About a week and a half ago it was announced that manga juggernaut Viz Media laid off 40% of their staff. I found this especially shocking because during my trip to the Diamond retail summit last April, Viz was there in high spirits promoting their newly licensed anime “Vampire Knight” and the surreal manga Biomega, which they were even giving out free copies of the first volume. Of all the publishers participating at the summit Viz was the only manga company presenting (Dark Horse might be the slight exception). Also, for one of the relatively small publishers, they still had two representatives there discussing their new product line. They both were very friendly and even personally chatted with me about the hard-to-find Ikigami film. There was not even a whisper of a rumor that 40% of their staff was soon to be laid off. Viz had historically weathered the storm with hugely popular manga titles like Naruto and Bleach. So why is this happening?

According to the Viz Media press release:

“VIZ Media is in the process of refining its focus and is restructuring to adjust to changing industry and financial market realities.

As part of the restructuring the company had to refine its workforce by eliminating certain positions and making cuts in other areas.

We are of course saddened by these departures, and sincerely appreciate the hard work, passion and dedication of those that have moved on, but we feel confident that with these changes VIZ Media will be more streamlined and able to withstand the climate of the economy at this time.

This restructuring was not insignificant; however, this was primarily an internal reprioritization to build toward our future. We wish to apologize to our wonderful fans if this news has caused you concern. Be assured VIZ Media remains committed in its obligations to you. We have no plans at this time for drastic measures such as product cancellations or business line closures. Your favorite series are not going away.”

This still doesn’t dispel the the suspicion that many comic readers have now that the manga-boom is now the manga-bust. With increasingly endless series (Naruto and Bleach are both perfect examples) many readers are turning to free manga sites. This is one of the biggest threat to the manga industry because volumes are released in Japan before they are translated for english releases. Bootleg volumes get release months early and eager readers go to free sites to scratch their manga itch, effectively destroying the scheduled release date.

I really hate to see this happen to Viz because I only recently discovered the excellent quality of their Viz Signature line, such as the aforementioned Biomega and Ikigami, as well as books like 20th Century Boys and Pluto. Whether this is evidence for a change in the industry as a whole or just an isolated adjustment for Viz media is still to come. Nevertheless, it still leaves me with an uneasy feeling.

-Jon

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