You may have already looked but some website recommendations if you want to find most lovely complex volumes. I find Volumes 13 and 15 are much harder to find for a good price. But on Rightstuf most volumes sell for a good price.
I would buy Lovely complex in a heartbeat if it's reprinted and I've just finished Basara online and I'd buy that too. The willingness to purchase these manga is there so it's frustrating that they don't or won't reprint older series or give us more shoujo manga in general.
I'm not sure if this gives you some hope but RightStuf has LoveCom as "out of stock, expecting more". It could still be years from now but if that label is there, then a reprint maybe possible. Just look at Banana Fish. BF came back into stock, a series I never thought I'd own but it came back into print and now its all on my shelf. Anything's possible. Good luck!!
@@animefanatic33 I've noticed there's also a notify button on Book Depository for the series as well as Basara and a couple of other series so it's promising that some of these older series could come back into print and it's just a waiting game. I think they'd be silly not to bring them back.
When I complained online about the merge of Romance and Shoujo and that shoujo is so desperately underserved as you put it, I was met with a shounen fan telling me it was my fault for not buying blu rays or figures. Buddy, show me where they're being sold! I can't buy what doesn't exist!
Not just romance, pretty much anything with cute girly characters, I've seen people call Bocchi the rock a shojo bc "cute girls so it has to be for girls"
There's merch out there for otome games, but it's more along the lines of key chains, acrylic stands, posters/tapestries, badges/pins, art books, cd's, figures are a rarity. Also this stuff usually needs to be imported.
You got some offical Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon, and Clamp merch. That's it. Good luck with anything else. (And I guess Otome stuff exists but that's not really my genre)
Fr, I went on a website that imports merchandise from japan trying to find anything Yona related. The only thing they had were some key chains and acrylic stands. And I couldn't even buy any of those because they were all sold out/discontinued. Meanwhile I saw like a hundred different figurines of the blue and pink haired girls from re:zero (idk their names, sorry). Like damn, how many of those do you need?😩
I was really into Shonen manga as a middle schooler, I even had a subscription to the Shonen Jump magazine. I've completely flipped and I pretty much only read Shojo now. There is so much good stuff out there that I want to read. But it feels like as Shojo fans, if we want to read anything that's actually good we have to just...be fluent in Japanese.
There are good titles being published in English, but there is quite a lot of shoujo manga that are in Japanese only. I myself am studying Japanese so I can fully access all there is to offer when it comes to shoujo/josei manga.
I live in Japan right now and the amount of shojo i see in bookstores is so shocking cuz in my home country(Indonesia) majority of the titles available in English are shonen or seinen
Word! Aside from new licenses, let's also hope that VIZ decides to bring all of the the early volumes of their successful shojo series back into print for a new generation of readers.
Animerica…omg, right in the nostalgia 😭 What BLOWS my mind is the absolute refusal to make money. The romance genre is one of the biggest and most consistent money making book markets in the west. Why? Because women read voraciously, women of all ages. Young Adult books are a HUGE market mostly consumed by young women, and the kind of stories in shoujo title are very very similar to those those in the most popular YA series. There’s a path to success very clearly laid out, and Viz and Shoujo Beat have always been like, “…nah.” For why? At this point I figure shoujo fans just need to mobilize our discontent and frustration into some malicious compliance: have series request bombardment months. We pick a series per month, and every day of the month we all send in a request for it. Hopefully that results in an inundation of thousands of daily requests.
Lots of adult women read YA too now because they have a hard time transitioning to adult fiction that suits their interests, or they just don't know where to start. Sometimes I feel that's a similar problem with shoujo. Regular young girls and women don't know anything about shoujo manga or how to find shoujo that interests them unless they're already really into manga/anime culture and know what they want. Booksellers don't know anything about manga either unless they also read it themselves, so they can't really assist in selling it either unless they have an interest in it.
@@MangaMuse very true! This is also why the book blogging/vlogging community is so valuable. Word of mouth counts for a lot within these two demographics. Especially as a young person, waaaay back in the day, I depended on forums and message boards to fill me in on weather a manga was in my interest and worth buying, cause 15 year old me only could afford one series at a time, so I had to make it count. You’re totally right too, making that switch from YA to New Adult or even just Adult categories has been a big thing with bootok and bookstagram, which is why regular “fantasy” now has become “adult fantasy” to help people distinguish what kind of reading experience they are in for. We see the same thing with shoujo and josei, where readers who age out of the high school type of romances might have no idea that manga about adult romances even exist. I wonder if something like ARCs (advanced reader copies) would work for manga…With the way social media is now, companies basically don’t have to spend much on advertising if they were just smarter and more cooperative about it.
Yeah it really feels like misogyny at this point as isn’t the goal of a company to make money? They could make more money then what they are making right now if they actually put an effort into marketing shoujo the same way they do with shounen.
@@magnadramon0068 Yeah Shojo Beat (VIZ) has made it very clear on how little they care about their female audience. Best to give money to English publishers who do care. Seven Seas recently started a survey and asked what titles people want licensed in English so I recommend taking that survey.
It's so disappointing that Viz hasn't pushed for more shojosei titles. I was a teenager during the Shojo Beat magazine height and would use all of my spare money to get the volumes (and I had a subscription through college). I feel like at the time, with limited accessibility to manga in general, more men were reading these titles too (because all us nerds were reading anything we could get our hands on). People are missing out on a lot of great titles due to perception of shojosei not being worth it and these classic titles being locked behind $100 per book prices because they won't reprint them. You mentioned it too, but I will never understand why manga companies in general aren't including more promotional materials with the printed volumes. Even an art card would get me to buy first prints more since I'm a sucker for freebies. I would think little things like that (and having nice print quality) could help combat piracy. Thanks for going through the history of the brand, here's hoping we get better updates from them at some point.
Request your Local Libraries purchase Shojo Beat series. Not only is it another purchase, but it may also encourage other people to pick up the manga to try it (including people who normally wouldn't look at this title in a store). This is how I found Yona of the Dawn, Queen's Quality and Snow White with the Red Hair. Mind you, not ALL libraries have the funding to do so (manga are expensive, hard to get through Library distributers, are often high theft items and publishers offer no discounts) but those who do, PLEASE request they order Shojo series you want to see! You can also see if you can get series through interloan. This not only gives TWO different libraries circulation counts, but may suggest to your library that people are interested as well.
I went back to the library after a few years and almost all the Manga books are gone 😭 they used to have full sets of Ouran high school jost club, Hana kimi, etc but now there's only 6 or 7 books of series like Naruto or black butler. There used to be at least 10 full sets of different Manga but now there's only 3 incomplete sets
So I'm returning to reading manga for the first time as an adult - but I've spent a couple of years in the otome game fan space and this is such deja vu. "Just buy everything to prove you'd buy the things you actually want us to sell!" "You want [specific thing]? Well, you better buy [totally different thing] to show there's a demand!" "We listed some possible titles we'd like to translate in a poll and [specific thing] won? Hm... we don't know if there's demand for it though... Let's release one of the losers in that poll instead." Utterly infuriating! It sucks that shojo/josei has the same damn issues. 😭
I’m an otome fan as well and just got back into manga last year. I swear anything aimed for the female audience just feels like it’s put on the back burner for English publishers. I’m so sick of this to the point where I’m studying Japanese now. Lol
It's so tiring, remind me when Koei said of Touken Ranbu Warriors sell good we would get otome games... when TR isn't an otome IP, it's a joseimuke, they just put all women media in the same box and ignore what the clientele says, it's so frustrating
Good god! That editors post still makes my blood boil because it’s such a pain trying to collect physical copies of older series I love. I’m sorry I was a young child living in a third world country when you were publishing all this titles and so I couldn’t buy them. I guess I should have known better, silly me. /s 🙄
I wish there was a shojo beat subscription app or just in general an app for shoujo/josei manga only. Would totally pay a monthly subscription for that.
if there was a shoujo beat app, i would 100% subscribe to it. i'm not sure why they're ignoring (and even acting hostile toward) a pretty good chunk of manga fans who are willing to pay if they just provide needed content
colleen hits us with the facts yet again! viz is really out here chomping at the bit to serve their shonen fans new content and leave us shoujo stans in the dust. it's sad because they publish a lot of series i like! (yona, rainbow days, king's beast, prince freya, imakoi)
I actually won a comic drawing contest in shojo beat when I was in my late teens. They printed a tiny preview of the comic in the magazine and sent me a whole case of strawberry pocky.
BANGERRRRRRRRR I agree a lot with the piracy problem being more of an accessibility problem. As you said, when comparing getting the entire Jump catalog for $2.99 VS having to pay $6-7 per volume for a digital copy of a shoujo title that's no longer easy to find in print, a lot of people just won't do it. And I think Jump+ has added so much popularity onto series due to the easy access around the world. It sucks!! Even if they can't make one app for all of Shojo Beat, they could always focus on an app for just Shueisha shoujo or add some shoujo Shueisha titles to Jump+ or Manga UP. It really just feels like they don't care to invest the same amount of time or money into shoujo.
maybe we should consider a month long boycott from the Shonen Jump App? As in, all shojo beat fans frustrated with Viz's carelessness and who happen to have the Jump app just cancel their subscription simultaneously. Doing so, Viz can clearly see the acute drop in subscriptions and maybe they could take notice? Sorta like how the Game Stop stock increased to spite the rich but instead, its towards Viz with decreased sales for a month. Idk I'm just rambling over here and this plan maybe just a drop in to the ocean ^^;;
I was subscribed to Shoujo Beat from the very start (where I got the money from I don't even remember) and that magazine was my EVERYTHING and I haven't experienced anything as great as reading them since. It just perfectly encapsulated everything I had been begging for as a baby nerdy girl. I was finally being told I had a reserved place in the anime/manga world. It introduced me to so many new things like the movie Kamikaze Girls and Japanese fashion trends. I miss that magazine SO MUCH I'm still baffled by how well done it was. The housing crisis impacted my family of course and my issues were lost in all of the shuffling to have somewhere to live and I would pay a King's ransom for all the issues again.
Was into shoujo manga as a teenage and just got back into it last year. VIZ has repeatedly made it clear how little their care about their audience through there words and actions. They don’t plan on making making a digital app for just shoujo only anytime soon. I decided to not sit around to hope that one day they will magically change. Manga that has caught my interest I have been buying in Japanese as I have continued to study the Japanese language. Recently got volume 19 of Queen’s Quality and was actually able to understand the plot twist. Volume 20 in Japanese is coming out on June 26th 2023.
@@user-kb7gi4ld1q Yeah in my mind just learning Japanese seems to be the solution over begging for English releases. There was a manga I was reading when I was a teen, but the English publisher when out of business so it only got printed in German and Japanese.
On the note of piracy - 90% of the manga I own atm, were ones I read from various hosting sites back in middle school. Why are books written literal centuries ago still in print and readily accessible? Because compelling media doesn't need to be written during a particular time frame. When people like something, they will seek it no matter how much times passes. If a 14 year old in 8th grade loved the sparkly eyes in shoujo manga, it will remain with them until they are able to afford it on their own.
It always just seems like an excuse tagged on to try to explain why something didn’t/wouldn’t do well, but with no evidence. Like, “people who pirate” and “people who would purchase if they couldn’t pirate” are entirely different things, if they’re pirating it’s likely for access or money issues in the first place, and they would never have bought it…It’s “I imagine I potentially could have made money, therefore I will phrase it as a loss and hope no one thinks too hard about it”
I genuinely have no idea why they won’t launch a digital SB or like a deluxe SJ sub that includes access to SB titles. Or at the bare minimum, why not do what seven seas does and have that monthly readers survey where readers offer feedback and mention titles they’d love to see licensed? It’s frustrating to see them handle SJ so well, the Sig lines etc but to totally drop the ball on SB.
