Personally, I think there's one oft-overlooked answer: quantity. MOST manga sucks donkeys. If you can read Japanese, you probably agree. Pick a random comic book up at a book store and try to read through it without crying in boredom. Fortunately for foreign audiences, generally the REALLY bad stuff gets weeded out and isn't released overseas. Unfortunately, some of the really good stuff gets weeded out too, but that's another story.
However, there are a MASSIVE number of manga that come out daily. Unbelievable quantities. It is inevitable, then, that in a continuous tidal wave like that, good stuff comes out too. If 0.1 percent of manga are worth reading, and there are 100,000 manga released every week, that means 100 good manga a week.
Of course, that's not the only reason. Aiming at multiple markets, variety of subject matter, cheapness, "ownership" by creator, etc. etc. etc. are massively important, but have been commented on by pretty much all the other posters anyway.
But, then again, the stuff that sells well abroad still tends to favor Big Titted Superhero Chicks with Robots (Masamune Shiro tripe) instead of the really cool stuff (Kabachitare, a dramatic story about judicial scriveners).
Personally, I think there's one oft-overlooked answer: quantity. MOST manga sucks donkeys. If you can read Japanese, you probably agree. Pick a random comic book up at a book store and try to read through it without crying in boredom. Fortunately for foreign audiences, generally the REALLY bad stuff gets weeded out and isn't released overseas. Unfortunately, some of the really good stuff gets weeded out too, but that's another story.
However, there are a MASSIVE number of manga that come out daily. Unbelievable quantities. It is inevitable, then, that in a continuous tidal wave like that, good stuff comes out too. If 0.1 percent of manga are worth reading, and there are 100,000 manga released every week, that means 100 good manga a week.
Of course, that's not the only reason. Aiming at multiple markets, variety of subject matter, cheapness, "ownership" by creator, etc. etc. etc. are massively important, but have been commented on by pretty much all the other posters anyway.
But, then again, the stuff that sells well abroad still tends to favor Big Titted Superhero Chicks with Robots (Masamune Shiro tripe) instead of the really cool stuff (Kabachitare, a dramatic story about judicial scriveners).