The Decline of Manga

The decline of manga is nigh. Nay, it is already here.

Manga, in America, refers to Japanese-style comic books. They read from right to left, and are typically a bit more adult than American comic books in terms of content. More violence, swearing, etc.

As I claimed in a blog post from a few months ago on another blog I rarely update, the "Golden Age of Manga" is over. Manga used to sell like hotcakes, flying off the shelves at incredible speed.

It seems obvious to me that the reason manga no longer sells as it once did is that the quality has dropped far below what it once was. Naruto and Bleach, once two of the most popular manga series in America, feel like zombies that should have ended long ago. Instead, companies demand that they continue on, even though ideas are being rehashed, just to keep the cash cow mooing. Sadly, the author and artist of Bleach, Tite Kubo, had a far better series that he created before Bleach, which was put on hold years ago.

After all, does any reader want to spend over $400 on a full series that seems like it will never have a conclusion?

Worse, new series have nothing new to offer. They are old, stale ideas that someone has tried to paint a new sheen on. The sheen does not last. I have not bought a volume of manga in a year. I used to spend up to $50 a month on the comics. Now, that money from my now-larger paycheck goes to food or the occasional video game. I'm now focusing on just filling old series that I never had the chance to finish. Sure, I'll probably have to turn to the Amazon Marketplace, and hope that someone has the old copies I am looking for.

It's entirely possible that my perception on the great decline is just a matter of taste, and the old manga of the late 1990s and early 2000s were more my style. And yet, these are known in manga-lover circles as classics, where none of the newer series have gained such acclaim. Maybe my tastes have radically changed since I started reading manga in high school.

Even new series by authors of classics are falling flat. Tokko, by Tohru Fujisawa, was nowhere near as satisfying as his earlier series, Great Teacher Onizuka. Six years ago, I remember standing in Borders, eyes wide, admiring the cover art of what I knew to be the last volume of GTO. The conclusion of the manga was amazing, as good as any big-budget Hollywood film in comic form. Tokko was the Japanese trope of "people with special powers fight demons." It was yawn-worthy.

It also doesn't help that Borders just closed all its doors forever. The number of shelves still carrying manga have greatly decreased. There's still Barnes and Noble, but they've never had quite the same selection as Borders. Comic book shops tend to focus more on American comics, if they carry any manga at all.

Gone are the manga that could only be described as "epic." Gone are the shelves that allowed perusal to find the hidden gem that might just be there, but in decreasing frequency. Gone is the Golden Age of Manga.