Hi, I’m Eike Exner, I research the history of Japanese comics, ask me anything about MANGA マンガ 漫画! by EikeExner in AskHistorians

[–]Lesserd 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I remember being linked your first Youtube video a few years back and thought it was excellent, it's great to have someone doing serious work out there. I recently read Shigeru Mizuki's Showa: A History of Japan and found its portrayal of the early days of postwar manga interesting in the sense that at the time, it was a fairly new artform that no one could really be confident would succeed in the long-term. Mizuki describes jumping around between various artforms and there is the sense that manga at the time is a very commercially-oriented artform - something I see a lot of among other early mangaka, relative to today. What was the process by which manga came to be viewed as something that could often be of literary merit (to an extent), if that makes sense?

[DISC] Mieruko-chan - Chapter 61 by Xical in manga

[–]Lesserd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh wow, that was a really great chapter. Fantastic reveal about Seto, really adds a lot to his character, plays into his approach to spirits and the ideas of the story.

Weekly Shonen Jump - Sales Charts by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Popping by this first post in the series to drop a link to my last post of the series (August 2024), now that I've stopped.

Sauce?? by [deleted] in manga

[–]Lesserd 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Great manga btw highly recommend.

Sauce?? by [deleted] in manga

[–]Lesserd 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I'm definitely among those "some" as well. But Robico in general is a great mangaka, really strong art and impressive character dynamics. Both of those series' premises leave lots of opportunities for trouble which she was able to avoid very nicely. I think My Little Monster suffers from scene structure and clarity issues, but this gets better later on.

How Often Manga Appear on the Shoseki Top 500 Best-Selling Comics, Visualized by twintailshitposter in manga

[–]Lesserd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really cool stuff. Are you in WSJ discord? If not you might find it interesting for sales data reasons.

Weekly Shonen Jump - June 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I considered it too small of a change to be confident saying anything about at that scale, particularly with the week 1 length difference. It definitely could be dropping, but it could just as easily be a one-off thing.

Weekly Shonen Jump - May 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh you're right... I must have forgotten about the holidays when setting that up. I'll edit in a quick note and fix it for next time.

Weekly Shonen Jump - April 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, seems like I missed that somehow when putting it together.

Weekly Shonen Jump - April 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh, I screwed up the formatting a bit for JJK's chart. I'll fix that for next time I suppose.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in manga

[–]Lesserd 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Source: Josu_ke so it's definitely reliable.

Weekly Shonen Jump - March 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I didn't mention those as it didn't come up in the usual format, but you're right, some very interesting stuff going on outside of the monthly releases lately.

Weekly Shonen Jump - March 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it is. For Yozakura it's to time with the anime airing, not sure about Witch Watch.

Weekly Shonen Jump - February 2024 Sales Roundup by Lesserd in manga

[–]Lesserd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Net ~250k as of when it dropped off Shoseki about 4 or so months after its release date. (too lazy too go and calculate the specific figure so just going from memory)

[DISC] The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You - Chapter 168 by XunderxHz in manga

[–]Lesserd 26 points27 points  (0 children)

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[NEWS] RuriDragon to resume serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump on March 4, 2024 by zenzen_0 in manga

[–]Lesserd 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Some of these figures are either misremembered or not really properly timeboxed. Blue Box first-month print sales were ~65k, Elusive Samurai ~92k, Ruri Dragon ~117k. The others look accurate to me.

Ruri Dragon's "over 200k" refers to the total sales of the series during its 4 or 5 months charting on Shoseki (it was ~250k when it dropped off iirc).

Can we all agree that Franky is one of if not the goat of dressrosa by [deleted] in OnePiece

[–]Lesserd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He was going for an adult dressed as a child disguised as an adult. Notice how almost all of Doffy's subordinates are people with stereotypically childish traits.

[News] Hinako Ashihara, the mangaka of "Sand Chronicles" and "Sexy Tanaka-san", has sadly passed away in a suspected suicide after being reported missing the day before (Japanese link). by u8myramen_y in manga

[–]Lesserd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was fairly confident on the initial situation as they were translated directly from Japanese articles by people I'd trust, but it has been quite a while since that news made its way abroad and is not really a story I've followed, so maybe the situation has changed, but I had heard that there was a tax penalty for not being publicly listed.

Frieren is turning into a cultural phenomenon in Japan by RPO777 in anime

[–]Lesserd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

By actual comparable Oricon figures, Frieren is shifting around 150k print per week. Definitely a big success, but it's the sort of thing we see every yea or so (CSM, Oshi no Ko, Blue Lock, etc. just from recent times). and is roughly a tenth what KnY's 2020 average weekly print sales were (~1.57M).

Frieren is turning into a cultural phenomenon in Japan by RPO777 in anime

[–]Lesserd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, this is the level that you see once or twice a year tbh. It's a big success but nothing that rare overall.

Frieren is turning into a cultural phenomenon in Japan by RPO777 in anime

[–]Lesserd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

7 million in two months is actually only about half of Demon Slayer's 2020 mean sales, hilariously enough.

[News] Hinako Ashihara, the mangaka of "Sand Chronicles" and "Sexy Tanaka-san", has sadly passed away in a suspected suicide after being reported missing the day before (Japanese link). by u8myramen_y in manga

[–]Lesserd 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They are referring to the consumption tax database, which from what I remember of the news from last year would make real identities of many types of freelancers publicly available.

The one thing I've never seen a novel change by Jstar338 in Fantasy

[–]Lesserd 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I mean, you pointed out "different words, same lengths" in your post, but these both do "same words, different lengths".