Negima popularity dropping rapidly but not
3rd June
We’re in the classmate arc now and the popularity of the manga is currently dropping rapidly in the reader surveys for the “pick 5 manga that were interesting” category. If you’re enjoying the current classmate arc right now, you’re probably one of the core fans for negima, which is one out of every ten shounen magazine readers.
This number is based on that negima is still #1 on shounen magazine for the “pick the one most interesting manga” category in reader surveys, and approximately 10% of the votes go to negima for that category.
Basically, if one out of every ten readers will strongly support negima, the manga will not fall from 1st place. But if that number goes down, it can be expected that the tankoubon sales will drop too. (the tankoubon are mostly bought by core fans)
But the problem here is with the “5 interesting manga” category, there are two ways to look at this, one is “it’s okay to ignore this to a certain extent since it doesn’t affect tankoubon sales, but in exchange the core fans should be kept entertained”, and the other is “it should be better to get votes to a certain extent without lowering the votes in the ‘most interesting’ category”. Normally the latter is what most will go for.
Via: Akamatsu’s diary
Doesn’t say what he’s going to do now. I guess getting votes in the “5 interesting” category would mean being able to get new readers so the best way around it would definitely be the latter.
Related: Negima manga peaks in popularity
June 10th, 2009 at 12:28 am
I’m assuming the dilemma is to decide on keeping the formula so the core readers are satisfied or changing it up to possibly bring in new members at the risk of alienating the core fans?
If he’s practically secured the core base with the types of arcs that were going on prior (and that core base secures the manga), then why take a gamble for new readers? Will the core readers eventually tire of the current flow, so much so that he will lose the core base AND won’t be able to bring in new readers? I guess that scenario would be pretty tough to recover from, but you’d figure that 250+ chapters would count for something.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Methinks he should do what he thinks is best for the series, not the polls.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:31 am
@Nosgoroth
Yeah, it’s been going pretty well so far.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:49 am
If he is worried about retaining the new readers he could stop taking a week off every couple of chapters.
Aside that I agree with Nosgoroth.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Overall, I think Akamatsu has a solid long-term plan for the series.
The current classmate arc is just his own tastes probably. He really seems to like to draw that stuff. I guess he’s just letting off steam after being ‘forced’ to draw the Rakan arc for the past half a year or so (incl. breaks and all). Still waiting for him to go back in to the main story.
Also, my theory of his infamous ‘4+1′ breaks is that his one week of break is when he spends time with Kanon. Well, with a pretty wife like that I can see why and I can’t really begrudge him if it turns out to be true. It would be pretty sad if he sacrificed his own happiness for his career.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
He actually mentioned previously that the breaks was because run on a 8 day schedule to make each chapter (or was it 9?) so it ends up that the manga has to take a break every few weeks