in my Manga 500 as well, except…
at bn.com, Kana de Manga isn’t in any category at all — Manga or otherwise. Additionally, Manga Moods appears to be classed as just a Graphic Novel, not specifically manga (w/ art technique as a secondary). If B&N has a mechanism for publishers to request/submit corrections to title information, you might persue that.

“By sales rank, Kana de manga should be doing about as well as Kanji 1, but since it’s in the wrong category it never comes up on my b&n source charts.

“Japanime titles also occasionally appear on source charts from Chapters and Buy.com, but not other sales sites.

“Additionally, it looks like the Cookbook is doing much better at Amazon than at B&N. Since Amazon uses some weird keyword thing as opposed to actual categories there shouldn’t be a classification problem like that discovered for the Kana de Manga title. (The Manga Cookbook *is* classed as manga at bn.com, though, so no worries there)

“Here are my rankings from Sunday

252. ↓-1 (251) : Kanji de Manga 1 - Japanime’s Manga University, Jan 2005 [121.5] ::
568. ↑3 (571) : Manga Cookbook - Japanime’s Manga University, Aug 2007 [27.8] ::
660. ↑20 (680) : Manga Moods - Japanime’s Manga University, Dec 1899 [19.8] ::
659. ↓-168 (491) : Kanji de Manga vols 1-3 box set - Japanime’s Manga University, Nov 2006 [19.9] ::
1270. ↑new (0) : Kanji de Manga Kana de Manga Special Edition: Japanese Sound FX - , Dec 1899 [0.6] ::

“The Manga Cookbook misses the main chart but does rank #456 on the Midlist 500.

“final note: I don’t have Neilsen BookScan numbers, and likely never will. I rely on sales ‘charts’ (comparitive rankings) to try and estimate how manga titles are doing compared to each other. And my source data is rankings based on online sales — just a fraction of the total sales, and one that may vary as a percentage of total sales by quite a bit, from publisher to publisher and even from title to title. Another source of errors are the sites themselves: ‘bestseller’ rankings may reflect historical performance in addition to actual current sales — I don’t know how long of a time frame each site considers, and the bestseller ‘formula’ used will also be different for each site.

“To Answer Your Question:

“Manga Moods and the Manga Cookbook are selling much better in stores than they appear to be doing on-line. It’s a tough problem to have, I know, but I’m sure you guys will cope somehow.

“Though… The Manga Cookbook *might* just be ready for a push, up and over that curb, if you can think of a way to promote it.”

##

Aside from recycling previously written material to bulk up the commentary post (…what?) (and I would have been fine leaving the entirety of the post at that for this week) we’ve another point which I should probably cover, with the concommitant opportunity to look more deeply into the numbers and see what comes up:

Vampire Knight (at only 4 volumes) this week unseated Fullmetal Alchemist (16 manga, 5 novels, a few art books — not to mention the anime) to take our #5 series slot. Part of the reason is of course the extra weight I give to the top-ranked volume of each series when calculating the series score (#8 Vampire Knight vol 3 vs. #38 Fullmetal Alchemist vol 16) but there is also the fact that despite being outnumbered, the four volumes of Hino’s latest work are all placing in the top 25.

If only someone were tracking manga sales week to week so we could all see…

Yes, of course I’m being facetious.

Vampire Knight 4 - Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2008
3/23 265. ↑31 (296) [106.5]
3/30 231. ↑34 (265) [136.3]
4/6 95. ↑136 (231) [253.5]
4/13 36. ↑59 (95) [387]
4/20 25. ↑11 (36) [411.5]
-

Vampire Knight 3 - Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2007
3/23 55. ↓-9 (46) [320.2]
3/30 47. ↑8 (55) [355.6]
4/6 20. ↑27 (47) [445]
4/13 15. ↑5 (20) [489.7]
4/20 8. ↑7 (15) [529.1]
-

Vampire Knight 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, May 2007
3/23 24. ↓-3 (21) [426.7]
3/30 21. ↑3 (24) [445.3]
4/6 14. ↑7 (21) [483.1]
4/13 12. ↑2 (14) [507.7]
4/20 11. ↑1 (12) [518.2]
-

Vampire Knight 1 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2007
3/23 31. ↑1 (32) [402]
3/30 23. ↑8 (31) [437.4]
4/6 17. ↑6 (23) [466.3]
4/13 18. ↓-1 (17) [465.1]
4/20 15. ↑3 (18) [502.1]
-

