Comments on: Viz Publishes One Piece 5 Times a Month in 2010

By: Devon...A.K.A...One Piece lover!

Devon...A.K.A...One Piece lover! — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:52:33 +0000

Yes One Piece is the best manga i have EVER read!! after vol.4…….i was going crazy!!! I then spent every cent i had on One Piece…..and when i heard about the speed up,………..@ first i remembered me smiling,…then i remembered me screaming,……then i went crazy and didnt remember too much after that………LoL. But im saving up my money to buy One Piece now!! So far i have vols.24-33 pre-ordered…..Im doing what ever i can to buy my FAV Manga Series!!

By: ninth

ninth — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:35:56 +0000

One Piece is EPIC, like any series the first few chapters are a bit slow, but if you keep reading it you’ll start to enjoy it, I took a chance with it and i’m absolutely addicted, the new price increase it gonna hit me hard though, so i think i’ll stop buying individual volumes and wait until a box set comes out

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:54:28 +0000

Thanks for the push, Renee. I guess I’m a little leery about such a long series, especially having to catch up. Hmmm, maybe my library has it.

By: Renee

Renee — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:41:55 +0000

TBH, I’d be much more excited about a VIZBig release of One Piece–there’s just SO MUCH of it, and the dense art would benefit from a larger cut size. But maybe (as long as Viz doesn’t expect Naruto-like results) the flood will be positive. If nothing else, I’m glad this series is getting more attention from Viz & Funimation.

And Johanna, please continue with One Piece! I remember volume one being unremarkable, too. But after that, it becomes this epic adventure, on par with the best adventure books I read as a child. It’s hard to pinpoint things I like about it because I like all of it. It’s got brilliant characters, imaginative settings & situations, and goofy shonen humor mixed with genuine pathos. It’s original & fresh, yet entirely true to shonen conventions. It’s absolutely worth another shot.

By: James Moar

James Moar — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:52:47 +0000

“I’d love to hear more about what fans find enjoyable about it.”

I think the key is how completely unabashed the series is, whether it’s doing OTT adventure with a light touch, or showing its sentimental streak.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:15:48 +0000

Wow, your store sounds like the kind of place I’d like to shop. And you make a good point about display affecting customer purchases.

By: cathy

cathy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:33:30 +0000

My bookstore makes an effort to keep an entire run of a series on the shelf, which pays off because we have more and more customers coming in who only buy things if they can get all of the volumes. For space we compromise on the numbers ordered – we may not stock more than one or two of each volume.

I don’t think we’re typical, though. We just have a few really vocal manga fans on staff that keep an eye on things.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:27:51 +0000

Oh, yes, we have similar experiences. Even when I want to buy from my local bookstore, they refuse to order things in for me, instead sending me to their retail site. (This is Borders, by the way.) That’s dumb, because if I go online, I’m going to order elsewhere, either to get a better discount, or from someplace I already have an account.

By: Joshua Macy

Joshua Macy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:18:29 +0000

When I say people I mean the consumers, not the retailers. I think retailers are hosed anyway: once Amazon exists, what do bookstores provide? A place for impulse purchases, and for those things that you have to hold in your hand and flip through before you decide if you want it?

I love bookstores, I find it difficult to pass a bookstore without poking my nose in…but half the time I end up buying from Amazon anyway because even if the bookstore is well-stocked they only have the latest in everything except a handful of perennials. If I find an author that looks interesting, particularly with mysteries and SF, it will almost always turn out that the store has the latest volume and maybe one before, but not the debut.

I don’t know if dumping so much One Piece on the market at once is smart, but I’m pretty sure that even if they spaced it out one a month, to get any of the middle volumes you were going to have to shop online anyway.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:45:42 +0000

Except that as more manga titles have come out, they’re being treated more like periodicals, not less. And I can’t blame retailers, because if they don’t go to reduced stocking strategies (like keeping only the first couple and the couple most recent on the shelf), they’ll quickly run out of space. I’m not sure how much market there is for middle volumes of many completed or long-running series anyway.

By: Joshua Macy

Joshua Macy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:03:36 +0000

It does seem like an awful lot of product, but if people stop treating these things as if they were periodicals I could imagine it working out. That is, just because they release five in a month doesn’t mean you have to buy all five. On the other hand, I can’t see bookstores carrying 60 volumes at once. So either some of the volumes will be special-orders, or you’ll have to get them from Amazon…

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:54:01 +0000

I never got the appeal of One Piece, but I only ever read book one. I’d love to hear more about what fans find enjoyable about it.

Does releasing a lot of material help a series find its audience, or does it turn off potential readers? I think that’s the key question here.

By: arkib

arkib — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:38:12 +0000

It’s not just “a goofy comedy series”. And I think to describe it as such would be to do it a disservice. There’s a reason it’s been so successful in Japan.

Anyway I don’t think there’s that much of an audience for it in the west. It just hasn’t taken off in the same way that Naruto has. Probably why it’s not talked about as much. I think this move is to try and give it that push into the same sort of popularity as it has in Japan.

That said, I actually like the sound of this idea. But then again 1) I don’t buy much manga and 2) I’m already much further along in the series than the current volume that’s out in the west. So it means I can keep relatively up to date with the latest volume releases in Japan and still support the series in the west.