Yes this video is everything. I was 11 in 2011-2012 when I got into manga. So at that age my only access to Shoujo Beat was from the public library and my friend who let me borrow volumes her older brother collected. The shoujo beat magazine I had access to was the one in my middle school classroom that I stole because it was gonna be used to be cut up for collages. I obviously had no money to get them and even in my late teens money was low so literally reading online became my only access after awhile. Now I’m 23 and I have a stable income to start my own collection it’s now literally an investment. All of my faves are out of print and I spent $100+ on the last volume for my lovely complex series. It’s disappointing and I find myself becoming bitter.
The fandom struggle is real 🥲 I gave up on buying minty fresh manga and went for the second hand manga. They need a home and although some may have the smell of waffle and syrup, they are worthy of being lent out to friends. (They understood and looked up second hand manga as well). It sucks that anything we have a fond memory of is starting to have a ridiculously high price tag. 😵💫
Unfortunately, I don't look to Viz/ Shojo Beat for shojo/josei as much as I do other publishers like Seven Seas. I'm still gonna buy the series that interest me, but it doesn't seem like they want their consumer base to grow. It almost seems like they're giving scraps to keep fans just barely fed. Honestly, I want another publisher to give them real competition to hopefully breath new life into Shojo Beat.
I honestly miss when I was a little kid and Shojo Beat and Shounen Jump magazines were still sold in convenience stores and through scholastics here in Canada. I still remember the time someone lied and got one of my Shounen Jump issues. :,)
I want to continue to support Shojo Beat in its new releases, but almost none of their new licenses (except Neighborhood Love Story) have interested me in my any way. I'm keeping with King's Beast, I'm keeping up with Queen's Quality, but why can't we get any more of these amazing adventure and fantasy titles? I know they're selling well because I can check the volume purchasing statistics online. It seems like a missed opportunity at this point.
I only found out about Queen’s Quality because of Colleen. I don’t like how shojo beat (VIZ) treats their female audience so I have only been buying it in Japanese and just got volume 19 recently.
I genuinely feel like they have halted publishing much fantasy which is a real shame cause it’s 100% my favourite genre. It’s why I fell in love with Arina Tanemura, why I like WEBTOON like Hooky so much & most definitely why I am hooked on the new Manwha being published under Ize Press (on the shojo side).
@@madisonfrancis6705 Personally, I was absolutely over the moon when I heard that "The Remarried Empress" was getting a physical print by Ize Press! It's one of my favorite Webtoons, and definitely feels more female-oriented in its writing. I truly do hope Viz Shojo Beat decides to publish some more fantasy stories, as there are some absolutely fantastic ones coming out in Japan right now.
I keep up with Viz announcements but none of the new licenses they have announced have interested me at all except wolf girl black prince since I enjoyed the anime years ago. I'll read them if my library gets them in but I'm not going to buy them and if my library doesn't get them in it's not a huge loss. I'm that underwhelmed with shoujo beat at the moment. I used to read so many of the series they printed, a lot of my collection is Viz shoujo beats older stuff but now what they choose to publish doesn't interest me and I'm looking to other publishers that are doing better.
Here in germany we had Daisuki, which was kinda equivalent to shojo beat. We got magazines and later normal published manga volumes. Unfortunately it got cancelled in 2012 , after 9 years releasing the newest shojo titles. Nostalgia kicks hard these days
Here in Germany our dedicated shojo magazine actually managed to outlive the shonen magazine by years so we had the opposite situation a bit where it could be hard to discover new shonen manga unless you had access to the internet and were able to read English too because of course that's what most fan translations were in. Pretty sure we still have far more female readers and buyers of manga over here so the stuff you can usually buy is more geared towards them. We still get a lot of shonen of course but really more the popular stuff.
I loved Shojo Beat. I remember the shock of receiving the last volume of the Shojo Beat magazine. It felt like a slap in the face to get the Shonen Jump magazine after.
I really do think this is one of your best videos yet! Very well-researched, with a lot of great points. It would be nice if Viz took your criticisms to heart. The reprint controversy is one of the most frustrating things that happened. Many shojo manga fans were either very young or not born at all when big series like Basara, Red River, From Far Away, etc were printing, so we weren't able to access those series. Lots of us prefer collecting physical copies, and we shouldn't have to resort to scalpers just to enjoy a great series!
Colleen is on fire in this one! The community reference elicited a real life donkey laugh. It was great. But I find this whole situation very interesting! I’m a fairly diverse reader when it comes to comics so it didn’t really occur to me that shojo has been suffering so much in the past decade. I actually posit that we’re still feeling the effects of the comics code all these years later. The American comic industry used to be incredibly diverse and target all demographics. It featured horror, romance, adventure, detective/crime and of course super heroes. Girls and women were a viable target audience because… they had eyes and could read. After the comics code hit, the restrictions were so tight that essentially all other demographics and genres were obliterated besides superheroes. Without targeted material a lot of female readership (which I argue also impacted future authorship) dried up, with a not inconsiderable number still reading superhero stuff just not as many. The industry seemed to sort of ouroboros from there. Eventually it became an industry that was straight up hostile to the idea of women participating (ignore all the women who were participating despite the hostility like the legendary Vertigo founder Karen Berger among others lol) and I think we still see that today. But the tide is turning. Women read more than men. The vice grip superheroes hold over comics is loosening, and even there I’ve seen so many more marvel/dc comics targeted towards young teen girls because that’s the fastest growing demographic. It’s confusing to me that manga/anime distributors seems to be moving in the opposite direction when having content for girls and women was one of the things that helped them break out as an industry here in the states. I started reading comics in general because of sailor moon not because of the xmen (whom I love dearly, mind you) I have been buying more shojo but this video made me think. I’m buying very very old shojo. I’m chomping at the bit to get a taste of Rose of Versailles (udon), the Poe Clan ( fantagraphics), and Marmalade Boy (seven seas). I’m so interested in the women that pioneered these comics because we’re sort of missing that in western comics. Plus these women were producing some pretty incredible art ngl. Hagio Moto’s art looks like it was made of spider silk, so dainty and flowing. I am reading some new shojo now like Skip and Loafer (seven seas) but a lot of the stuff I think I would have liked when I was younger is stuff like Hanako-san or SpyXFamily which I honestly feel has a heavy slant towards what girls would probably enjoy in manga/comics (death and espionage! Jk I mean the romantic chemistry… and death and espionage) My favorite series in manga have always been shonen/seinen written by women. It does sometimes make me wonder if women with certain styles or sensibilities are discouraged from making shojo/josei manga that might have done so in the past where it was a newer frontier … or if talent is getting poached and packaged for the boys/men demographic… but that’s baseless speculation. Anyway, great video. Sorry for rambling! I just have a lot of passion on the subject. Please cover some dusty old shojo titles in the future! I need y’all to be buying these books so I can get even older dustier shojo released apparently lol!
I got all the manga for Ice Guy and Female Colleague which is a josei slice of life office romance series. I typically don’t like slice of life, but this one has been pretty good.
I got all the manga for Ice Guy and Female Colleague which is a josei slice of life office romance series. I typically don’t like slice of life, but this one has been pretty good.
Editor Nancy has entered the chat. But honestly, it hurts to see the light of one of the titans of my teenagehood hobbies dwindle. I’m happy to see other publishers step up to the plate but still, I crave the good ol’ days of SB. Amazing video, keep it up!
It's honestly a shame that Shojo Beat doesn't have a lot of social media. Viz has a big presence online across multiple platforms so I don't think it would take that much effort to try and make a safe space for shojo fans to find new titles. Especially because Viz is very shonen heavy with almost no if any shojo titles being advertised. There's so much potential in reviving the brand for Instagram, especially because Viz also has an Instagram
Very informative drop, I especially enjoyed learning the history of Animerica Extra! Great job of giving the facts in a balanced way without going on the offensive. 👏 👏 I won't pretend to know how VIZ operates behind closed doors. But from the outside looking in they seem to be much less interested in shoujo compared to other publishers. And the handling of their social media has been disappointing. For now, I'd love to see the Shojo Beat catalog moved to a digital app. So if VIZ finds their way to this comment section I will pay more for the Jump app if you make that an option!! I'd love to read Yona as soon as new chapters are out! 🙏
I need Shojo Beat to step up and reprint the volumes of Natsume's Book of Friends which are near impossible to find 😭 it's the only series from the line I'm collecting physically
I fell in love with Beauty Pop, Skip beat, full moon wo sagashite, happy hustle high, high school debut, lovely complex. Found them at the city library. Don't even have a bookstore that sells new books in my city anymore. I have to go 40+ miles.
I still have all my volumes of Beauty pop! I got the first volume in 7th grade at my schools book fair. It’s so nice to know other people love beauty pop too!
Wow, that title you mentioned that could have been an option instead of RK, makes me so sad...it sounds so good! Great video👍🏻 I am always sad to see barely anything coming from shojobeat since I grew up picking up the magazine
I wonder if the continued supply chain issues for print manga/comics in general would contribute to us never getting a reprint. I would even be ok if they reprinted them into omnibus additions in most cases, as long as they included color pages of each of the original covers.
I loved getting shojo from the library until I decided I wanted to start collecting only to find out that I had to really save up to get the volumes at scalper prices...looking at you Beauty pop
I remember slowly buying vampire knight volumes as they released( and fell behind all the time) because I had to rely on money from my parents. I was only 13 or 14 years old back then. I also didn't have access to bookstores so my only way to get manga was through wal mart, bookfairs, and birthday presents. It was part of the reason i only had volume 2 of anima for the longest time.
i juuuuust opened the video but i wanted to thank you for making it! if it weren’t for the fact that i still have all of my issues of shojo beat physically in my possession i would think it was a fever dream. i miss it so much
Thank you for this video, I'm not from the US, so this was very informative! From my outsider perspective I'm not really surprised about how Viz treats shojo. Viz has the monopoly for Jump titles which means they have at least 80% of the best sellers in the market. They don't really have an incentive to diversify their catalog...
Thank you for covering this topic! Shojo Beat was a big part of my teenage years and was one of the major things that got me in to art. Also, thank you for pointing out the Shojo Beat Tumblr account. I just pre-ordered the first volume of Ai Yazawa's Neighborhood Story set for release this December. I would have completely missed this otherwise. Thanks!!
this video is so on-point. you referencing the titles that made shoujo beat so big in their time really brought back fond childhood memories... as well as a reminder of what shoujo manga means to me. 🥺 it is baffling to see how disconnected SB is with their consumer base now, even when they have so much amazing material to license. So many missed opportunities that they can still leverage.... it's so frustrating!
That brief part about buying Skip Beat individually for $470, and I'm thinking about how RightStuf was having a sale a few months ago on the 3-in-1's, including the then upcoming 15th one so I just ordered them all, basically getting 45 volumes of the series for like $175. That is still a lot more than the $3 a month I pay for the Shonen Jump app.
I fucking looooved Shojo Beat magazine! So many good stories and good articles recommending music artists that became lifelong favorites. They stopped publishing and sent me Shonen Jump instead 😑. But I gave them to my friend who was very excited about them so it kinda worked out.
watched this early on patreon but watching again ✨️ excellent video as always. i was not aware of the romantic killer controversy at all so that was new to me 😭 it makes me so sad sigh. truly hoping they do better in the future, as they were an integral part of many people's intro to shojo.
Yeah I enjoyed Romantic Killer on Netflix, but was pretty pissed that they put a shounen under the shojo beat label. I was looking at the author of Romantic Killer on Twitter and they said in Japanese that Romantic Killer is a gag shoujo in other words it’s just a parody of shoujo. Multiple Japanese websites that sell manga including publisher website labeled Romantic Killer as a shounen, but then VIZ just slaps the shojo beat label on it. So frustrating.