##

Fullmetal Alchemist 16 - Viz, Mar 2008
3/23 103. ↑133 (236) [252.5]
3/30 42. ↑61 (103) [377.6]
4/6 38. ↑4 (42) [389.6]
4/13 41. ↓-3 (38) [380.9]
4/20 38. ↑3 (41) [370.1]
-

Fullmetal Alchemist 15 - Viz, Dec 2007
3/23 57. ↑18 (75) [316.5]
3/30 50. ↑7 (57) [347.7]
4/6 42. ↑8 (50) [380.5]
4/13 47. ↓-5 (42) [349.3]
4/20 95. ↓-48 (47) [256.9]
-

Fullmetal Alchemist 14 - Viz, Aug 2007
3/23 86. ↑7 (93) [272.4]
3/30 85. ↑1 (86) [270.2]
4/6 91. ↓-6 (85) [256.3]
4/13 95. ↓-4 (91) [251.7]
4/20 91. ↑4 (95) [260.5]
-

Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - Viz, Jun 2005
3/23 78. ↑7 (85) [281.5]
3/30 79. ↓-1 (78) [281.4]
4/6 78. ↑1 (79) [280.2]
4/13 70. ↑8 (78) [296.5]
4/20 62. ↑8 (70) [310]
-

Fullmetal Alchemist 1 - Viz, Apr 2005
3/23 131. ↑26 (157) [215.6]
3/30 116. ↑15 (131) [239.4]
4/6 127. ↓-11 (116) [217.9]
4/13 165. ↓-38 (127) [182.2]
4/20 162. ↑3 (165) [182.5]
-

##

FMA is holding it’s own, particularly the new volume (which is doing quite well, all things considered) but in comparison, Vampire Knight is surging, blowing into the top 25 as actual sales catch up with preorders of vol 4 (gaining 200+ ranks in a matter of weeks) and other online shoppers fill in with the previous volumes.

There may be a certain give and take over the next few months, as new releases on either side continue to make big splashes and also affect the natural ebb and flow of backlist sales — Vampire Knight has one big advantage though: it’s currently serialized in Shojo Beat. Can anyone tell me if FMA is still in the monthly Shonen Jumps? I want to say no, but don’t read the rag so I could be wrong.

That and goth/emo teens really seem to like the vampires, any vampires. Been true for decades now, can’t say why. (I can guess… I might make some really good guesses, but since I don’t share the fascination I can’t say for sure)

This little revolution doesn’t mean a whole lot, necessarily, but I bring it up for two reasons: First, my Midlist 500 uses (or I should say, excludes) the top 5 series, so this changes the whole complexion of one of my charts
& Second, I wanted to demonstrate what the numbers could be used for, and why.

Sure, I just throw ‘em out there, hundreds every week. With over 1200 volumes coming up in what I’ll conservatively say are 200 individual series and about that many one-shots, there’s no way I could do this kind of analysis for every title, or series, or publisher.

But I could,

and so can you.

Have fun with the numbers, folks. That’s what they’re there for.

##

One more update for you, Glenn, to bring your books up-to-date with the new list:

251. ↑1 (252) : Kanji de Manga 1 - Japanime’s Manga University, Jan 2005 [120.9] ::
470. ↑190 (660) : Manga Moods - Japanime’s Manga University, Mar 2006 [40.5] ::
733. ↓-74 (659) : Kanji de Manga vols 1-3 box set - Japanime’s Manga University, Nov 2006 [15] ::
793. ↓-225 (568) : Manga Cookbook - Japanime’s Manga University, Aug 2007 [11.2] ::
1208. ↑62 (1270) : Kanji de Manga Kana de Manga Special Edition: Japanese Sound FX - Japanime’s Manga University, April 2007 [0.6] ::

Manga Moods moves up into the top 500 this week. What do you know, Bookscan’s numbers might even be right.

I could write an entirely inappropriate entry–with crude analogies–about how the length and girth (and anchor tags, and self-referential linking) of the recently posted consolidated sales rankings article was almost too much for WordPress to handle, but somehow I managed to get the ‘one big post’ off without too much wrangling, and WordPress only complained about 15 or 20 times before admitting that yes, my post would fit in the way that I wanted it to, I was the man and this type of long, beefy post was not only what it wanted but indeed the sort of thing it dreamed about on cold lonely nights.

But I’m sure I could make some sort of comment without resorting to that.

Commentary and analysis on the rankings to follow in a few hours.

