Who actually actively buys Manga?

[MooPoint]

Specifically Manga (not Manhua/Manwha/etc). Regardless of if you know Japanese or not, do you actively buy Manga? Electronic and/or physical - it doesn't matter. I know that some people actually buy English versions of (serialized) manga, but I hear that the authors make a lot less per volume overseas than in Japan. Moreover, a lot of manga here aren't serialized, so...

Additionally, if you don't buy Manga but have the extra money and ability to... why don't you? Here are a few reasons I've thought of for why people might not buy Manga:

- I don't understand the language, so no point.
- I don't know if it'll get axed or not.
- I don't know if I'll like the direction it might go in (it might get worse in the next volume/have a bad ending [e.g. Prison School]/etc).
- I can just read it all here for free, so why spend money on it?
- I'm like a "customer" in a bookstore who never buys.
- I do my part by spreading the word.
- I feel like buying a book I'll read/look at once (maybe twice) is a waste of money.
- My money is better used for other things.
- All the Manga I would want to buy would blow a hole in my wallet. Best to avoid that scenario.
- I donated to the scanlator (to be fair, scanlators sometimes do need to purchase the manga/magazines... but I mean, they only need 1 [~per series]...)
- I used to buy Manga, but not anymore (because reasons)
- Manga need to be stored, and I don't have the space to continuously make room for it.
- I don't want to pay the foreign transaction fee (credit card doesn't waive it).
- The cost of shipping Manga to my country is too high to make it worth it.

Personally I actively buy digital Manga in an effort to hope that the series will live with 1 more number to their statistics. I sometimes buy the physical version of certain Manga that I think I really enjoy even though the shipping cost incurred is high

 

[Holo]

I buy manga whenever I visit Japan, even though I can only partially read it. I treat it like buying figurines - they look pretty on my shelf.

 

[MCX01]

Usually buy volumes online... Either from Amazon or other sources. Where I live the manga community is very scarce at the moment so getting mangas in paper form is rather hard.

 

[G-Cam]

Once light novels began to get translated, my leisure funds began to get directed toward them and my manga purchases have considerably declined (though my consumption has not). I actually spend more now than I used to but far less on manga. If I have a finite amount of money to spend, I'd rather spend it on 3 hours of entertainment that is not available in comparable quality online for free (light novels) than on 20 minutes of entertainment that I can obtain in approximately equal quality (and with less adapted translations) online for free (manga). I don't get too bogged down in the ethics or long term viability of it all...

I do buy Japanese manga fairly regularly though (for the exact same reason as Holo...)

 

[tadrow]

I buy from BookWalker frequently, both licensed series and JP language (not counting free volumes or free trials), a few JP at a time in paper from Kinokuniya, and a few licensed volumes from Barnes & Noble, Powell's or Amazon every few months.

 

[MooPoint]

It's a bit of an uplifting news to know that there are some people who purchase manga on MangaDex. Though, few people use the forums and even fewer would vote, and yet fewer would comment.

Admittedly I only started to buy Manga because I now have the spare income to do so. Moreover, the fact that MangaDex lists links where I can buy the Manga revealed to me that there are sites where I can buy from. However, I have noticed some people who commented stating that they weren't even aware of the said links.

One other thing I learned about recently was that buying the magazine + Manga as it comes out helps a lot to keep it alive, as the initial statistics seem to be more important. Buying it after a few months/years later may not be as helpful, though (especially if the series has already ended/was axed).

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

I don't buy manga.

1. I can't read Japanese
2. My parents are cheapskates and they greatly discourage me from spending money online unecessarily and now their habits are built into my instincts
3. I'm not sure where to buy them online
4. I doubt that I'll go to Japan unless I get into student exchange there or something
5. Even then my pocket money will probably be super thin
6. I'm not the kind of weeb who spends money but rather the one who hoards 10 TB of hentai educational Japanese cartoons across several of my gadgets

 

[DrWhom]

I do like to buy manga because I totally buy into physical media as a thing, not because I believe it's more moral or something (I don't) but because I find it to be more satisfying and things I interact with physically stick with me more. Thing is, manga reading is an insanely expensive hobby if you want buying physical copies to be your main thing, even compared to my other expensive hobbies like retro gaming and record collecting, so I don't really do it as much as I would like to. I want to move toward doing what I do with music, where I pirate everything first then buy physical copies of things I truly love, it's just lower on the priorities list because I read less manga in general and it's something I typically revisit much less than I do music. Still, I buy some and I plan to buy more.

I've considered subscribing to Shounen Jump digitally again like I have in the past to more easily keep up with it as a magazine rather than picking and choosing manga I care about, but I hate using in-browser readers so it doesn't provide all that much for me. I hadn't really considered donating to scanlators but I really should do that at some point.