@Kinetic Meow i wonder what their logic behind the decision was, because i'm pretty sure the manga would've sold well without the shojo beat label slapped onto it. i would not be surprised if they end up licensing another non-shojo series in the future, they seem determined to do the opposite of what everyone wants 😭
Where is Colleen's Oscar for the library bathroom scene?! But seriously, the history of shoujo manga in America needs more in-depth analysis like this. Thanks Colleen for educating us on the unnecessarily complex licensing history of shoujo manga in the US a la Shoujo Beat and Viz Media.
Omg thank you for this video! Legit i remember being SO JEALOUS of my friends whose parents let them subscribe to the SB magazine! I was poor so y'know that didn't happen! I did end up, over the years, with manga from every one of these imprints on my shelf due to my secondhand buying (thank u half price book stores) It is kinda crazy to think about, I think the bulk of the shojo/josei series i collect that are anywhere close to current are a mix of seven seas and kodansha? I am a pretty slow collector due to circumstances so I'm still trying to collect the SB titles Natsuyuu, Takane&Hana, and My Love Mix-Up! (The former and latter of which seem to still be going in NA at least--Natsuyuu might be forever tho lol) I won't lie if there was an app to access their library of shojosei titles (include both the SB and Viz Shojo imprint titles!!!) I would easily pay double what i do for Shonen Jump every month just because accessibility to titles for this demographic is ridiculous if you don't wanna 🏴☠️. Incredibly true that it's an issue of convenience, not price. Again thank you!
This was such a fantastic and informative video! I nodded my head quite often when it came to certain points because many things you shared echo with me too! Great video!!
Great video, nodding along hardcore at these points. The one thing that struck me that was left out is that when talking about accessibility via subscriptions service apps, there are much more licensing issues that arise from Shojo Beat trying to have an app than Shonen Jump. Shonen Jump is a worldwide brand run by Shueisha; Shojo Beat is a Viz-only imprint that stitches together selections from several shojo magazines run by different publishers in Japan (which are under the same umbrella publishing group, but still function as separate publishers). The app for Shonen Jump was pushed and developed initially by Shueisha. Would the parent companies let Shojo Beat do something similar, or are we in a behind-the-scenes Four Shojo Stories situation? While it makes sense that Viz wanted to have an imprint for shojo that mirrors its shonen one, it feels like it's really just tying their hands more than anything. (Obviously, would LOVE a shojo manga subscription app, merely saying that unfortunately the publishing industry as a whole has plenty of outdated/not-consumer-friendly licensing practices that make things difficult, which is what I strongly assume is happening here. I still buy and love plenty of Shojo Beat titles on the regular.)
Just watched this video btw and wanted to share some thoughts. I 100% agree that the Shojo Beat imprint/brand is on a general decline from its former glory. Excluding some of its more popular titles lately from already established and popular series, like Yona of the Dawn and Snow White with the Red Hair and reprinting the popular Nana, it is falling behind in comparison to hotter titles from other publishers. And overall, Viz Media is far more interested in showcasing its popular shounen jump titles, especially with multiple reprints and high demand due to sheer popularity and anime adaptatione exposure, with Shojo Beat getting put on the wayside sadly. Especially since its manga getting anime adaptations has been pretty much lacking to non existant. I think right now, book publishers are dealing with a paper shortage overall that hasn't been completely fixed, leading to only focusing on publishing the hot titles that will get a return on investment. Its why being on the NYT best selling list or topping weekly, monthly, or annual book rankings is so important. And why people sharing books on social media, like Tiktok or virtual book clubs, helps spread the word of popular titles through word of mouth. Because of this, Shojo Beat needs to be more with the times and kinda go through a whole entire change of mindset when it comes to its audience. They need to advocate and support their books and series with the youth to promote sales, they also need to see what series that people actually want to read (Seven Seas does this spectacularly through their Google Forms and surveys they send every month, leading to highly popular series from them), and have a better understanding of what are the popular series in Japan and try to push them forward a bit more. As whether we like it or not, book publishing is a business, and what matters the most is not only reputation, but how well books sell as sales and profit are the main indicators of success. Along with making accessibility easier as otherwise, fans will turn to piracy to meet their needs. I do like some Shojo Beat titles as some are true classics and masterpieces, but recently, I have lost interest in some of their recent aquisitions. And generally, even with anime being morely geared towards a male demongraphic, women really really like anime, and that is reflected in the whole interest in manga collection, and reading romance webtoons being super popular lately. So, Shojo Beat needs to understand their market and audience better and tap into it for better sales.
I feel like a lot of smaller publishing companies, like seven seas, are more willing to pick up shojosei titles. For some reason Viz doesn't see the value in the demographic/genre. I guess due to the astronomical success of their shonen action titles. But it seems like smaller companies have noticed that they can't easily compete with them through shonen action so they've started to pay attention to more "niche" audiences. Seven seas is the one I'm most familiar with because I read danmei (Chinese BL) but it seems like they chose to pick up the genre (danmei) as they noticed a fervent fanbase hungry for content. I hope they do this with shojosei as well, and with them picking up don't say mystery/ don't call it mystery maybe they will/are. Especially because selling to these more "niche" groups has shown them success. This could be the massive wakeup call Viz needs cuz they clearly have access to some of the most popular shojosei series in Japan, but they don't choose to publish them.
Another amazing and informative video colleen! I was so happy you posted about god is telling me to fall in love on your Twitter cause I read what was available online and then bought all 5 of the Japanese volumes! I hope viz listens to its consumers and licenses more shoujo series! Especially newer ones! I feel like they’re falling extremely behind other publishers bc of their lack of trying when it comes to shoujo. They could also do a monthly survey for shoujo beat like seven seas does!
You should do a video on Del Ray Manga. I'm honestly still pissed that they had the last volume of Ghost Hunt translated and set to release, and they just simply didn't release it when they sold their company and their licenses. The assholes that have the license of Ghost Hunt refuse to release the last volume nor the 3 extra volumes that were released a couple of years back now.
I really really like "God is telling me to fall in love" but Its been almost a year since an update on a chapter. So many unanswered questions to the story!!
I remember when the Shojo Beat Magazine was cancelled and VIZ rolled everyone to Shonen Jump to finish any subscriptions :< I still have a few copies of the SB Magazines to this day
I remember my mother buying me these from the local grocery store then eventually caving into a subscription. I had them all. My favorite was Godchild and Vampire Knight.
I was devastated the day shoujo beat sent me my letter that they were discontinuing. Mostly because I had JUST ended my subscription with Shonen jump and instead of shoujo beat refunding me the last few months of my subscription, they tacked it onto lengthening my Shonen jump subscription. At the time, it felt like they were taking away the thing I loved and force feeding me more of the thing I had grown bored with. I really miss shoujo beat.
Was into the magazine as a preteen and was devastated when it ceased publication after the financial crisis of 2008. Still, Viz Media is still doing good work bringing Kaichou wa Maid-sana among other good shoujo titles to western audiences
Another banger. That tumblr post is wild, I was buying shoujo beat manga as a pre teen/teenager (I am thirty now) and obviously was limited cash wise but I also lived in the Welsh countryside so in order to get to the one store that had manga it was an hour on the bus to the nearest town. I have a few first volumes from back then that were the only volumes I could get from that series and now it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to get the rest. Blaming the fans is wild. I collect a variety but one thing I collect is BL and it’s kind of nuts that BL which seems more niche is easier to collect and more abundant than shoujo now when it used to be the opposite. They are so slow on the reprints too which definitely make money like the nana reprints, some people dropped big money to get it that could have been spent on many more volumes. So much stuff that I am buying second hand that money could have been in their pockets. It’s like they blame us but we are all screaming take my money!
I would argue that part of the reason BL volumes are easier to collect is because they do a large, singular print that takes a while to dwindle down because of the smaller market while Shoujo sells out quickly. (There also aren't actually that many BL series in print vs Shoujo). Companies like Seven Seas and Yen Press reprint their Shoujo series as soon as they can while Viz tends to ignore it (there are still series that have been out of stock even before the pandemic that people have been asking to have reprinted.) I collect a variety of series as well, including non-explicit BL (to which, sadly, there aren't that many ='D ). The hostility from Shoujo Beat toward fans is ridiculous and sadly they aren't the only imprint that's like this. A lot of people found "The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window" through the anime in 2021 (including myself, because 1. I didn't know Sublime existed and 2. I don't read digital manga) and have been asking Sublime to give the Manga a print edition, to which they were basically told "lol, there isn't enough interest in this series to give it a print release." In both cases, interest is shown and fans are put down even though lack of advertisement is a HUGE issue with both imprints and why many aren't even aware of a series until later on. Treating fans like they're acting entitled is an easy way to destroy their fan base, too, so I'm not sure what they're thinking.
@@thesilentprince1647 me personally I collect all kinds of BL and I can’t keep up with the amount of new stuff coming out constantly I’m spoilt for choice whereas new shoujo licenses there is just a few I am picking up, a few of which aren’t shoujo beat. Reprints are good obviously and continuing series need to do that but it’s just not approachable or exciting like skip beat no hate is on what volume 52 or something and some other stuff is so behind the times like wolf girl and black prince I watched that anime in what 2014 so it’s not really exciting. It’s funny you bring up sublime saying that because they are also a Viz imprint so maybe it’s just a greater issue with Viz not respecting all their non shounen imprints. I am in the UK so our stores are smaller and have less variety generally but when I go shopping for manga there is so little shoujo new or old on the shelves generally I have to buy online whereas if I want to pick up an explicit BL there is multiple right there which I am still not used to because that was not the case at all 10-15 years ago. I think being into a type of manga that is on the rise and another which is in decline has just made it more obvious to me especially when I go shopping.
@@mahoupanda2639 I remembered a while afterwards that there have been quite a few explicit BL picked up lately and meant to delete my comment but forgot (I apologize). Part of me thought you meant BL has more series in print overall now than Shoujo, which certainly isn't the case. I'm sad that it's mostly the explicit series that get picked up, especially for print (I have nothing against it! I just prefer story-centered series regardless of sexuality). It's tiring to see how much content and care Viz takes with their Shounen series while leaving Shoujo Beat behind for sure, though. And Kodansha would probably be doing well with Shoujo/Josei if they... actually printed more of those series. Seven Seas and Yen Press are picking up more Shoujo series, though! So there's hope there. Aha, no worries I understand. I'm not interested in Skip Beat either and it can be overwhelming trying to get into the long running series, especially since Viz doesn't prioritize those reprints. I think-- if you enjoyed the anime for something and the Manga finally gets a release, it's fine to go ahead and dive into it regardless of how much time has passed. I watched the anime for Rainbow Days forever ago and was excited for the Manga release. Snow White with the Red Hair also had a large gap between the anime and English Manga release. It sucks that they aren't picked up for translation quicker, but I'd rather see them get picked up than ignored forever (preferably in print >< ). Especially since most anime now are only 12 episodes that either only give a small taste of a series or rush everything. I've seen Viz post so many "Manga and anime are taking over the world!" articles that only feature their Shounen imprint and it's... yeah. They don't seem to care about anything else and it's certainly not fair to their other fans. I live in a small rural area in Canada, so I get it. The closest bookstore is over an hour away and they used to only have one shelf of Manga when I was a kid. They gradually grew, but tended to lean toward Shounen over the years. But now they have a decent selection from all the different companies and demographics, so it's getting better (but I still need to order a lot of the less popular series ='D ). We can only hope that companies will see how tired and frustrated their long-time fans are becoming and start treating the demographic better.
Blaming fans is funny look at Webtoon and the other webcomic apps most of their popular titles are ROMANCE unless they’re more manga based women and girls want to be catered to as well and let’s not forget romance novels are one of if not the biggest seller in fiction in the book industry so women most definitely are willing to buy stories.