Consolidated Online Sales Rankings
For the Week Ending 20 April 2008

##

Sources
Online Bookstores:
Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders (beta), Chapters of Canada, and Amazon’s Manga sales by Category
Other Sales Charts:
Amazon Hourly Bestsellers, Buy.com, Deepdiscount.com, Fye, Powell’s, Tower, and Virgin

##

last week’s rankings
About the Charts
Weekly Analysis and Commentary Post

##

Your Executive Summary and Index:

Manga Top 500

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 28 - Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2008 [623.5] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Death Note 1 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Oct 2005 [604.3] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Death Note 2 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Nov 2005 [600.1] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Death Note 3 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jan 2006 [590.1] ::
5. ↔0 (5) : Death Note 4 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Mar 2006 [573.1] ::
6. ↑1 (7) : Death Note 6 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jul 2006 [551] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Death Note 5 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Apr 2006 [546.3] ::
8. ↑7 (15) : Vampire Knight 3 - Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2007 [529.1] ::
9. ↔0 (9) : Death Note 10 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Mar 2007 [528.7] ::
10. ↑1 (11) : Fruits Basket 19 - Tokyopop, Mar 2008 [522] ::

[more]

Manga Top 50 Series

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto - Viz Shonen Jump, Jul 2003 [1749.2] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Death Note - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Oct 2005 [1256.29] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Bleach - Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2004 [1069.77] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Fruits Basket - Tokyopop, Feb 2004 [957.97] ::
5. ↑1 (6) : Vampire Knight - Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2007 [672.28] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Fullmetal Alchemist - Viz, Apr 2005 [666.01] ::
7. ↔0 (7) : Ouran High School Host Club - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2005 [520.39] ::
8. ↔0 (8) : Tsubasa - Del Rey, Apr 2004 [419.97] ::
9. ↑1 (10) : Kingdom Hearts - Tokyopop, Oct 2005 [417.5] ::
10. ↓-1 (9) : Pokemon - Vizkids, Nov 1999 [406.37] ::

[more]
[tally of books and series by publisher]

Manga Midlist 500
What’s the Midlist?

1. (38) : Fullmetal Alchemist 16 - Viz, Mar 2008 [370.1] ::
2. (46) : Pokemon Best of Pokemon Adventures Red - Vizkids, Oct 2006 [348] ::
3. (48) : Dark Hunger — Feehan, Zid - Berkley, Oct 2007 [337.9] ::
4. (49) : Tsubasa 16 - Del Rey, Feb 2008 [336.6] ::
5. (50) : Pokemon Best of Pokemon Adventures Yellow - Vizkids, Dec 2006 [329.4] ::
6. (53) : Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories vols 1-2 box set - Tokyopop, Oct 2007 [327.6] ::
7. (54) : Berserk 22 - Dark Horse, Apr 2008 [320.9] ::
8. (59) : Kingdom Hearts vols 1-4 box set - Tokyopop, Oct 2006 [312.7] ::
9. (61) : Hana-Kimi 23 - Viz, Apr 2008 [310.1] ::
10. (62) : Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - Viz, Jun 2005 [310] ::
11. (67) : Ouran High School Host Club 1 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2005 [303.7] ::
12. (69) : Negima! 17 - Del Rey, Mar 2008 [297.2] ::
13. (70) : Warriors 3 - HC/Tokyopop, Apr 2008 [296.7] ::
14. (72) : Ouran High School Host Club 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2005 [294.3] ::
15. (76) : Ouran High School Host Club 5 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2006 [291.1] ::
16. (77) : Red River 21 - Viz, Apr 2008 [290.9] ::
17. (78) : Warriors 2 - HC/Tokyopop, Dec 2007 [289.1] ::
18. (79) : Warriors 1 - HC/Tokyopop, Apr 2007 [277.2] ::
19. (80) : Ouran High School Host Club 10 - Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2008 [272.7] ::
20. (81) : Millennium Snow 2 - Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2007 [271.4] ::
21. (84) : Ouran High School Host Club 6 - Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2006 [269.7] ::
22. (86) : Pretty Face 5 - Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Apr 2008 [263.1] ::
23. (88) : xxxHolic 11 - Del Rey, Mar 2008 [262.4] ::
24. (89) : Yurara 4 - Viz Shojo Beat, Mar 2008 [262.2] ::
25. (91) : Fullmetal Alchemist 14 - Viz, Aug 2007 [260.5] ::

[more]

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Complete Charts Follow:

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