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Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?
Otaku_0245 writes "I read a really interesting article at slushfactory.com entitled 'Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?' discussing/comparing the comics industries in Japan and the US. It's basically a 3-way conversation including Frederik Schodt (author of 'Dreamland Japan' - one of my favorite books about Japanese pop culture), and very thought-provoking."
And I find it amusing that you didn't seem to read a single part of the article that the original post was based on.
Manga is completely different in artwork, most manga have MUCH deeper storylines and moral issues involved than American comics, and if you ask me, American cartoons just don't compare at all to the Japanese equivalent Anime.
"Manga has nothign to teach American comics."??? Dude, if you ever noticed things like Power Puff Girls, Dexter's Lab, or the more older ones like Tom & Jerry and most of the other stuff on Cartoon Network, they're all aimed for little kids! Now, compare that to Anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghosts In The Shell, etc, which are aimed for a much wider age-range. If Anime, which are based on Manga, has as much difference in target audience, guess what about Manga, with its much wider world.
"American comics have leared the hard lessons first." Either you're blind or the fact that most American comics have "super-heroes" in spandex, or have kiddie non-sense content. Have you ever actually read a manga(even translated ones are fine)? Because it sure looks like you haven't.
It's one thing that most of the main-stream Anime/Manga revolves around the kiddie kinds like Pokemon, and Digimon...(It's mainly due to the companies that choose these kinds of things instead of the better ones) But man, at least try attempting to read about what you're posting on, Caiwyn.
Why do people still buy LP's when CD's are superior in every way?
Why do people insist on using Macs, despite being more expensive, less powerful, and having the last few versions of Windows erase any supposed "usability" advantages?
Why do people gleefully pay $100 / foot for speaker cable?
The same reason people immerse themselves in manga and anime - despite it's shallow plots, insipid characters and terrible artwork. The way it's marketed. The message is "People who read anime are smarter and hipper than everyone else". People who read this stuff (and use Macs, buy LPs, etc) want to see themselves as being part of an elite group. University students are terribly susceptible to this. Why else do you see them flocking to Starbucks when the same coffee is available, for less money, at the gas station across the street? Elitism. Status. To them, it's not just coffee, it's an attempt to become a member of the privileged few.
The key to marketing to university students, entertainment media types ( and any other industry when wisdom known as "common sense" has minimal penetration ) is to overtly claim many supposed technical merits of your product ( don't worry about facts here - they don't matter ), then subtly tell them that people who use your product are smarter, trendier, and darn it, just plain better than everyone else. Jack your prices up three to five times higher than normal, and you're a millionare. If you can throw in a dash of sex appeal, you're a billionare.