I peeked at the news on myanimelist and noticed last weeks manga sales went up, a quick comparison for the lulz:
http://myanimelist.net/news/42908159well in nytimes, it's all Tokyo Ghoul, One Punch Man, Naruto, Fairy Tail, Big Hero 6. So, not all crap, but all firmly within the "shonen" category. No big titty harems in the top 10 sellers this week America? You're slacking off and making it harder for me to mock America manga readers! Well there's one manga I've never heard of in the list, that
couldn't be some ultrashittyshit with giant boobs could it?
It's this thing. Ironically, that's the only thing on the American list that's a "seinen" manga. America really showing it's tastes for more gritty and adult manga, amirite?
Anyway, here's Japan's sales for the same week
http://myanimelist.net/news/42881409Well, it's not the typical week in Japan. But that's like the exception that proves the rule. Many weeks sports manga dominate the top 10, other weeks shoujo romances are selling really well. This week seinen manga is the dominate force.
#1 is Kingdom, which is a critically acclaimed historical seinen manga based on China's warring states period. Overall, there are 4 seinen mangas here, two shoujo mangas, and 4 shonen mangas. Number of ecchi mangas that were top sellers in Japan is again, zero. I swear they're going to end up just producing ecchi manga for the American market, because you got a hell of a better chance of making a name for yourself if you can get Americans to buy that stuff.
So, we hear a lot about how Japanese otaku are apparently infantile and not like the mature viewers in the West, hence why their pandering otaku crap doesn't translate across the pacific. But the actual sales figures paint a different picture. Pandering crap does
better in the USA by many measures.