Writing for PWCW, Kai-ming Cha and Ed Chavez cover the Anime Expo and found it a bit lackluster:
Despite all the announcements, there was a slight sense of ennui about the proceedings, given the current flattening of the American manga market. Asako Suzuki of CMX commented that the “energy wasn’t there this year,” but Jim Chadwick said that he enjoys exhibiting at the show because it’s CMX’s chance to shine. “We get overshadowed by DC [at Comic-con],” he said. “Here, we get to pitch our line. This is more our demographic.”
On her own blog, however, Cha is a bit less sanguine about the future of the industry:
Guys, I’m at AX and I’m gonna say it: the future looks bleak.
I’m not sure that manga readers here are really manga readers and I would even go so far as to say that they’re not even comics readers. There’s a love for the medium, but only within the shojo or shonen genre.
They love the anime, and honestly, while I was watching the Le Chevalier D’eon anime, I couldn’t help but thinking “this is cartoons. It’s for kids.”
It’s not just because I read manga and am looking for some semblance of sophistication in my life, but I really do think that manga is more sophisticated than the anime adaptations. But the audience for manga is the anime audience, and they love the anime, but they’re young. And they’re not goign to be loving this when they’re older.
It really looks like this market is going to outgrow manga. That doesn’t mean that manga is some trend that will die, but that it’s going to take a lot longer for the market to mature than we’re anticipating. It’s not going to be within this generation. This generation is going to outgrow it adn it’s the next generation going in that’s going to keep the current market as we know it alive.
I’ve been wondering aloud for awhile now if the current manga and anime fans were going to stick with the medium as they grow older or dump it like so many pogs and Goosebumps books. Cha seems to suggest it will decidely be the latter.
