How can people read more Manga?

Manga is obviously not getting the attention it deserves compared to anime DVDs.  How should one educate the masses?  Bring manga to school and public libraries?  Include discount or free offers in DVDs?  Lower the price per book?  Have more monthly digest format books like Jump USA?  Include a special shelf on bookstore magazine racks?  Have them at newstands and airports? Throw books at random passersby?

Convert their internet-savvy children. Free shit goes a long way.

Why do you want to convert people anyway?

Hm? Manga is already getting plenty of attention in the USA, I've seen a bunch of news articles on it. They have manga at most libraries, including school libraries. (Though I'm out of high school, we even had about 5 volumes when I left.) Most bookstores do have a special rack for manga, I haven't been to one in years which doesn't. My local Walden Books even has a huge manga section spanning around 4 shelves, plus a display for new titles, and a section for merchandise like posters and plushies.

Course, I wouldn't mind lowering price or discounts here and there.... As far as monthly digest books, I don't think they work well here. They're expensive and come out slowly, it's generally a lot cheaper just to get the volumes instead of a $5 mag where you may only like a couple titles, and takes up a ton of room but is too expensive to throw away.

most people regard manga as comic books, because they are, there's nothing special about them in comparison except maybe there's more variety (in story if not in style) and they're made by japanese ppl

instead of crusading for japanese comic books overall you should find a couple good ones to share with friends like a normal fanboy

Your High School had manga? Man I bet not even 30 people knew what manga was in my High School. I don't really care if manga gets popular over here anyway. Anime either. I'm sick of trying to tell people that anime isn't the same thing as a cartoon and that it's not just for kids. I'd rather just download it.

>>5

Anime is cartoons. The only difference between Japanese animation and what's seen in the States is that in the US, society has reached the concensus that animated things are either a) pornographic or b) for young children. Regardless of the language that it's in, you are still watched animated material.

If you feel there's nothing wrong with this, then there's nothing wrong. If your parents think you're childish for watching "cartoons", then that's because they are a product of the era of American culture that dictates the role of animation in society.

"Bring manga to school and public libraries?"

I'm conflicted here. On the one hand, if the public library I work for got more manga, I'd be able to read it. On the other hand, the manga section is a mess already ("Go fix the manga shelf. Yes, again." is commonly found on the whiteboard we use to order around volunteers.), riveled only by the children's section in its inability to stay in order. The problem seems to be that we (like most other libraries I've seen) shelve them in non-fiction by Dewey number, but they're done inconsistantly (some'll end up in 741.5, others in 741.5973, etc.). I keep having to pull manga from the shelves to recatalog it because half of a series is in one place and the rest is in another. From what I've seen, this isn't just local to us: pretty much all the libraries in our system file in non-fiction by Dewey and screw it up.

So, basically, we'd need to put manga in a separate section organized by series or author or something, but the powers that be don't think we have enough to warrant using up the space we'd need to make a new section. But, if we get more and keep them the way they are now, there'll be more mess and less space. *sigh* Gotta love filing systems.

... why do I get the feeling that everyone skipped this post ^^;?

Remember, alot of Americans can't even read.

>>8

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97%
male: 97%
female: 97% (1999 est.)

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

3% of 295,734,134 (US population, July 2004 est.) is 8,872,024. Thats still a lot of people.

For fuck's sake MAKE IT CHEAPER. I love manga, but I can't afford to buy it any more. A single volume here costs £7, or ~$12.50 . Does the cost of translating a volume of manga really justify a 350% markup on Japanese prices?

And give us more magazines. Good ones. Not like the ridiculously over-produced Shonen Jump USA, I want cheap, interesting manga, printed badly on crappy recycled paper, that'll cost the same as a newspaper. Manga shouldn't be the fucking INVESTMENT it is now.

careful what you wish for: low-qualty, shitty tokyopop translations are a nice, affordable ten bucks, whereas the decent ones tend to go a buck or five over.

>>11
truth
it's cheaper to import it and hire a team of japanese transfer students to translate it for you

i've done that with a few of my japanese friends. gave them 2 bucks to translate 1 manga which i had gotten for $3 lmao worked magically.

>>14

Zomg torrent.

Price-wise between a Marvel month comic and a manga volume, the manga volume is priced better and cheaper mainly because its b/w i suppose. But the manga volumes also don't have the annoying product ads that you usuall see in you DC/marvel comics.

it's fairer to compare collected manga volumes and comic trade paperbacks: manga anthologies are kind of the cheap, collected version of the way too expensive single-issue comic book format. TPBs are still way more expensive than manga volumes, though.