 

[Le_Dook]

I love physical manga, for me it's part of the experience. But it's so damn pricey! One volume is upwards of 10 quid! That could be like 200+ euro for a whole series! Most of the manga I like just don't have official translations, and I only tend to buy one volume of stuff like Jump manga etc. Give me offica JOJO parts 7 and 8, and I'd buy the entir series for sure

 

[Divercia007]

I buy quite a lot of manga... I've never purchased any digitally, so everything is physical. I've been lucky overtime to find some great deals to get large quantity for cheap, but I also buy a hefty deal of new books... Last week I dropped over $100 on 12 volumes of manga from barnes and noble and that was with a buy two get one free. It's very expensive, but I can't bring myself to read it online. Even series I read online in the past (only two), I'll pick up the physical volume to support.
Mainly, I buy from places like Barnes and Noble, Rightstuf, Ebay, and Amazon. I'm also smart and look through various websites to find the cheapest and compare prices. If it's not a dire want, then I wait and check in at a later time to see if its marked down. If you do that, you can pick up some cheaper ones that are new. Like, Kakegurui on Amazon sometimes goes down to around $10 and lower. That's pretty cheap when compared to its usual price of $15.

 

[Divercia007]

My biggest problem is there are so many manga that I can't read because of not being able to read Kanji. It's something I want to work towards to because there are so many amazing mangas and LN's I've never read. There's always the problem with translations form official sources, since you never know what they pick up. And, surprise, a majority of it is isekai.

 

[Greenfox]

:3 well, they pick up stuff that people want.
If you dont tell them that costumers want something else, they will not change their policys.

And Isekai seem to be a hype atm, like how moe stuff was a few years ago.
So they gun for the "Isekai makes money, people love it!" train.

And yeah, i love "Good" isekai stuff:
-Overlord, Goblin Slayer and a few others (like that lazy cat on the demon king, its just so cute :3).

But alot of isekai are just shitty harem tropes or simple fanservice booklets.
YOu can see when something is shit, if by the first chapter the MC has some hot lady having the hots for him. Slave, Rescued princess or whatever.

xD

Original Isekai like Youji Senkai or stuff like shield bro, is rare.
(in some regards shield bro is really unique~)

And you don't need to learn kanji to enjoy unofficial realsed fan translations.
Find a group that does good stuff and support them, rather then pay someone for doing a shitty job ... slow as hell.
You can pay them to do a medicore job, really fast. xD

-
My budget is about 1000 bucks per year for novels, manga and anime.
So yeah i am buying stuff. Luckily most of that is well or okay translated. But sometimes i buy the 30% higher cost one, just to get the english translations... those are most often better.

 

[Redsaint]

Translated ones yes but usually only like 3-10 a year, I also donate to groups

 

[MooPoint]

I'd definitely be more willing to buy serialized (English) manga if it was like 50-60% of its current pricing model. I mean, for $1000 I can buy around 100 English serialized volumes in USD, but around 200 if I bought raw (Japanese) volumes. So I think buying the original stuff would just naturally contribute more to the authors. Additionally, expressions do get lost in translation, which makes me feels like I'm missing out on something. More recently I've seen some Manga with rhyming, which I don't think any translator has done a great job at localizing simply due to the fact that there are too many nuances/differences in language structure.

I've heard that if a manga/novel gets an Anime, the authors only get a set sum of money (one time payment), but that they do get publicity for people to buy their original medium. I don't know if authors get royalties for merchandise (figures, dolls, etc), but I hope they do. I haven't bought such merchandises though, as collecting dolls/figurines seem less fulfilling to me (in particular) than the actual manga. But perhaps one day when I am better at Japanese I'll also contribute to the novel scene.

 

[leonearmato]

I've been buying paper version of manga for more than ten years. Since I don't know Japanese, I settle for the offical translation available in my country and I approximately buy between 20 and 50 volumes a year, it depends on the publishers.
Of course, I don't buy alla manga I read, otherwise I would be extremely poor and probably sleeping in the landing. I have shelves in the whole house and still several old series canned in the basement :'(
Clearly, not all the house is full of manga, there are also plenty of other comics and books fighting over the limited space.

 

[F838]

@Le_Dook

I can agree with that.

Although it can be sort of pricey, I usually enjoy reading a physical version of a manga opposed to a scans.
Plus the better scan quality in official translations and translated sfx make it better for me imo.

 

[Le_Dook]

@F838 Sometimes though, Viz can take it too far. Bitch Sensi in Ass Class was renamed to Ms.Vitch, totally changing the humour dynamic. Heck, they even made an entirely new ending for the Pokemon black and white manga!

 

[ABCsOfLife]

If I know there's an official translation for it available, I usually buy it.

 

[F838]

@Le_Dook

Oh yeah, definitely. I was reading Dragon Ball/DBZ and couldn't help but notice the obvious censoring in a couple parts of it. Pretty sad that they still do it.

 

[Le_Dook]

@F838 I guess it's really more Localization than Translations. Different sociatal morals in a way. Kinda sad that they likely target kids more than adults