@@Toastcat890 I don’t know why they are so against giving us shoujo beat in a digital format. I’m on lezhin most days, I read some things on tapas and I have a manga planet/Futekiya subscription. Series I have liked reading that way some of them have become popular enough to get physical releases. They won’t even give it a shot and because of that they are being left in the dust by the webtoon apps. Like surely it’s easy money digitising or even just translating already digitised stuff compared to physically creating the books.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal YT Channel just released a 6 minute video on "The Economics of Barnes & Noble" and what is in highest demand in their bookstores today? DING DING DING! Manga (and Romance books, thank you ladies) is acting as Atlas to their industry. Consumers just can't get enough. It is insane to me that as manga is gobbling up more and more square footage in stores (taking over Western comic/graphic novel sections, music, and movie sections), Shojo Beat (and other publishers) isn't pulling a media blitz to push their product. Or building on the trend of pushing old titles in hot new packaging as "Collector" or "Deluxe" editions. There seems to be a definite disconnect between the Viz Shojo/Shonen branch, not withstanding their shojo audience. The cherry on top is the unsavory interactions Shojo Beat has with their fans (if only my parents did the nasty earlier, if only child labor laws weren't a thing, if only I had a time machine). Take a page from Barnes & Noble's revamp of their in-store experience, listen to the customer base.
I really wish shojo beat would get more magical girl manga currently they only have Phantom Thief Jeanne,Full Moon o Sagashite (magical idol) and Ultra Maniac(witch from another world on earth)
legit I really miss seeing shoujo demographic magical girls other than _Sailor Moon_ on shelves... that being said, I still want _Suicide Girl_ in English print too.
I just love your videos so much and i really appreciate the fact that you talk about classic shoujo titles that have been forgotten by many! Shoujo is my favorite genre and seeing you talk about it and spreading information on it is amazing!! I will never get over my love for series like kamisama kiss, dengeki daisy, ao haru ride or nana that represent the classic shoujo genre! Also this video was so informative and i learned alot of things about shoujo that i had never heard of before
Possibly on Kodansha. I don't wanna rip into any smaller publishers that are doing good work or anything lol. I did talk a bit about other publishers that I think are doing well in my Q&A video awhile back.
i used to subscribe to shoujo beat magazine in middle school and it brought me so much happiness as a kid. i was so sad when my parents had to cancel the magazine. this video brought me so much nostalgia ❤
I just started to read Crimson Hero after finding the first 4 volumes at my local bookstore and fell in love with it! So of course I went on a little trip through wiki and such trying to find the rest of them, only to learn that if was never completed :( Im going to continue to try and pick them up, hoping they might finish the series on day... along with the rest cancelled that year
Great overview of the SB imprint, and thanks for recapping some of their recent controversies (the Romantic Killer one still ticks me off)! One small correction, though: Viz's Flower Comics imprint wasn't named after Flowers magazine. It was named after Shogakukan's shojo imprint, Flower Comics. Shogakukan has published all of its shojo titles under the FC imprint since the 1970s (regardless of whether a manga was serialized in Betsucomi or Cheese!, etc.). Josei manga, too (though nowadays their josei titles are published under the Flower Comics Alpha imprint). EDIT: Oh, I see the Flowers magazine thing comes from an old ANN column. Guess I should send my comment to the author, lol.
I guess in my mind I just assumed the magazine was where the Flowers Comic imprint for Shogakukan came from lol. I do know what you're saying though since I have 7 Seeds in the og tankoban and it has the little FC with a flower on the corner of it. My b.
@@ColleensMangaRecs Oh, it's no problem! I edited my comment to say this before I saw your reply, but it seems like the Flowers magazine thing comes from an old ANN column, hence the misunderstanding. ^^;
First!!!! Edit: great video as always!! Super informative and insightful. I'm not from the US so I didn't know much of this but I can relate to the struggle to find good and new shoujo titles and it makes me sad that I usually end up reading them online and in another language. It's also sad when you compare the shonen/seinen catalog of the publishing companies against their shoujo/josei.
I was in high school during the peak time when Shojo Beat was popular for a brief moment and I had memories of seeing the magazine in my local Barnes and Noble. Not just with the manga but when VIZ Media had a few anime under the Shojo Beat label. They let most of their anime license expire, having licensed by other anime companies in later years and the only anime that has a Shojo Beat label to this day is Vampire Knight. Its really sad and disappointing on how Shojo Beat has been treated over the past decade
My biggest regret is having my "scrapbooking" phase during the end of ShojoBeat Magazine. So many middleschool crushes/boyfriends got gushy valentines cards or love notes that were literally cut out of ShojoBeat magazines bc there were so many "romantic" pages that I felt conveyed my middleschool lovelife (hahahahahahahahaha). Some of the cutouts did make it to my school planners that I did save and they really do feel like a time capsule. But, I really wish I'd left those magazines intact- they were SO cool. I subscribe to Otaku USA with my adult money now, but it's nowhere NEAR as cool. I miss ShojoBeat Magazine so much...
I love your vids so much. You have reminded me of so many memories of a lot of these titles while adding on new ones for me to find! I wish though you added a list (like in the description or in a pinned comment) with all the titles you mention in these videos. I have a hard time finding when you mention the titles sometimes after I finish the video (because I respect you enough to finish the video first) . Just a thought! 😁😁
They actually did give out gifts in some issues like stickers and calendars post cards nothing substantial but it was always exciting when they did I would buy it in the store every month until the middle of the recession then unfortunately had to sell the majority of my manga to a local video bookstore I did keep one series and still have it today
I did have a friend who got SB magazines tell me that and I almost slid in an edit to mention that until another friend who collected SJ magazines told me SJ got all that plus more (like yugioh cards).
I was. It warms my heart seeing more young people getting into manga and anime. Old otaku, like myself, crawled and walked so y'all youngling otaku are able to finally run. 🥹
I'm currently reading a bunch of shonen titles that I like far less than than most shojo, josei and seinen titles I've loved merely because they're available on the shonen jump app on a week to week basis. A similar app for other titles with weekly manga and back archives would be well worth it to me for basically whatever price VIZ wanted to gouge me for. They have the tech infrastructure, the monetization strategy and the back catalog available to them if they just use it for something that isn't only shonen jump!
i think of shojo manga. i think of imprint call Daisuki or manga twister Daisuki is monthly jump shojo manga magazine in Germany, by Carlsen Comics (February 2003 to June 2012) and Manga Twister its was Bi-Monthly shojo/ shonen by Egmont Manga and Anime ( only did sunday manga ) from 2003 -2006
The thing I noticed with Shojo Beat is it didn't have a regular monthly magazine that sold in regular stores (gas stations, grocery stores etc.) like Shonen Jump did. And Shonen Jump also gave out really cool freebies like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in their yearly anniversary issues. And most of the manga in Shonen Jump had anime (Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Ball, One Piece etc. ) that aired on Kids WB. That network was the go to for kids that didn't have access to cable or the internet . If Shojo Beat had that type of marketing, then it may have lasted longer.
I was a Shonen Jump & Shojo Beat subscriber from 2002-ish till they both ended their runs. Shojo Beat magazine did have a few of issues with freebies (memo pads, sticker sheets, desk calendar, and a couple postcards).
I also grew up on shoujo beat’s releases but honestly at this point I don’t care who publishes them as long as they get published. We got seven seas etc who are doing a pretty good job. Although these days I’m more into the Korean manhwas so I’m collecting their prints mostly. I do wish shoujo beat had a subscription based app like shounen jump tho.
24:46 back ordering has been shown to increase collectible value/market value but an excessive amount of it has been shown to do the opposite. I think Nerd Sync or some other comic book channel did a video about it?? But the reason it decreases value is cuz it shows more demand and so there’s more printed. So if you want more printed it sounds like a good strategy tbh
I loved the Shojo beat magazine. I used to get the new issue every month at the library. I even owned a few copy’s of the magazine. Suddenly I couldn’t find the magazine anymore. The librarian gave me the devastating news that it had been cancelled. I noticed that this was around the same time as the “downfall” of shojo romance manga for me. The series that came after this just didn’t have the same magic for me as the bigger names like vampire knight or host club. Honestly these days I’m getting my “anime style romance” from Otome games instead of manga.
I am not sure why Viz doesn't reprint old series. They must know that their old Shojo Beat series are extremely sought after and only avaliable on the second hand market. Do they not want want money? As well, there is no excuse there is not a Shojo Beat app. They wonder why their series doesn't sell as well as their Shonen counterparts, when they make it as inaccessible as possible. I wish they would get it together
If a company can’t make money off the otherwise most lucrative demographic then it’s not the demographic that’s the issue, it’s the company. That they didn’t think to partner with stationary for their series is insane and the demand can be clearly seen in Artist Alleys of anime cons where shoujo manga has tons of rep. Girls go crazy for pens and notebooks and pins. Such a loss.
I'm from the Animerica Extra era. But I was more of a Smile (its TokyoPop counterpart) kiddo. But also, I have every single _Shoujo Beat_ issue. *EVERY. SINGLE. ISSUE.*
God I used to love Shojo Beat as a teen. I remember reading so many titles with a friend of mine who got me into it. Miss those days. I remember we’d spend all our pocket money on manga volumes and my friend even had a sub to the magazine we’d always share.
The bathroom joke hit a little too close to home. 😅 I have Crohn's disease and it has caused me to have accidents. I'm not an old person either - I was only diagnosed a few years ago at age 17.
I was in middle school when i discovered the Shojo Beat magazine, and I too would always fill out the subscription card and hand it to my mom who would also say no. I loved that the pages had color and all the extra articles about stuff in Japan. A few years back, i found a stack of them in some sketchy comic shop for a $1 a pop and nearly lost my mind. Still have them! Some even still wrapped with little goodies!
The lack of reprints is particularly frustrating. I Would love to own Lovely Complex without paying $50 a volume!
You may have already looked but some website recommendations if you want to find most lovely complex volumes. I find Volumes 13 and 15 are much harder to find for a good price. But on Rightstuf most volumes sell for a good price.
I would buy Lovely complex in a heartbeat if it's reprinted and I've just finished Basara online and I'd buy that too. The willingness to purchase these manga is there so it's frustrating that they don't or won't reprint older series or give us more shoujo manga in general.
I'm not sure if this gives you some hope but RightStuf has LoveCom as "out of stock, expecting more". It could still be years from now but if that label is there, then a reprint maybe possible. Just look at Banana Fish. BF came back into stock, a series I never thought I'd own but it came back into print and now its all on my shelf. Anything's possible. Good luck!!
@@animefanatic33 I've noticed there's also a notify button on Book Depository for the series as well as Basara and a couple of other series so it's promising that some of these older series could come back into print and it's just a waiting game. I think they'd be silly not to bring them back.
Red River for me 😢
When I complained online about the merge of Romance and Shoujo and that shoujo is so desperately underserved as you put it, I was met with a shounen fan telling me it was my fault for not buying blu rays or figures. Buddy, show me where they're being sold! I can't buy what doesn't exist!
Lol bronens are so clueless.
Not just romance, pretty much anything with cute girly characters, I've seen people call Bocchi the rock a shojo bc "cute girls so it has to be for girls"
There's merch out there for otome games, but it's more along the lines of key chains, acrylic stands, posters/tapestries, badges/pins, art books, cd's, figures are a rarity. Also this stuff usually needs to be imported.
You got some offical Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon, and Clamp merch. That's it. Good luck with anything else. (And I guess Otome stuff exists but that's not really my genre)
Fr, I went on a website that imports merchandise from japan trying to find anything Yona related. The only thing they had were some key chains and acrylic stands. And I couldn't even buy any of those because they were all sold out/discontinued. Meanwhile I saw like a hundred different figurines of the blue and pink haired girls from re:zero (idk their names, sorry). Like damn, how many of those do you need?😩
I was really into Shonen manga as a middle schooler, I even had a subscription to the Shonen Jump magazine. I've completely flipped and I pretty much only read Shojo now. There is so much good stuff out there that I want to read. But it feels like as Shojo fans, if we want to read anything that's actually good we have to just...be fluent in Japanese.
