That question has popped in my head several times, maybe we're getting ripped off, maybe we have good prices? Who knows. Here, shonen jump manga (Bleach, Naruto, etc...) costs 5€ in Catalan, 7,5€ in Spanish, non-jump manga costs 9€, and comedy / shojo manga costs 8,5€. Some huge mangas like Sakura Taisen or Kinnikuman cost 10€. What about you? :3
£6.99 in the shops/Amazon, about £2 (plus £2 shipping) from Amazon traders. I get through tons of Manga, costs me a fortune, I can read £40 worth in a day.
Yes, you are getting ripped off... I don't feel translated manga should cost 1 yen more than the original Japanese. I guess things haven't changed since 1995 when I would buy translated manga, I remember Japanese tankoubon selling for $10-13 at indy comic/anime shops, and Viz (translated) manga selling for $15-20 in big comic stores for the same thing, compared to $3-4 for tankoubon from a Japanese bookstore! One thing for sure is cheaper though today--anime. I remember when 30 minute VHS tapes of translated edited crap would cost $30 and original Japanese VHS would cost $50-60... even Japanese videostores would sell duplicate (bootleg) copies for $15-20 and Laserdiscs... $100 for a 60 minute movie!
Here in Chile we get translated mangas from three countries: Spain, Argentina and Mexico. The Argentinean versions are the cheapest with prices ranging US 6 to 10$, the Spanish versions are the most expensive as mangas cost US 20$. The Mexican versions cost only a bit more than the argentinean mangas
Tankobans are something like ~500yen in Japan. In the U.S., they're $10+. (They used to all be $15-16 back in the day. Thanks to the increased popularity of manga, prices have lowered! KITA!) I guess they cost more due to licensing and localization, which is UNDERSTANDABLE and it doesn't suck all that much. When the average U.S. comic is $3-4 and compilations are ~$13-25, then the current cost of U.S.-distributed manga isn't all that bad to me.
Why wouldn't translated Manga cost more? Someone gets paid to sit and translate it, then you need to blank out the original text and replace it, maybe alter speech bubbles etc. It may often get printed in a different country where the prices are higher, or if not then shipping costs have to be taken into account. Anything Japanese that's translated, be it in print or other form, is expensive here in the UK. Take the Ghibli films - when my local HMV opened just before Christmas, they were all £7 each. Now, the majority of them have been put up to £20!
I believe the lower licensing costs in non-Japan countries should more than make up for the translation costs, plus why should the consumer pay for the translation in the first place? We shouldn't pay a premium for someone to sell us a product in our language, that's a (trivial) cost the publisher should eat.
Simply because it's not in our native tongue. I'm willing to pay a premium for that. If I were into manga at this juction but I'm not.
But you're already paying the publisher for the material, you don't pay extra for videogames translated into English...
if it bothers you, start up your own publisher in america for manga. Until then, just deal with it or don't buy it. Incredible concept.
Here in Brazil it's usually R$6 for a half tankobon or R$12 for a tankobon, both translated of course.
I've never been into Manga myself, but whenever I see it at Books a Million, its usually $15-$20. I never bought any because I thought that price was ridiculous for a small 25 page Anime comic book, and I'm not really into Manga that much anyway. I've got a funny story about the Manga section from that store, and its a little sad. Some lady with her like 80 year old dad (she was probably 30 at the youngest) and was asking her dad for $120 to get 6 Mangas she really wanted. She kept saying "DAD OMG THESE ARE RARE" and he's like "I'm not paying $120 for damn BOOKS! Why don't you get a job?" and she was still like "PLEASE DADDY PLEASE!" And of course, the woman was twice as large as me, and her dad probably barely weighed 100 pounds.
Cheap, specially these days that the market is flooded with translated editions. Last time i checked at "Metropolis" it was between 5 and 30 Reais. (30 Reais being the rare or imported stuff).
