FMP Task 2 : Viability and Market Research

For this task I had to gather primary and secondary research into manga and anime trends in our culture in preparation for designing my own manga concept. Through internet resources I discovered that the two major demographics in manga break down to the basic male and female which is Shonen and Shojo respectively. These two demographics then break down into varying art styles, typical genres and storylines found within these demographics. Translated over to our culture the lines have become blurred as we count shonen and shojo more as genres than as demographics.

Shonen was the first to be brought en masse to American shores during the mid 1990's this made logical sense as comics back then were still considered to mainly be marketed to the male audience. However this all changed when shojo was later marketed and was a major benefactor in introducing comics to the female market.
One of the most popular and regocnized genres of shonen is the mecha genre it serves as the spearhead of Japanese culture which is very much driven by advancing technology.


Contrary to popular belief Shojo is not merely just a demographic that projects storylines of romance and comedy popular themes today of this demographic consist of dark gothic horror mixed with romantic themes a prime example of this is Vampire Knight which seems to have jumped aboard the current popularity of vampire romances.


             

 Although these two are the most accessed kinds of manga and anime around in our culture there are two other demographics that are often neglected because in our culture reading comics only seems acceptable up to a certain age whereas in Japan males and females can read comics up to their late thirties therefore the two other demographics Seinen and Josei are aimed for older males and older females respectitively. These kind of mangas usually contain a more adut and graphic theme although this isn't always of an innapproaiate nature. It can also mean that plot and story are deeper and often darker and they use the more niche genres such as psycho thrillers.

To further research into market trends of manga and how they are most accessed I went to popular retail chains Forbidden Planet and Travelling Tale Books to ask about what manga sells best and what is in demand from this research I found that especially for paper versions older mangas and mangas that our out of print are a lot more desired which made me think that buying hard copies of manga volumes is much more of a collectors thing whereas newer manga is accessed more through internet sites.

I also discovered the mangas with  an anime counterpart sell a lot better especially animes that have been dubbed or translated to English. This only soldifies my theory that to best put across my new graphic novel an animated trailer alongside it would make sense.

I then created a survey to see what manga and anime was popular and how the main  market accessed their manga and what they look for in a manga and anime.

I handed these out in Manchester, at college and through the internet however I only got very limited results the age range that I found best results were between 16 and 20 and throughout the small collection of results I collected it was apparent that the usual suspects kept appearing suspects such as Naruto, One Piece, Bleach and other popular shonen mangas and animes. This was further backed up by Forbidden Planets list of top sellers as well as secondary research I found on the internet.

Through the internet when I found questions asked such as "Why do you like Naruto?" answers that came back were mainly things like character design and epic fight scenes while the actual storylines sometimes came across as confusing. Similair type answers came back for animes of the same demographic and it came apprantly clear how important character design is both in terms of visual and story.

Also from these results I found that people came to hear about their favourite anime through word of mouth or even online manga and anime forums and communities this could prove a detrimental method of advertising as the manga and anime audience follow the two step flow model where there are the main people who explore and discover new animes which they then form their own opinions and then spread their opinion virally through the internet so targeting my new graphic novel to the trend setters would be a good idea.

I could do this by doing a promotional hardcopy of my graphic novel for free which would target the most hardcore of the market who buy their manga and then it would spread to those who access freely on the internet.

In theory I feel if I was to create a graphic novel isnpired by manga but using ideas and themes based on our culture I could open a new gap in the manga market geared towards people who are more into western comics.