There are good titles being published in English, but there is quite a lot of shoujo manga that are in Japanese only. I myself am studying Japanese so I can fully access all there is to offer when it comes to shoujo/josei manga.
I live in Japan right now and the amount of shojo i see in bookstores is so shocking cuz in my home country(Indonesia) majority of the titles available in English are shonen or seinen
Word! Aside from new licenses, let's also hope that VIZ decides to bring all of the the early volumes of their successful shojo series back into print for a new generation of readers.
*whispers* Basara and Fushigi Yugi (individual prints)
Animerica…omg, right in the nostalgia 😭
What BLOWS my mind is the absolute refusal to make money. The romance genre is one of the biggest and most consistent money making book markets in the west. Why? Because women read voraciously, women of all ages. Young Adult books are a HUGE market mostly consumed by young women, and the kind of stories in shoujo title are very very similar to those those in the most popular YA series. There’s a path to success very clearly laid out, and Viz and Shoujo Beat have always been like, “…nah.” For why?
At this point I figure shoujo fans just need to mobilize our discontent and frustration into some malicious compliance: have series request bombardment months. We pick a series per month, and every day of the month we all send in a request for it. Hopefully that results in an inundation of thousands of daily requests.
Lots of adult women read YA too now because they have a hard time transitioning to adult fiction that suits their interests, or they just don't know where to start. Sometimes I feel that's a similar problem with shoujo. Regular young girls and women don't know anything about shoujo manga or how to find shoujo that interests them unless they're already really into manga/anime culture and know what they want. Booksellers don't know anything about manga either unless they also read it themselves, so they can't really assist in selling it either unless they have an interest in it.
@@MangaMuse very true! This is also why the book blogging/vlogging community is so valuable. Word of mouth counts for a lot within these two demographics. Especially as a young person, waaaay back in the day, I depended on forums and message boards to fill me in on weather a manga was in my interest and worth buying, cause 15 year old me only could afford one series at a time, so I had to make it count.
You’re totally right too, making that switch from YA to New Adult or even just Adult categories has been a big thing with bootok and bookstagram, which is why regular “fantasy” now has become “adult fantasy” to help people distinguish what kind of reading experience they are in for. We see the same thing with shoujo and josei, where readers who age out of the high school type of romances might have no idea that manga about adult romances even exist.
I wonder if something like ARCs (advanced reader copies) would work for manga…With the way social media is now, companies basically don’t have to spend much on advertising if they were just smarter and more cooperative about it.
Yeah it really feels like misogyny at this point as isn’t the goal of a company to make money? They could make more money then what they are making right now if they actually put an effort into marketing shoujo the same way they do with shounen.
I think a big part of the problem is that these companies view women as a less prestigious demographic to market to than men
@@magnadramon0068 Yeah Shojo Beat (VIZ) has made it very clear on how little they care about their female audience. Best to give money to English publishers who do care. Seven Seas recently started a survey and asked what titles people want licensed in English so I recommend taking that survey.
It's so disappointing that Viz hasn't pushed for more shojosei titles. I was a teenager during the Shojo Beat magazine height and would use all of my spare money to get the volumes (and I had a subscription through college). I feel like at the time, with limited accessibility to manga in general, more men were reading these titles too (because all us nerds were reading anything we could get our hands on). People are missing out on a lot of great titles due to perception of shojosei not being worth it and these classic titles being locked behind $100 per book prices because they won't reprint them.
You mentioned it too, but I will never understand why manga companies in general aren't including more promotional materials with the printed volumes. Even an art card would get me to buy first prints more since I'm a sucker for freebies. I would think little things like that (and having nice print quality) could help combat piracy.
Thanks for going through the history of the brand, here's hoping we get better updates from them at some point.
Request your Local Libraries purchase Shojo Beat series. Not only is it another purchase, but it may also encourage other people to pick up the manga to try it (including people who normally wouldn't look at this title in a store). This is how I found Yona of the Dawn, Queen's Quality and Snow White with the Red Hair. Mind you, not ALL libraries have the funding to do so (manga are expensive, hard to get through Library distributers, are often high theft items and publishers offer no discounts) but those who do, PLEASE request they order Shojo series you want to see! You can also see if you can get series through interloan. This not only gives TWO different libraries circulation counts, but may suggest to your library that people are interested as well.
I went back to the library after a few years and almost all the Manga books are gone 😭 they used to have full sets of Ouran high school jost club, Hana kimi, etc but now there's only 6 or 7 books of series like Naruto or black butler. There used to be at least 10 full sets of different Manga but now there's only 3 incomplete sets
So I'm returning to reading manga for the first time as an adult - but I've spent a couple of years in the otome game fan space and this is such deja vu. "Just buy everything to prove you'd buy the things you actually want us to sell!" "You want [specific thing]? Well, you better buy [totally different thing] to show there's a demand!" "We listed some possible titles we'd like to translate in a poll and [specific thing] won? Hm... we don't know if there's demand for it though... Let's release one of the losers in that poll instead." Utterly infuriating! It sucks that shojo/josei has the same damn issues. 😭
Just women oriented media things 😜
I’m an otome fan as well and just got back into manga last year. I swear anything aimed for the female audience just feels like it’s put on the back burner for English publishers. I’m so sick of this to the point where I’m studying Japanese now. Lol
I remembered spike chunsoft and Koei tecmo 😒
It's so tiring, remind me when Koei said of Touken Ranbu Warriors sell good we would get otome games... when TR isn't an otome IP, it's a joseimuke, they just put all women media in the same box and ignore what the clientele says, it's so frustrating
Good god! That editors post still makes my blood boil because it’s such a pain trying to collect physical copies of older series I love. I’m sorry I was a young child living in a third world country when you were publishing all this titles and so I couldn’t buy them. I guess I should have known better, silly me. /s 🙄
I really miss Shojo Beat. I collect manga and I'd even enjoy a digital subscription that let me explore new titles.
i wish they had the equivalent of the jump app because i love the jump app
viz said they dont plan on it tho :/
I wish there was a shojo beat subscription app or just in general an app for shoujo/josei manga only. Would totally pay a monthly subscription for that.
@@screameureka7029Yeah it’s pretty disappointing.
if there was a shoujo beat app, i would 100% subscribe to it. i'm not sure why they're ignoring (and even acting hostile toward) a pretty good chunk of manga fans who are willing to pay if they just provide needed content
Well, because they're ignorant that's why.
colleen hits us with the facts yet again! viz is really out here chomping at the bit to serve their shonen fans new content and leave us shoujo stans in the dust. it's sad because they publish a lot of series i like! (yona, rainbow days, king's beast, prince freya, imakoi)
I actually won a comic drawing contest in shojo beat when I was in my late teens. They printed a tiny preview of the comic in the magazine and sent me a whole case of strawberry pocky.
I just wanna thank you for adding the experience. I really loved seeing the fan- drawings. ❤🎉
BANGERRRRRRRRR
I agree a lot with the piracy problem being more of an accessibility problem. As you said, when comparing getting the entire Jump catalog for $2.99 VS having to pay $6-7 per volume for a digital copy of a shoujo title that's no longer easy to find in print, a lot of people just won't do it. And I think Jump+ has added so much popularity onto series due to the easy access around the world. It sucks!! Even if they can't make one app for all of Shojo Beat, they could always focus on an app for just Shueisha shoujo or add some shoujo Shueisha titles to Jump+ or Manga UP. It really just feels like they don't care to invest the same amount of time or money into shoujo.
maybe we should consider a month long boycott from the Shonen Jump App? As in, all shojo beat fans frustrated with Viz's carelessness and who happen to have the Jump app just cancel their subscription simultaneously. Doing so, Viz can clearly see the acute drop in subscriptions and maybe they could take notice? Sorta like how the Game Stop stock increased to spite the rich but instead, its towards Viz with decreased sales for a month. Idk I'm just rambling over here and this plan maybe just a drop in to the ocean ^^;;
I was subscribed to Shoujo Beat from the very start (where I got the money from I don't even remember) and that magazine was my EVERYTHING and I haven't experienced anything as great as reading them since. It just perfectly encapsulated everything I had been begging for as a baby nerdy girl. I was finally being told I had a reserved place in the anime/manga world. It introduced me to so many new things like the movie Kamikaze Girls and Japanese fashion trends. I miss that magazine SO MUCH I'm still baffled by how well done it was. The housing crisis impacted my family of course and my issues were lost in all of the shuffling to have somewhere to live and I would pay a King's ransom for all the issues again.
Was into shoujo manga as a teenage and just got back into it last year. VIZ has repeatedly made it clear how little their care about their audience through there words and actions. They don’t plan on making making a digital app for just shoujo only anytime soon. I decided to not sit around to hope that one day they will magically change. Manga that has caught my interest I have been buying in Japanese as I have continued to study the Japanese language. Recently got volume 19 of Queen’s Quality and was actually able to understand the plot twist. Volume 20 in Japanese is coming out on June 26th 2023.
Okay but you learning Japanese as ur way of fixing the problem is so sick like what? Go you that is actually so cool
@@user-kb7gi4ld1q Yeah in my mind just learning Japanese seems to be the solution over begging for English releases. There was a manga I was reading when I was a teen, but the English publisher when out of business so it only got printed in German and Japanese.
Same here, unfortunately. Anyhin' I'm after, that's no available, i get in Japanese.
Korean webcomics haven’t taken up that spot in the field.
On the note of piracy - 90% of the manga I own atm, were ones I read from various hosting sites back in middle school.
Why are books written literal centuries ago still in print and readily accessible? Because compelling media doesn't need to be written during a particular time frame. When people like something, they will seek it no matter how much times passes. If a 14 year old in 8th grade loved the sparkly eyes in shoujo manga, it will remain with them until they are able to afford it on their own.
It always just seems like an excuse tagged on to try to explain why something didn’t/wouldn’t do well, but with no evidence. Like, “people who pirate” and “people who would purchase if they couldn’t pirate” are entirely different things, if they’re pirating it’s likely for access or money issues in the first place, and they would never have bought it…It’s “I imagine I potentially could have made money, therefore I will phrase it as a loss and hope no one thinks too hard about it”
I genuinely have no idea why they won’t launch a digital SB or like a deluxe SJ sub that includes access to SB titles. Or at the bare minimum, why not do what seven seas does and have that monthly readers survey where readers offer feedback and mention titles they’d love to see licensed? It’s frustrating to see them handle SJ so well, the Sig lines etc but to totally drop the ball on SB.
Yes this video is everything. I was 11 in 2011-2012 when I got into manga. So at that age my only access to Shoujo Beat was from the public library and my friend who let me borrow volumes her older brother collected. The shoujo beat magazine I had access to was the one in my middle school classroom that I stole because it was gonna be used to be cut up for collages. I obviously had no money to get them and even in my late teens money was low so literally reading online became my only access after awhile. Now I’m 23 and I have a stable income to start my own collection it’s now literally an investment. All of my faves are out of print and I spent $100+ on the last volume for my lovely complex series. It’s disappointing and I find myself becoming bitter.
The fandom struggle is real 🥲 I gave up on buying minty fresh manga and went for the second hand manga. They need a home and although some may have the smell of waffle and syrup, they are worthy of being lent out to friends. (They understood and looked up second hand manga as well). It sucks that anything we have a fond memory of is starting to have a ridiculously high price tag. 😵💫
Unfortunately, I don't look to Viz/ Shojo Beat for shojo/josei as much as I do other publishers like Seven Seas. I'm still gonna buy the series that interest me, but it doesn't seem like they want their consumer base to grow. It almost seems like they're giving scraps to keep fans just barely fed. Honestly, I want another publisher to give them real competition to hopefully breath new life into Shojo Beat.
