What's up with the manga sickness?

So, it's now about a year and a half from when the manga bug bit me hard... time for a "state of the sickness" report, if you will. Consider this fair warning, any of you that are thinking about getting into it.

I've had great fun with the Negima! series, which is still being published, albeit by a different publisher. Sadly, that's been one of the larger trends over that time period, publishers going under (like Tokyopop) or getting out of manga (like Del Rey), with series left in limbo.

There's still a healthy amount of viable series being published at the moment, as well... plus, more and more "older" series are getting "omnibus" editions printed (usually equating to three volumes of original material for the price of about 2, which generally works). Unfortunately, the time between releases on any given series varies widely, so, if you get bit as hard as I did, you'll be looking for older series to fill the gaps with...

Old series present their own issues. Something I didn't really realize, getting into this hobby, is how ephemeral manga can be. I mean, take your average fantasy/sci-fi book series as an example. If the publisher thinks it's worth printing the series, they tend to make a sizable first run, and reprint if necessary... and, so long as the last book in the series was completed by the author, it generally gets printed, although possibly not as many, based on past sales, etc. The end result is that you can often find a new copy of any book published within the past few years, and inexpensive used copies otherwise.

Manga... doesn't play out that way. Since there's significant work involved in translating volumes, series that reach completion in Japan don't necessarily survive long enough in the US to tell their story. In particular, Seven Seas Publishing has dropped a number of series on me early, but I've had enough good/fun stories come from them that I haven't blacklisted them over it. On the other hand, Tokyopop is another story entirely... they're out of manga entirely now, and shut down so suddenly that several series were left in limbo, with nobody coming along to pick up afterwards. One of the first things I look for on "old" manga now is whether it has the Tokyopop imprint... if it has it, I don't pick it up, so I reduce my chances of starting a story I will never be able to finish.

But, suppose you have a series that's still being published, or has reached completion... even then, you're not exactly safe. One I was looking to get into, after another "Netflix doesn't have all the discs" episode, was called Genshiken. Nine volumes total, all readily available, except the last volume, which, at the time of this volume, is still listed "new" at Amazon for $45. Luckily, I dodged the bullet on that one... and, luckier still, it looks like an omnibus edition is coming out in May, so no great harm there. On the other hand, take the series "Hayate the Combat Butler"... I picked up the first three volumes in the series, and would pick up the fourth, but the cheapest Amazon option for that is over $30, and this for a series that is still being published.

So, the tl;dr version on the state of manga: Current versions of current series are mostly safe (as are omnibus reprints), but not guaranteed, and older volumes/series are spotty at best. I'll stick with it for a while yet (and, likely, keep that Amazon Prime membership active), and, if you can handle the uncertainty, I can still recommend it to you.