RIP Shojo Beat Magazine (2005-2009)

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Sue

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Looks like the US manga market still can't support more than a couple monthly tankobans at any given time:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-05-19/shojo-beat-magazine-no-longer-accepting-subscriptions

It's a darn shame. Shojo Beat Magazine was monthly highlight for me for the past 4 years, it introduced to me to some series I'd doubt I'd ever have touched otherwise (Baby & Me, Crimson Hero, Sand Chronicles, Vampire Knight and so on,) and it actually got me through some tough times in my life (nothing like a quick shot of shojo manga to district one from harder times.)

Oh well, I hope Viz atleast keeps the imprint running, atleast as long as they have titles to run under it.
 
Ugh, that's a real shame. It's not really for me and I'm not familiar with most of what they publish, but I noticed Nana so it seemed to me that the publication had a good eye. I'm actually a bit stunned, I seem to recall reading not that long ago that girls were actually the majority of the manga market. I'm surprised the magazine apparently didn't tap into that as well as it needed to.
 
Well Viz still has Shonen Jump to get them through these tough economic times so I wouldn't call losing Shojo Beat a great loss. Now losing Naruto, THAT will mark the end of Viz as we know it.
 
I wouldv'e liked to read Baby and Me, but I didn't want to get the magazine for one series. Once they reformatted Shojo Beat replacing half the original content, I gave it a year and a half before it would die or thrive. It has barely made it over that point, so while I'm sad it will go and take down the size of the manga market, I'm glad to see I hactually had some common sense in calling its demise in the first place.
 
That makes me feel sad :C I'd been reading the magazine from "issue 0" until they slowly tossed out the series I liked or even thought was kinda OK in there - it started after they got rid of Kaze Hikaru and my interest kind of waned, it looked like it was trying too hard to be "cool, hip and with it" so I stopped reading. Still, I thought it was doing well!

Shoujo already gets hardly any exposure at all in the states, this just makes it worse :/
 
In this day and age, trying to imitate any kind of magazine style publication is probably doomed to eventually fail anyway.

Perhaps this will be a new opportunity for online serialization?
 
Shojo Beat's problem was that it wasn't sold in half as many places as Shonen Jump. I have six supermarkets in my area. All of them carry Shonen Jump, but only one (Wal-Mart) carried Shojo Beat. A magazine can't sell well if people can't buy it.
 
Apparently, Beat was very subscriber heavy (more than half the readership,) which is actually a problem past a certain point because if most of your readership is only paying less than half the cover price, you're probably not making any money unless you're really dealing in huge circulation. Shojo Beat's peak circulation was about 26,000 copies, and that was probably barely on the edge of profitability.

Anyways, I guess this explains why it'd had been disappearing from the local grocery stores that had been carrying it consistently for the past 4 years in my area. Writing must have been on the wall for a while. Also explains why they never appointed a new editor.

What also gets me about this is that if a shojo serial mag can't make it even though teenage girls are the driving force behind the manga market, I doubt the more experimental Yen Press mag will be long for this world, and it doesn't bode well for the manga market getting into josei titles, even in collected volumes. I also Viz may lost a more important vector for introducing fans to new titles than they realize.

/where is my low-overhead e-book manga world already?
 
Damn. This is the second time this year I renewed my subscription a couple months before they went kaput! I like Shojo Beat, and it's the only magazine I have left... Well, I'm not into Naruto, but at least we'll get something for our money (unlike EGM, who I still had 2 years left).

I really really REALLY hope they keep the imprint. I have two series that I'm still waiting for conclusion (GA+ has two left, and I want the rest of the Hot Gimmick omnis), plus my favorite author writes shojo. Not to mention I am not fluent in Japanese yet...
 
That's too bad. I never read any Shojo Beat manga, but I realize that the magazine is something different in terms of how comics are published in the US. It's nice to have something different out there. At least there's still Shonen Jump.
 
....I really liked Shojo Beat,and was reading it from the start...I loved Nana,Godchild,Absolute Boyfriend,and Vampire Knight,plus the imprint had alot of titles from Arina Tanemura,whose artwork and stories I really enjoy (like Full Moon,Gentleman's Alliance+,and Time Stranger Kyoko)...
I hope Yen Plus stays around,but it looks pretty doubtful,seeing as not many places seem to carry it ( I see it at Barnes and Noble and occasionally Borders)....
Shonen Jump seems to do pretty well...I've seen it in most bookstores,as well as supermarkets and Wal-Mart...
 
Aw crap, my g/f is going to be heartbroken.

What happens to those who just renewed their subscriptions? Are they going to get their money back, or are they going to do what EGM did and walk off with the left over funRAB?

Speaking of which, a little OT, but can't we sue EGM for not giving us our money back for the issues we never got (my subscription had another 14 issues on it)?
 
Yeah, helps if I read every post before I post. That is nice to know, I guess it is better than nothing, but what about those who do not want Shonen Naruto?
 
That seems a little odd. I mean, the people who subscribe to Shojo Beat were reading girl manga for a reason. If they had wanted to read boy manga, they probably would have subscribed to Shonen Jump in the first place. Oh well, like you said, there is still a money back option.
 
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