Raijin Manga Titles Are Put on Hold

It looks as though Raijin Comics, a manga and periodical publisher that launched a year and a half ago, is the first casualty of the overheated manga market: the publisher announced that all its titles will be on hiatus until further notice. Raijin published about seven manga graphic novel series, which included such books as Fist of the North Star, Slam Dunk and First President of Japan. The last titles will appear in June.

"After 18 months we've been able to reach an ardent but small community of fans, but we've not been able to penetrate a much larger audience," said Michael Palmieri, executive v-p. "We're choosing to press the pause button to see what the market is doing, and hope to come back sooner than later."

Raijin is partially funded by Coamix, one of Japan's largest publishers. The line launched with Raijin Comics, a weekly magazine modeled on the Japanese manga weeklies, but it did not find an audience in America. Palmieri also attributed problems to the fact that most of its titles are aimed at older boys and young men (boy-oriented comics are called shonen), while shojo manga (or girl comics) is currently driving the category in the bookstore market.

While acknowledging that there are far too many titles in the manga field right now, Palmieri echoed the general sentiment that the category as a whole will survive a market correction. "If anything, it's going to continue to expand," he told PW. "The fusion of American and Japanese manga is a new genre, but it's having a huge impact."

While the publishing division idles, Raijin is focusing on its film, TV and new media operations and pursuing several licensing and media deals.