Manga Radar: 4 March 2012

First up, as usual, are the Database Additions — older titles I somehow previously missed.

Sweet Revolution – DMP Juné, Mar 2006 ::
Laugh Under the Sun – DMP Juné, Dec 2007 ::

Kino no Tabi (novel) 1 – Tokyopop, Oct 2006 ::
Kino no Tabi (novel) 2 – Tokyopop, TBA ::

Someone (or rather, likely several someones) was ordering yaoi from buy.com – I saw *a lot* of titles and actually expected more of them to be new to my charts. As it was, we only had two pickups – both older Juné titles.

More interesting (to me) are the Kino no Tabi books – these are from the much-neglected TokyoPop Fiction line, which also included The Twelve Kingdoms and a few other books no one remembers, sadly. Kino no Tabi vol 1 is selling for $50 on Amazon, used; vol 2 can not be had for love or money.

Most of the New Releases for the week are ebooks — a trend which will continue for the foreseeable future. I don’t know if it’s because ebooks are “impulse” purchases or merely a side effect of e- — there’s not much lead time on ebooks, as they are either ready to go (and to purchase) or, well, they’re not.

Oh, & A Bowl of Moxa Is Coming (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
The Boyfriend Next Door (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
Clumsy Child (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
Tweeting Love Birds (ebook) 2 – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
Renji Jumonji’s Hardship (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
Again Tomorrow (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
The Conqueror’s Chalice (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Feb 2012 ::
Cheap Chase (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Mar 2012 ::

Cage of Eden 4 – Kodansha Comics, Feb 2012 ::
Itazura na Kiss 7 – DMP, Mar 2012 ::

I don’t attempt an exhaustive listing of DMG titles, only tracking those that sell; part of that is because I have no clue, really, just how many volumes these teams are putting out, mostly though it’s because tracking _all_ of them would require as much effort as the whole rest of the chart. I add more than a few to the database each week, though.

Cage of Eden and Itazura na Kiss are midlist? properties that didn’t really blow the doors off when they first came out, but have a few fans at least. These two most recent volumes didn’t make a mark as preorders but are selling now that they are out. Itazura na Kiss vol 7 ranks in the top 500, at #347 for the week – that puts the book in the rough neighborhood of Naruto 33, Wallflower 27, and Three P [from DMP’s Project H]

Also new to the charts this week are a real mixed bag of Preorders:

Kizuna Deluxe Edition 6 – DMP Juné, Jun 2012 ::
Dawn of the Arcana 4 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2012 ::
Dog x Cat 3 – 801 Media, Jun 2012 ::
In These Words – 801 Media, Jun 2012 ::
Bad Teacher’s Equation 4 – DMP Juné, Jun 2012 ::
Same Difference – DMP Juné, Jun 2012 ::
Witch & Wizard 2 – Yen Press, Jun 2012 ::

Rin-Ne 9 – Viz Shonen Sunday, Jul 2012 ::
Flutter – DMP Juné, Jul 2012 ::
Secretary’s Job – DMP Juné, Jul 2012 ::

Yotsuba&! 11 – Yen Press, Sep 2012 ::

DMP has a very strong showing here (likely due to their very dedicated fans) but there are also books in just about every genre/flavour to be had – from shojo to shonen to Yotsuba&!.

Yotsuba&! fans are ordering six months in advance, likely just as soon as they could find a listing for the book. That says something.

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My posted results (the top ten lists, category breakouts like the ebooks list, the Manga 500) are too much for most folks to wade through, but still only the tip of the data iceberg. A ranking isn’t as important as the vector — whether a title is moving up or down the rankings, and how fast. Already, in each report, you can see if a title is moving up or down compared to the previous week, but that’s just a single blip. Unless you work with the source websites & all the numbers as intimately as I do, you miss the bigger picture — and even then, often I just have a feeling or a hunch about a title. I thought I might put in the extra effort, though, and bring at least some of that perspective to you, as well as generating concrete proof to prove (& especially disprove) my guesses. Since we’ll be looking at weeks of data, unfortunately that means graphics.

I say ‘unfortunately’ — as I am good with maths but not necessarily as adept at visualizations. I lean heavily on the built-in functionality of the spreadsheet whenever I do post a graph. Still, if you know what question you’re asking, you can set up the spreadsheet to do a lot of heavy data lifting for you, and the results don’t look that bad.

Here’s the newest part of the “Manga Radar” : a manga radar scope.

I’ll start by giving you the top 10 preorders for the week of 4 March, 2012:

19. ↓-1 (18) : Sailor Moon 5 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [283.3] ::
21. ↔0 (21) : Sailor Moon 7 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2012 [260.5] ::
22. ↑1 (23) : Sailor Moon 6 – Kodansha Comics, Jun 2012 [260.1] ::
63. ↓-1 (62) : Negima! 34 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [148.7] ::
80. ↑17 (97) : Black Butler 9 – Yen Press, Jul 2012 [119.8] ::
83. ↑374 (457) : Sailor Moon 8 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2012 [119.1] ::
88. ↑1 (89) : Dance in the Vampire Bund 12 – Seven Seas, Jun 2012 [110.3] ::
104. ↑7 (111) : The Betrayal Knows My Name 3 – Yen Press, Apr 2012 [94.4] ::
107. ↑736 (843) : Finder Series 6 Passion within the View Finder – DMP Juné, Jul 2012 [92.4] ::
109. ↑75 (184) : Private Teacher 3 – DMP Juné, May 2012 [91.4] ::

And here is the same list with 16 weeks of historical data attached:

Sailor Moon vol. 5, available for preorder the longest (perhaps) and certainly benefiting from the enthusiasm for the series, has some ups and downs but has been consistently outselling the other 9 for all 16 weeks… but check out the strong surges of volume 7 (from two months ago) and of volume 8, available for preorder for just the past two weeks. The only thing quite like it on this list is the 6th (and last?) volume in the “View Finder” series, Passion within the View Finder — though looking back, Dance in the Vampire Bund vol 12 and Sailor Moon vol 7 also had similar spikes in their 2nd week. Other titles in this [limited] list are showing relatively-flat-but-slowing-growing demand.

At some future point, I might post a similar chart showing how manga volumes with strong preorders still exhibit a significant spike in sales once they are actually released and available. There are a lot of fun things I can do with this data now that I have it all in one place and not spread out across 16 files. I suppose I can experiment with quite a few different ways to present the data. I know the graph above is basic (and maybe not as clear as I think it is) but it’s been a long haul just to get to this one simple graph — and to put into place the procedures to continue to track all the rankings on an ongoing, rolling 16-week basis.

Feedback, as always, is appreciated; drop your questions into the comments. [and really good questions will likely also find their way onto the about the charts page].