Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh
It's not really "reach zero". It's "fall low enough it's not worth the trouble (expense) any more".
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Exactly. Furthermore, these magazines are not intended to be solely aimed at boys aged 9-19, they tend to have readers of ages up to 40 as well, and also female readers on top of that.
If anything, Shonen magazines have done more to chase these peripheral demographics then they used to, but it's still not enough to reverse their sales trends.
That's not to say the demographic thing isn't an issue, because it is. You have a large number of shonen magazines competing for the pocket money of a dwindling number of young men, who are also choosing to spend more of their cash on computer games.
I don't think Manga is outright doomed (it's still in much better health then American comics), but I think Manga
as we know it might be. For one thing, the dominance of the young adult male demographic will probably be broken. I would already say that Shojo manga has better long term health then Shonen, even if individual series sales figures aren't nearly as impressive.
Manga is changing into something else, and that puts the old style publishers at great risk of being swept away.