I honestly miss when I was a little kid and Shojo Beat and Shounen Jump magazines were still sold in convenience stores and through scholastics here in Canada. I still remember the time someone lied and got one of my Shounen Jump issues. :,)
I want to continue to support Shojo Beat in its new releases, but almost none of their new licenses (except Neighborhood Love Story) have interested me in my any way. I'm keeping with King's Beast, I'm keeping up with Queen's Quality, but why can't we get any more of these amazing adventure and fantasy titles? I know they're selling well because I can check the volume purchasing statistics online. It seems like a missed opportunity at this point.
I only found out about Queen’s Quality because of Colleen. I don’t like how shojo beat (VIZ) treats their female audience so I have only been buying it in Japanese and just got volume 19 recently.
I genuinely feel like they have halted publishing much fantasy which is a real shame cause it’s 100% my favourite genre. It’s why I fell in love with Arina Tanemura, why I like WEBTOON like Hooky so much & most definitely why I am hooked on the new Manwha being published under Ize Press (on the shojo side).
@@madisonfrancis6705 Personally, I was absolutely over the moon when I heard that "The Remarried Empress" was getting a physical print by Ize Press! It's one of my favorite Webtoons, and definitely feels more female-oriented in its writing.
I truly do hope Viz Shojo Beat decides to publish some more fantasy stories, as there are some absolutely fantastic ones coming out in Japan right now.
I keep up with Viz announcements but none of the new licenses they have announced have interested me at all except wolf girl black prince since I enjoyed the anime years ago. I'll read them if my library gets them in but I'm not going to buy them and if my library doesn't get them in it's not a huge loss. I'm that underwhelmed with shoujo beat at the moment. I used to read so many of the series they printed, a lot of my collection is Viz shoujo beats older stuff but now what they choose to publish doesn't interest me and I'm looking to other publishers that are doing better.
Here in germany we had Daisuki, which was kinda equivalent to shojo beat. We got magazines and later normal published manga volumes. Unfortunately it got cancelled in 2012 , after 9 years releasing the newest shojo titles. Nostalgia kicks hard these days
Here in Germany our dedicated shojo magazine actually managed to outlive the shonen magazine by years so we had the opposite situation a bit where it could be hard to discover new shonen manga unless you had access to the internet and were able to read English too because of course that's what most fan translations were in.
Pretty sure we still have far more female readers and buyers of manga over here so the stuff you can usually buy is more geared towards them.
We still get a lot of shonen of course but really more the popular stuff.
I loved Shojo Beat. I remember the shock of receiving the last volume of the Shojo Beat magazine. It felt like a slap in the face to get the Shonen Jump magazine after.
I only knew shounen jump existed when I was young. Had no idea there were Shojo Beat magazines back then. 😿
I really do think this is one of your best videos yet! Very well-researched, with a lot of great points. It would be nice if Viz took your criticisms to heart.
The reprint controversy is one of the most frustrating things that happened. Many shojo manga fans were either very young or not born at all when big series like Basara, Red River, From Far Away, etc were printing, so we weren't able to access those series. Lots of us prefer collecting physical copies, and we shouldn't have to resort to scalpers just to enjoy a great series!
Colleen is on fire in this one! The community reference elicited a real life donkey laugh. It was great. But I find this whole situation very interesting! I’m a fairly diverse reader when it comes to comics so it didn’t really occur to me that shojo has been suffering so much in the past decade.
I actually posit that we’re still feeling the effects of the comics code all these years later. The American comic industry used to be incredibly diverse and target all demographics. It featured horror, romance, adventure, detective/crime and of course super heroes. Girls and women were a viable target audience because… they had eyes and could read. After the comics code hit, the restrictions were so tight that essentially all other demographics and genres were obliterated besides superheroes. Without targeted material a lot of female readership (which I argue also impacted future authorship) dried up, with a not inconsiderable number still reading superhero stuff just not as many.
The industry seemed to sort of ouroboros from there. Eventually it became an industry that was straight up hostile to the idea of women participating (ignore all the women who were participating despite the hostility like the legendary Vertigo founder Karen Berger among others lol) and I think we still see that today. But the tide is turning. Women read more than men. The vice grip superheroes hold over comics is loosening, and even there I’ve seen so many more marvel/dc comics targeted towards young teen girls because that’s the fastest growing demographic. It’s confusing to me that manga/anime distributors seems to be moving in the opposite direction when having content for girls and women was one of the things that helped them break out as an industry here in the states. I started reading comics in general because of sailor moon not because of the xmen (whom I love dearly, mind you)
I have been buying more shojo but this video made me think. I’m buying very very old shojo. I’m chomping at the bit to get a taste of Rose of Versailles (udon), the Poe Clan ( fantagraphics), and Marmalade Boy (seven seas). I’m so interested in the women that pioneered these comics because we’re sort of missing that in western comics. Plus these women were producing some pretty incredible art ngl. Hagio Moto’s art looks like it was made of spider silk, so dainty and flowing.
I am reading some new shojo now like Skip and Loafer (seven seas) but a lot of the stuff I think I would have liked when I was younger is stuff like Hanako-san or SpyXFamily which I honestly feel has a heavy slant towards what girls would probably enjoy in manga/comics (death and espionage! Jk I mean the romantic chemistry… and death and espionage) My favorite series in manga have always been shonen/seinen written by women. It does sometimes make me wonder if women with certain styles or sensibilities are discouraged from making shojo/josei manga that might have done so in the past where it was a newer frontier … or if talent is getting poached and packaged for the boys/men demographic… but that’s baseless speculation.
Anyway, great video. Sorry for rambling! I just have a lot of passion on the subject. Please cover some dusty old shojo titles in the future! I need y’all to be buying these books so I can get even older dustier shojo released apparently lol!
Skip and Loafer is actually a seinen! :)
I got all the manga for Ice Guy and Female Colleague which is a josei slice of life office romance series. I typically don’t like slice of life, but this one has been pretty good.
I got all the manga for Ice Guy and Female Colleague which is a josei slice of life office romance series. I typically don’t like slice of life, but this one has been pretty good.
Editor Nancy has entered the chat.
But honestly, it hurts to see the light of one of the titans of my teenagehood hobbies dwindle. I’m happy to see other publishers step up to the plate but still, I crave the good ol’ days of SB. Amazing video, keep it up!
It's honestly a shame that Shojo Beat doesn't have a lot of social media. Viz has a big presence online across multiple platforms so I don't think it would take that much effort to try and make a safe space for shojo fans to find new titles. Especially because Viz is very shonen heavy with almost no if any shojo titles being advertised. There's so much potential in reviving the brand for Instagram, especially because Viz also has an Instagram
Very informative drop, I especially enjoyed learning the history of Animerica Extra! Great job of giving the facts in a balanced way without going on the offensive. 👏 👏
I won't pretend to know how VIZ operates behind closed doors. But from the outside looking in they seem to be much less interested in shoujo compared to other publishers. And the handling of their social media has been disappointing. For now, I'd love to see the Shojo Beat catalog moved to a digital app. So if VIZ finds their way to this comment section I will pay more for the Jump app if you make that an option!! I'd love to read Yona as soon as new chapters are out! 🙏
I feel like at least once a month we should ask on their twitter and tumblr for shojo beat digital magazine subscription app.
thank you for reminding me to go read the new yona chapter!!
I need Shojo Beat to step up and reprint the volumes of Natsume's Book of Friends which are near impossible to find 😭 it's the only series from the line I'm collecting physically
“ . . . forbidden love. In more ways than one.” I scream laughed. 😂
I fell in love with Beauty Pop, Skip beat, full moon wo sagashite, happy hustle high, high school debut, lovely complex. Found them at the city library. Don't even have a bookstore that sells new books in my city anymore. I have to go 40+ miles.
I still have all my volumes of Beauty pop! I got the first volume in 7th grade at my schools book fair.
It’s so nice to know other people love beauty pop too!
Wow, that title you mentioned that could have been an option instead of RK, makes me so sad...it sounds so good! Great video👍🏻 I am always sad to see barely anything coming from shojobeat since I grew up picking up the magazine
I wonder if the continued supply chain issues for print manga/comics in general would contribute to us never getting a reprint. I would even be ok if they reprinted them into omnibus additions in most cases, as long as they included color pages of each of the original covers.
I loved getting shojo from the library until I decided I wanted to start collecting only to find out that I had to really save up to get the volumes at scalper prices...looking at you Beauty pop
I remember slowly buying vampire knight volumes as they released( and fell behind all the time) because I had to rely on money from my parents. I was only 13 or 14 years old back then. I also didn't have access to bookstores so my only way to get manga was through wal mart, bookfairs, and birthday presents. It was part of the reason i only had volume 2 of anima for the longest time.
i juuuuust opened the video but i wanted to thank you for making it! if it weren’t for the fact that i still have all of my issues of shojo beat physically in my possession i would think it was a fever dream. i miss it so much
Thank you for this video, I'm not from the US, so this was very informative! From my outsider perspective I'm not really surprised about how Viz treats shojo. Viz has the monopoly for Jump titles which means they have at least 80% of the best sellers in the market. They don't really have an incentive to diversify their catalog...
Thank you for covering this topic! Shojo Beat was a big part of my teenage years and was one of the major things that got me in to art. Also, thank you for pointing out the Shojo Beat Tumblr account. I just pre-ordered the first volume of Ai Yazawa's Neighborhood Story set for release this December. I would have completely missed this otherwise. Thanks!!
this video is so on-point. you referencing the titles that made shoujo beat so big in their time really brought back fond childhood memories... as well as a reminder of what shoujo manga means to me. 🥺 it is baffling to see how disconnected SB is with their consumer base now, even when they have so much amazing material to license. So many missed opportunities that they can still leverage.... it's so frustrating!
That brief part about buying Skip Beat individually for $470, and I'm thinking about how RightStuf was having a sale a few months ago on the 3-in-1's, including the then upcoming 15th one so I just ordered them all, basically getting 45 volumes of the series for like $175. That is still a lot more than the $3 a month I pay for the Shonen Jump app.
I fucking looooved Shojo Beat magazine! So many good stories and good articles recommending music artists that became lifelong favorites. They stopped publishing and sent me Shonen Jump instead 😑. But I gave them to my friend who was very excited about them so it kinda worked out.
watched this early on patreon but watching again ✨️ excellent video as always. i was not aware of the romantic killer controversy at all so that was new to me 😭 it makes me so sad sigh. truly hoping they do better in the future, as they were an integral part of many people's intro to shojo.
Yeah I enjoyed Romantic Killer on Netflix, but was pretty pissed that they put a shounen under the shojo beat label. I was looking at the author of Romantic Killer on Twitter and they said in Japanese that Romantic Killer is a gag shoujo in other words it’s just a parody of shoujo. Multiple Japanese websites that sell manga including publisher website labeled Romantic Killer as a shounen, but then VIZ just slaps the shojo beat label on it. So frustrating.
@Kinetic Meow i wonder what their logic behind the decision was, because i'm pretty sure the manga would've sold well without the shojo beat label slapped onto it. i would not be surprised if they end up licensing another non-shojo series in the future, they seem determined to do the opposite of what everyone wants 😭
@@dania7989 This is why I buy my manga in Japanese now. I won’t get anything from VIZ as they treat their female audience like garbage.
Where is Colleen's Oscar for the library bathroom scene?! But seriously, the history of shoujo manga in America needs more in-depth analysis like this. Thanks Colleen for educating us on the unnecessarily complex licensing history of shoujo manga in the US a la Shoujo Beat and Viz Media.
