If you ever decided to buy your own manga, you will have noticed just how expensive the thing can be. Which of course leads to the question: why is manga so expensive?
I have been a firm proponent for people starting to read manga. That has been spoken about a lot in this website. Yes, anime is a lot of fun, however there are a great many benefits one gets from reading manga. So, this could have convinced a number of people to start reading manga. In which case, I feel it is only fair that I explain a couple of truths to that group of people.
Manga can be expensive. Not that it costs you your kidneys or anything, but it can be quite pricey.
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Why is that the case?
Manga is expensive because it takes a lot of to produce the manga that is created, and also because it has to make up for the rights that the anime gives away. Manga is produced by a mangaka, and their publishing company.
The mangaka spends a lot of time trying to produce manga, usually at a weekly basis. When the manga is created, the publishing company must print on papers, and sell these copies. This takes a lot of money and requires the price to be high so that whoever made this can make their money back.
So then the question becomes how can you get manga that is not as expensive as this one? Today, we live in the digital age. As a results, there a number of ways one could legally read free manga. Provided one wanted to.
If that one is you, then stick around to learn more.
Why Is Manga So Expensive?
Manga is expensive because the manga that is sold needs to make the money that the publishing company spent in creating the manga. Additionally, there is the problem of shipping overseas, and since manga comes from Japan, it tends to be more expensive for the people buying from outside the country.
The production costs of manga are extremely high.
Mangaka are the people who create manga. They need to create the manga at a fast pace, usually all alone. As we covered in our differences between manga and comics article, this means that there needs to be a team. In American comic books they can take a month making a single comic and working together.
In Manga, a single mangaka creates the story, and pencils the draft.
When they are done, other people come in and pencil the work for them. This whole creation process is expensive, because these people need to be paid.
Then, you have the shipping costs.
Most manga tend to be expensive because it takes a lot of money for the manga to be shipped overseas. There are also some taxes that need to be paid when things arrive. All this comes together to make a manga buying experience that is quite costly.
How Much Does Manga Usually Cost?
Most manga tend to be around 10 dollars and above for non-Japanese countries.
To put things into perspectives, the average comic book usually starts at around 4 dollars. So yes, manga can be a lot more expensive then you typical comic book.
Is There A Cheaper Way to Read Manga?
You could read free manga online in a number of sites, or you could buy cheap manga easily from specific sites online.
The good news are, we do not live in the stone age anymore.
Basically, this means that the shipping costs have gone down dramatically. On top of that, the costs of production have also gone down. Due to the fact that people can now draw on screens, it means that less money is spent on publishing papers, and the likes. Thus, there are now 2 cheaper ways that one could access manga: 1 they could do it for free, or 2 they could do it by buying the manga they want.
First we will look at how you can buy manga at a cheaper price.
There are certain websites where you can read the first few chapters for free, then you can finally buy the manga you want. These are websites like Crunchyroll, and even a Shonen Jump app. (Shonen Jump is the magazine that publishes these manga).
Secondly, reading manga for free.
There are also apps where you can read manga for free. These are apps such as manga plus.
Once you have mastered reading manga at a price you are comfortable with, you will be that much closer to mastering mastery.
