Something that has always fascinated me is how people find out about different manga series. Considering the relative lack of marketing that manga receives in comparison to films, TV shows, video games or even anime, it makes sense that people would have to find other sources to discover new manga series.
This thought process began when I was thinking about Akira Toriyama. Undoubtedly one of the most successful mangaka of all time, having penned the highly successful Dragon Ball series, it’s surprising how few people are aware of his second most popular series, Dr Slump. If one of the best selling mangaka ever has a series that is, at least comparatively, unknown in the west, does that mean that people do not follow mangaka from series to series as they do other forms of media?
I cannot answer this question. How would one gather data on this? All I can say is that I, as a fan, like to collect multiple titles from authors I like such as Osamu Tezuka, Milk Morinaga, Clamp etc. This also applies to many friends I know who particularly follow and collect the works of Tsutomu Nihei, Takehiko Inoue, Inio Asano etc.
Beyond following mangaka, I know that anime adaptations can play a key role in a manga becoming a success in the west. A good example is Attack on Titan whose first volume was released in English on 19th of June, 2012. After the release of the anime on 7th of April, 2013, sales of the manga began to skyrocket. By the 2nd of January, 2015, Attack on Titan volume 1 had remained 81 weeks on the New York Times Manga Best Seller list. Soon after, it was revealed that volume 1 of Attack on Titan had sold 2.5 million copies in English. This is an extreme example of this but there can be no doubt that anime adaptations act as a strong form of marketing for manga in the west.
In this day and age though, word of mouth through physical conversations and social media also play a strong role in the discovery of new manga. Ignoring the fact that I see the vast majority of advertising for manga through Twitter (by following the various publishers of manga), I cannot tell you how many times I have become interested in a series through seeing a video on YouTube discussing it, seeing a friend talk about it on Twitter or seeing it in a friend’s collection.
The last method I can recall (I’m sure I’m in the minority here) is seeing titles mentioned in the manga I read. For instance, I can remember first learning of Lupin the 3rd (which I’m a big fan of as mentioned in “Discotek Media Spotlight“) through reading Azumanga Daioh. In it, they mentioned the character of Fujiko Mine. After some research, I quickly discovered that they were referencing a character from Lupin the 3rd. The way they referenced her, with an expectation that you would know who she was, intrigued me and led to my enthusiasm for the Lupin the 3rd franchise.
Another example of this includes a mention by Sachiko Azuma, the mother from With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child, that her favourite manga is a series called Tomorrow’s Joe (a series that has yet to be translated which means that I have not read it despite my interest). I was also intrigued by the continuous mention of the legendary status of Rose of Versailles with many characters throughout various series mentioning it as one of the great classics of manga. I know that this particular method is probably tiny in the grand scheme of things but I found it worth mentioning considering how many series I have discovered through this method.
All in all, while I believe that manga publishers can improve their level of marketing (social media and the back of manga being the only examples of marketing from them that I can think of), I find the various ways that fans have of discovering new manga fascinating. If you have discovered manga through a method that I have not mentioned, feel free to tell me about it.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use bookdepository.com for all of your needs!