Square Enix Marketing Manager Discusses Manga Publishing Challenges in the U.S.
The interview provides a direct look at the operational and market-specific hurdles a relatively new manga imprint faces in the U.S., including the gap between teenage readership and adult purchasing power.
Reporting from 1 sources: Anime By The Numbers.
Square Enix Manga & Books marketing manager Morgan Perry spoke with the newsletter Anime By The Numbers about the state of manga publishing in the U.S. Perry, who previously worked at BOOM! Studios and Skybound Entertainment, described the challenges of working for a publisher that is the U.S. arm of a video game company. She noted that Square Enix Manga & Books is only six years old and has a small, curated slate. Perry identified several obstacles unique to the North American market: a lingering resistance from western comic shops to carry manga, a knowledge gap among retailers about the products, and the fact that most manga readers in the U.S. are teenagers (13-18) while most purchasers are over 18, creating a conversion problem since teens have less online purchasing power. She also highlighted that U.S. manga readers prefer physical copies over digital, unlike the Japanese market, and that western consumers favor subscription models over microtransactions for digital manga apps. Perry noted trends including more BL and GL acquisitions, more LGBTQ representation, and rereleases of classic titles, while shonen action series still dominate sales charts.
Morgan Perry, marketing manager for Square Enix Manga & Books, gave an extensive interview to the newsletter Anime By The Numbers, covering her career path from western comics to manga publishing. She started at a local comic shop, then worked as a direct market representative for BOOM! Studios, where she helped launch series like Something is Killing the Children and BRZRKR, before moving to Skybound Entertainment. Perry said she had always wanted to work at a manga publisher, and that her skills from western comics transferred well.
Perry described Square Enix Manga & Books as an infant imprint, only six years old, with a small team of three on the Square Enix side supported by Penguin Random House. She noted that a challenge is that some of Square Enix Japan's biggest titles, like Fullmetal Alchemist and Black Butler, were licensed to other overseas publishers before the imprint formed, leading to confusion among retailers. She also discussed the difficulty of marketing manga in the U.S., where print advertising is largely nonexistent and most marketing is done through social media and online advertising, in contrast to Japan's approach.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime By The Numbers An Insider’s Look at Manga Publishing in the U.S.