Omg thank you for this video!
Legit i remember being SO JEALOUS of my friends whose parents let them subscribe to the SB magazine! I was poor so y'know that didn't happen! I did end up, over the years, with manga from every one of these imprints on my shelf due to my secondhand buying (thank u half price book stores)
It is kinda crazy to think about, I think the bulk of the shojo/josei series i collect that are anywhere close to current are a mix of seven seas and kodansha? I am a pretty slow collector due to circumstances so I'm still trying to collect the SB titles Natsuyuu, Takane&Hana, and My Love Mix-Up! (The former and latter of which seem to still be going in NA at least--Natsuyuu might be forever tho lol)
I won't lie if there was an app to access their library of shojosei titles (include both the SB and Viz Shojo imprint titles!!!) I would easily pay double what i do for Shonen Jump every month just because accessibility to titles for this demographic is ridiculous if you don't wanna 🏴☠️.
Incredibly true that it's an issue of convenience, not price.
Again thank you!
I was so sad when Shojo Beat magazine was discontinued. 😭
This was such a fantastic and informative video! I nodded my head quite often when it came to certain points because many things you shared echo with me too! Great video!!
thank you Laura!!
Great video, nodding along hardcore at these points. The one thing that struck me that was left out is that when talking about accessibility via subscriptions service apps, there are much more licensing issues that arise from Shojo Beat trying to have an app than Shonen Jump. Shonen Jump is a worldwide brand run by Shueisha; Shojo Beat is a Viz-only imprint that stitches together selections from several shojo magazines run by different publishers in Japan (which are under the same umbrella publishing group, but still function as separate publishers). The app for Shonen Jump was pushed and developed initially by Shueisha. Would the parent companies let Shojo Beat do something similar, or are we in a behind-the-scenes Four Shojo Stories situation? While it makes sense that Viz wanted to have an imprint for shojo that mirrors its shonen one, it feels like it's really just tying their hands more than anything. (Obviously, would LOVE a shojo manga subscription app, merely saying that unfortunately the publishing industry as a whole has plenty of outdated/not-consumer-friendly licensing practices that make things difficult, which is what I strongly assume is happening here. I still buy and love plenty of Shojo Beat titles on the regular.)
Just watched this video btw and wanted to share some thoughts.
I 100% agree that the Shojo Beat imprint/brand is on a general decline from its former glory. Excluding some of its more popular titles lately from already established and popular series, like Yona of the Dawn and Snow White with the Red Hair and reprinting the popular Nana, it is falling behind in comparison to hotter titles from other publishers. And overall, Viz Media is far more interested in showcasing its popular shounen jump titles, especially with multiple reprints and high demand due to sheer popularity and anime adaptatione exposure, with Shojo Beat getting put on the wayside sadly. Especially since its manga getting anime adaptations has been pretty much lacking to non existant.
I think right now, book publishers are dealing with a paper shortage overall that hasn't been completely fixed, leading to only focusing on publishing the hot titles that will get a return on investment. Its why being on the NYT best selling list or topping weekly, monthly, or annual book rankings is so important. And why people sharing books on social media, like Tiktok or virtual book clubs, helps spread the word of popular titles through word of mouth.
Because of this, Shojo Beat needs to be more with the times and kinda go through a whole entire change of mindset when it comes to its audience. They need to advocate and support their books and series with the youth to promote sales, they also need to see what series that people actually want to read (Seven Seas does this spectacularly through their Google Forms and surveys they send every month, leading to highly popular series from them), and have a better understanding of what are the popular series in Japan and try to push them forward a bit more. As whether we like it or not, book publishing is a business, and what matters the most is not only reputation, but how well books sell as sales and profit are the main indicators of success. Along with making accessibility easier as otherwise, fans will turn to piracy to meet their needs.
I do like some Shojo Beat titles as some are true classics and masterpieces, but recently, I have lost interest in some of their recent aquisitions. And generally, even with anime being morely geared towards a male demongraphic, women really really like anime, and that is reflected in the whole interest in manga collection, and reading romance webtoons being super popular lately. So, Shojo Beat needs to understand their market and audience better and tap into it for better sales.
Pretty much agree with all of that!! I'm in no way telling them not to run a business but they'll lose their core audience at this rate for sure.
@@ColleensMangaRecs Thanks for your feedback! Hope it was helpful in some way. I hope Shoujo Beat will eventually change, but who knows tbh
I feel like a lot of smaller publishing companies, like seven seas, are more willing to pick up shojosei titles. For some reason Viz doesn't see the value in the demographic/genre. I guess due to the astronomical success of their shonen action titles. But it seems like smaller companies have noticed that they can't easily compete with them through shonen action so they've started to pay attention to more "niche" audiences.
Seven seas is the one I'm most familiar with because I read danmei (Chinese BL) but it seems like they chose to pick up the genre (danmei) as they noticed a fervent fanbase hungry for content. I hope they do this with shojosei as well, and with them picking up don't say mystery/ don't call it mystery maybe they will/are. Especially because selling to these more "niche" groups has shown them success. This could be the massive wakeup call Viz needs cuz they clearly have access to some of the most popular shojosei series in Japan, but they don't choose to publish them.
Seven Seas posted a survey recently asking people what genre and titles they want so I recommend taking that survey!
@@kineticmeow9242 omg thank you!
Another amazing and informative video colleen! I was so happy you posted about god is telling me to fall in love on your Twitter cause I read what was available online and then bought all 5 of the Japanese volumes!
I hope viz listens to its consumers and licenses more shoujo series! Especially newer ones! I feel like they’re falling extremely behind other publishers bc of their lack of trying when it comes to shoujo.
They could also do a monthly survey for shoujo beat like seven seas does!
You should do a video on Del Ray Manga. I'm honestly still pissed that they had the last volume of Ghost Hunt translated and set to release, and they just simply didn't release it when they sold their company and their licenses. The assholes that have the license of Ghost Hunt refuse to release the last volume nor the 3 extra volumes that were released a couple of years back now.
I really really like "God is telling me to fall in love" but Its been almost a year since an update on a chapter. So many unanswered questions to the story!!
I remember when the Shojo Beat Magazine was cancelled and VIZ rolled everyone to Shonen Jump to finish any subscriptions :<
I still have a few copies of the SB Magazines to this day
I remember my mother buying me these from the local grocery store then eventually caving into a subscription. I had them all. My favorite was Godchild and Vampire Knight.
I was devastated the day shoujo beat sent me my letter that they were discontinuing. Mostly because I had JUST ended my subscription with Shonen jump and instead of shoujo beat refunding me the last few months of my subscription, they tacked it onto lengthening my Shonen jump subscription. At the time, it felt like they were taking away the thing I loved and force feeding me more of the thing I had grown bored with. I really miss shoujo beat.
Was into the magazine as a preteen and was devastated when it ceased publication after the financial crisis of 2008. Still, Viz Media is still doing good work bringing Kaichou wa Maid-sana among other good shoujo titles to western audiences
Another banger. That tumblr post is wild, I was buying shoujo beat manga as a pre teen/teenager (I am thirty now) and obviously was limited cash wise but I also lived in the Welsh countryside so in order to get to the one store that had manga it was an hour on the bus to the nearest town. I have a few first volumes from back then that were the only volumes I could get from that series and now it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to get the rest. Blaming the fans is wild. I collect a variety but one thing I collect is BL and it’s kind of nuts that BL which seems more niche is easier to collect and more abundant than shoujo now when it used to be the opposite. They are so slow on the reprints too which definitely make money like the nana reprints, some people dropped big money to get it that could have been spent on many more volumes. So much stuff that I am buying second hand that money could have been in their pockets. It’s like they blame us but we are all screaming take my money!
I would argue that part of the reason BL volumes are easier to collect is because they do a large, singular print that takes a while to dwindle down because of the smaller market while Shoujo sells out quickly. (There also aren't actually that many BL series in print vs Shoujo). Companies like Seven Seas and Yen Press reprint their Shoujo series as soon as they can while Viz tends to ignore it (there are still series that have been out of stock even before the pandemic that people have been asking to have reprinted.)
I collect a variety of series as well, including non-explicit BL (to which, sadly, there aren't that many ='D ). The hostility from Shoujo Beat toward fans is ridiculous and sadly they aren't the only imprint that's like this. A lot of people found "The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window" through the anime in 2021 (including myself, because 1. I didn't know Sublime existed and 2. I don't read digital manga) and have been asking Sublime to give the Manga a print edition, to which they were basically told "lol, there isn't enough interest in this series to give it a print release."
In both cases, interest is shown and fans are put down even though lack of advertisement is a HUGE issue with both imprints and why many aren't even aware of a series until later on. Treating fans like they're acting entitled is an easy way to destroy their fan base, too, so I'm not sure what they're thinking.
@@thesilentprince1647 me personally I collect all kinds of BL and I can’t keep up with the amount of new stuff coming out constantly I’m spoilt for choice whereas new shoujo licenses there is just a few I am picking up, a few of which aren’t shoujo beat. Reprints are good obviously and continuing series need to do that but it’s just not approachable or exciting like skip beat no hate is on what volume 52 or something and some other stuff is so behind the times like wolf girl and black prince I watched that anime in what 2014 so it’s not really exciting. It’s funny you bring up sublime saying that because they are also a Viz imprint so maybe it’s just a greater issue with Viz not respecting all their non shounen imprints. I am in the UK so our stores are smaller and have less variety generally but when I go shopping for manga there is so little shoujo new or old on the shelves generally I have to buy online whereas if I want to pick up an explicit BL there is multiple right there which I am still not used to because that was not the case at all 10-15 years ago. I think being into a type of manga that is on the rise and another which is in decline has just made it more obvious to me especially when I go shopping.
@@mahoupanda2639 I remembered a while afterwards that there have been quite a few explicit BL picked up lately and meant to delete my comment but forgot (I apologize). Part of me thought you meant BL has more series in print overall now than Shoujo, which certainly isn't the case. I'm sad that it's mostly the explicit series that get picked up, especially for print (I have nothing against it! I just prefer story-centered series regardless of sexuality). It's tiring to see how much content and care Viz takes with their Shounen series while leaving Shoujo Beat behind for sure, though. And Kodansha would probably be doing well with Shoujo/Josei if they... actually printed more of those series. Seven Seas and Yen Press are picking up more Shoujo series, though! So there's hope there.
Aha, no worries I understand. I'm not interested in Skip Beat either and it can be overwhelming trying to get into the long running series, especially since Viz doesn't prioritize those reprints. I think-- if you enjoyed the anime for something and the Manga finally gets a release, it's fine to go ahead and dive into it regardless of how much time has passed. I watched the anime for Rainbow Days forever ago and was excited for the Manga release. Snow White with the Red Hair also had a large gap between the anime and English Manga release. It sucks that they aren't picked up for translation quicker, but I'd rather see them get picked up than ignored forever (preferably in print >< ). Especially since most anime now are only 12 episodes that either only give a small taste of a series or rush everything.
I've seen Viz post so many "Manga and anime are taking over the world!" articles that only feature their Shounen imprint and it's... yeah. They don't seem to care about anything else and it's certainly not fair to their other fans.
I live in a small rural area in Canada, so I get it. The closest bookstore is over an hour away and they used to only have one shelf of Manga when I was a kid. They gradually grew, but tended to lean toward Shounen over the years. But now they have a decent selection from all the different companies and demographics, so it's getting better (but I still need to order a lot of the less popular series ='D ). We can only hope that companies will see how tired and frustrated their long-time fans are becoming and start treating the demographic better.
Blaming fans is funny look at Webtoon and the other webcomic apps most of their popular titles are ROMANCE unless they’re more manga based women and girls want to be catered to as well and let’s not forget romance novels are one of if not the biggest seller in fiction in the book industry so women most definitely are willing to buy stories.
