With Manga being one of the top selling items in Japan, it would seem impossible for that genre to be in some sort of trouble, however, the famous mangaka 若木民喜 / Tamiki Wakaki, whom is an top Shonen Sunday mangaka is showing concern for the future of the industry, as to him it is in decline in the long run. Much due to the writers now a days cannot expect themselves to make any commercial success without the 4 genres ero, parody, bishonen, and bishoujo (too popular for their own good), forcing new talents to hide in the shadows.
“Manga magazines are boring, so they attract no fresh blood. Competition subsequently slackens. New artists are tried vigorously, but none are able to be serialised for long.
As a result experienced authors are called in out of necessity, but though their books may sell the magazines themselves become dull – this attracts even less new blood, and so the cycle continues.
In the past new artists were a dime a dozen, but now no matter how hard you search they are scarcer and must be nurtured carefully. Especially now in the era of lower birth rates, nobody can fail to notice this, the new artists are gradually decreasing in number. Both the mangaka who can sell a million copies and their fanbases are aging…
It’s going to be especially difficult to make a living for the kind of authors who can’t pen ero/parody/bishonen/bishoujo manga (in fact it is right now).”
Bow Ditama on the other hand, the creator behind Mahoromatic says that there are still hope for those who are uninterested in the endless of offering of cute girls showing their pantsu all the time:
“Certainly, if you can’t draw cute girls it is going to be hard. But no mangaka are dying of starvation. Even if you can’t draw girls, you can still earn a living on subculture magazines and ‘deep’ manga magazines, and you can also work as an assistant to a pro.
It seems online assistants or whatever are quite in demand too [these are assistants who work remotely and submit manuscripts to their master electronically, rather than being physically present in the traditional manner].”
