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Another one bites the dust….

I just found out after reading another blog that Viz is canceling the magazine Shojo Beat. This is the third magazine subscription I have had go bust in the last year! First was Newtype, which became PiQ, and only lasted 2 editions. Then AnimeInsider by Wizard entertainment was canned without any warning. Now it’s Shojo Beat….urrggh!

I originally subscribed to the mag because I was trying to be frugal about my manga addiction. It was cheaper to pay the subscription fee than try to buy all the novels. I read manga so fast that at $8-$10 a pop, just reading one series can cost up to $200. But I guess it’s come down to not reading or being super selective about what to read.

This is where the economic crunch tramples a newly budding audience of shojo fans here in America. Public libraries don’t have enough to offer because they haven’t had the time or budget to catch up with what fans are reading. Then publications like Shojo Beat are canceled and you’re only left with the option to buy the books from the publisher. With the price tag on books, it only makes it harder for fans to buy more titles. It also makes it more difficult to expose the readers to new titles. I know that the loss of one publication won’t kill the market, but it sure will put a hole in it. We’ll miss you Shojo Beat!

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3 Comments

  • Sure, I’d love to! Let me know which site and I can get to work on it soon.

  • By the way, I love your background design! Any way I can employ you to create a similar styled graphic for one of my sites? 🙂

  • This magazine started off so great and then I think that the editors killed it. I canceled my subscription last year after getting so tired of them introducing just one chapter of a series, or canceling a longer-running series to introduce a new one. The inconsistency just killed me. However, it introduced me to greatness such as SA, Crimson Hero, and well, Nana at the beginning. It is a shame that it can’t continue anymore, which may be a little due to the free scanlations online.

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