@@Toastcat890 I don’t know why they are so against giving us shoujo beat in a digital format. I’m on lezhin most days, I read some things on tapas and I have a manga planet/Futekiya subscription. Series I have liked reading that way some of them have become popular enough to get physical releases. They won’t even give it a shot and because of that they are being left in the dust by the webtoon apps. Like surely it’s easy money digitising or even just translating already digitised stuff compared to physically creating the books.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal YT Channel just released a 6 minute video on "The Economics of Barnes & Noble" and what is in highest demand in their bookstores today? DING DING DING! Manga (and Romance books, thank you ladies) is acting as Atlas to their industry. Consumers just can't get enough. It is insane to me that as manga is gobbling up more and more square footage in stores (taking over Western comic/graphic novel sections, music, and movie sections), Shojo Beat (and other publishers) isn't pulling a media blitz to push their product. Or building on the trend of pushing old titles in hot new packaging as "Collector" or "Deluxe" editions. There seems to be a definite disconnect between the Viz Shojo/Shonen branch, not withstanding their shojo audience. The cherry on top is the unsavory interactions Shojo Beat has with their fans (if only my parents did the nasty earlier, if only child labor laws weren't a thing, if only I had a time machine). Take a page from Barnes & Noble's revamp of their in-store experience, listen to the customer base.
I really wish shojo beat would get more magical girl manga currently they only have
Phantom Thief Jeanne,Full Moon o Sagashite (magical idol) and Ultra Maniac(witch from another world on earth)
legit I really miss seeing shoujo demographic magical girls other than _Sailor Moon_ on shelves... that being said, I still want _Suicide Girl_ in English print too.
I just love your videos so much and i really appreciate the fact that you talk about classic shoujo titles that have been forgotten by many! Shoujo is my favorite genre and seeing you talk about it and spreading information on it is amazing!! I will never get over my love for series like kamisama kiss, dengeki daisy, ao haru ride or nana that represent the classic shoujo genre!
Also this video was so informative and i learned alot of things about shoujo that i had never heard of before
Would be cool to maybe one day get a video on other English publishers and how they have been handling shoujo manga as of late.
Possibly on Kodansha. I don't wanna rip into any smaller publishers that are doing good work or anything lol. I did talk a bit about other publishers that I think are doing well in my Q&A video awhile back.
I’d be interested in this as well.
i used to subscribe to shoujo beat magazine in middle school and it brought me so much happiness as a kid. i was so sad when my parents had to cancel the magazine. this video brought me so much nostalgia ❤
Wow, the amount of research that went into making this! This is top notch journalism/essayism. (tnx omnibros for the introduction)
I just started to read Crimson Hero after finding the first 4 volumes at my local bookstore and fell in love with it! So of course I went on a little trip through wiki and such trying to find the rest of them, only to learn that if was never completed :( Im going to continue to try and pick them up, hoping they might finish the series on day... along with the rest cancelled that year
Great overview of the SB imprint, and thanks for recapping some of their recent controversies (the Romantic Killer one still ticks me off)! One small correction, though: Viz's Flower Comics imprint wasn't named after Flowers magazine. It was named after Shogakukan's shojo imprint, Flower Comics. Shogakukan has published all of its shojo titles under the FC imprint since the 1970s (regardless of whether a manga was serialized in Betsucomi or Cheese!, etc.). Josei manga, too (though nowadays their josei titles are published under the Flower Comics Alpha imprint).
EDIT: Oh, I see the Flowers magazine thing comes from an old ANN column. Guess I should send my comment to the author, lol.
I guess in my mind I just assumed the magazine was where the Flowers Comic imprint for Shogakukan came from lol. I do know what you're saying though since I have 7 Seeds in the og tankoban and it has the little FC with a flower on the corner of it. My b.
@@ColleensMangaRecs Oh, it's no problem! I edited my comment to say this before I saw your reply, but it seems like the Flowers magazine thing comes from an old ANN column, hence the misunderstanding. ^^;
First!!!!
Edit: great video as always!! Super informative and insightful. I'm not from the US so I didn't know much of this but I can relate to the struggle to find good and new shoujo titles and it makes me sad that I usually end up reading them online and in another language. It's also sad when you compare the shonen/seinen catalog of the publishing companies against their shoujo/josei.
I was in high school during the peak time when Shojo Beat was popular for a brief moment and I had memories of seeing the magazine in my local Barnes and Noble. Not just with the manga but when VIZ Media had a few anime under the Shojo Beat label. They let most of their anime license expire, having licensed by other anime companies in later years and the only anime that has a Shojo Beat label to this day is Vampire Knight. Its really sad and disappointing on how Shojo Beat has been treated over the past decade
I feel exactly the same way.
Accessibility is such a drag. Especially with crazy eBay prices lol I’m glad you threw that in there
My biggest regret is having my "scrapbooking" phase during the end of ShojoBeat Magazine. So many middleschool crushes/boyfriends got gushy valentines cards or love notes that were literally cut out of ShojoBeat magazines bc there were so many "romantic" pages that I felt conveyed my middleschool lovelife (hahahahahahahahaha). Some of the cutouts did make it to my school planners that I did save and they really do feel like a time capsule. But, I really wish I'd left those magazines intact- they were SO cool. I subscribe to Otaku USA with my adult money now, but it's nowhere NEAR as cool. I miss ShojoBeat Magazine so much...
Ah, Four Shoujo Stories. I remember that (and hearing about the copyright dust-up later).
I love your vids so much. You have reminded me of so many memories of a lot of these titles while adding on new ones for me to find! I wish though you added a list (like in the description or in a pinned comment) with all the titles you mention in these videos. I have a hard time finding when you mention the titles sometimes after I finish the video (because I respect you enough to finish the video first) . Just a thought! 😁😁
I'm an American comics and Shonen kid, but I learned a lot from this! Great info and delivery.
They actually did give out gifts in some issues like stickers and calendars post cards nothing substantial but it was always exciting when they did I would buy it in the store every month until the middle of the recession then unfortunately had to sell the majority of my manga to a local video bookstore I did keep one series and still have it today
I did have a friend who got SB magazines tell me that and I almost slid in an edit to mention that until another friend who collected SJ magazines told me SJ got all that plus more (like yugioh cards).
For love of god I WASNT ALIVE THEN!?AND IF I WAS I WOULD BE AN INFANT
I was. It warms my heart seeing more young people getting into manga and anime.
Old otaku, like myself, crawled and walked so y'all youngling otaku are able to finally run. 🥹
What a great and interesting video. Great job Colleen!
Now I kind of see why shojo beat has such a bad rep on twitter. Responding to a user request by calling them a thief.
I absolutely love your videos that educate me 🙇🏻♂️ I hope this video sparks conversation & positive change :)
I'm currently reading a bunch of shonen titles that I like far less than than most shojo, josei and seinen titles I've loved merely because they're available on the shonen jump app on a week to week basis. A similar app for other titles with weekly manga and back archives would be well worth it to me for basically whatever price VIZ wanted to gouge me for. They have the tech infrastructure, the monetization strategy and the back catalog available to them if they just use it for something that isn't only shonen jump!
i think of shojo manga. i think of imprint call Daisuki or manga twister
Daisuki is monthly jump shojo manga magazine in Germany, by Carlsen Comics (February 2003 to June 2012) and Manga Twister its was Bi-Monthly shojo/ shonen by Egmont Manga and Anime ( only did sunday manga ) from 2003 -2006
I still have my box of around four years of Shojo Beats and NewtypeUSA magazines! 🥰
Thank you for making this video, I've been wondering the same thing regarding shoujo beat
The thing I noticed with Shojo Beat is it didn't have a regular monthly magazine that sold in regular stores (gas stations, grocery stores etc.) like Shonen Jump did.
And Shonen Jump also gave out really cool freebies like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in their yearly anniversary issues.
And most of the manga in Shonen Jump had anime (Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Ball, One Piece etc. ) that aired on Kids WB. That network was the go to for kids that didn't have access to cable or the internet .
If Shojo Beat had that type of marketing, then it may have lasted longer.
It was sold in stores, since I'd normally find it at my local supermarket (Arecibo, PR). But it was cheaper to get it via subscription.
15:33 this video is the first I’ve heard of shoujo beat as a magazine and I’ve literally owned shoujo beat manga volumes
I still have all the old copies of Shojo Beat I had as a teenager, including their final print volume. I bought them monthly with my allowance :)
Me too.
I was a Shonen Jump & Shojo Beat subscriber from 2002-ish till they both ended their runs. Shojo Beat magazine did have a few of issues with freebies (memo pads, sticker sheets, desk calendar, and a couple postcards).
I also grew up on shoujo beat’s releases but honestly at this point I don’t care who publishes them as long as they get published. We got seven seas etc who are doing a pretty good job. Although these days I’m more into the Korean manhwas so I’m collecting their prints mostly. I do wish shoujo beat had a subscription based app like shounen jump tho.
And they refused to do that when fans have asked them.
Imagine being a female mangaka that changed the shoujo industry a few decades ago for the better only for this to be the future...
24:46 back ordering has been shown to increase collectible value/market value but an excessive amount of it has been shown to do the opposite. I think Nerd Sync or some other comic book channel did a video about it?? But the reason it decreases value is cuz it shows more demand and so there’s more printed. So if you want more printed it sounds like a good strategy tbh
Good news! I've heard that Red River will be getting a reprint as an omnibus series; the first volume comes out in October and I can't wait. :>
I loved the Shojo beat magazine. I used to get the new issue every month at the library. I even owned a few copy’s of the magazine. Suddenly I couldn’t find the magazine anymore. The librarian gave me the devastating news that it had been cancelled. I noticed that this was around the same time as the “downfall” of shojo romance manga for me. The series that came after this just didn’t have the same magic for me as the bigger names like vampire knight or host club. Honestly these days I’m getting my “anime style romance” from Otome games instead of manga.
That “since you have been gone” scared me😂. Thank you for the hard work in research
I am not sure why Viz doesn't reprint old series. They must know that their old Shojo Beat series are extremely sought after and only avaliable on the second hand market. Do they not want want money? As well, there is no excuse there is not a Shojo Beat app. They wonder why their series doesn't sell as well as their Shonen counterparts, when they make it as inaccessible as possible. I wish they would get it together
On the note of furoku- we did get a cute calander once in Shojo Beat! I loved that little thing and kept it on display for years
If a company can’t make money off the otherwise most lucrative demographic then it’s not the demographic that’s the issue, it’s the company. That they didn’t think to partner with stationary for their series is insane and the demand can be clearly seen in Artist Alleys of anime cons where shoujo manga has tons of rep. Girls go crazy for pens and notebooks and pins. Such a loss.
I'm from the Animerica Extra era. But I was more of a Smile (its TokyoPop counterpart) kiddo.
But also, I have every single _Shoujo Beat_ issue. *EVERY. SINGLE. ISSUE.*
the way you unlocked memories when you mentioned dengeki daisy
God I used to love Shojo Beat as a teen. I remember reading so many titles with a friend of mine who got me into it. Miss those days. I remember we’d spend all our pocket money on manga volumes and my friend even had a sub to the magazine we’d always share.
The bathroom joke hit a little too close to home. 😅 I have Crohn's disease and it has caused me to have accidents. I'm not an old person either - I was only diagnosed a few years ago at age 17.
I'm so sorry 😭😭
i have crohn's too!!! diagnosed in 2019 at age 14
I was in middle school when i discovered the Shojo Beat magazine, and I too would always fill out the subscription card and hand it to my mom who would also say no. I loved that the pages had color and all the extra articles about stuff in Japan. A few years back, i found a stack of them in some sketchy comic shop for a $1 a pop and nearly lost my mind. Still have them! Some even still wrapped with little goodies!