Before I get started on this post, I'm going to let you know my posting will slow down a bit due to school starting up again. Hopefully, I will be posting some things, but not a lot. And thank you for your patience.
Several days into 2024, and it looks like some things are going a bit…eh. I can't find any words to express how silly this news is. But this piece of news is not great for manga collectors and fans. Recently, I just found out that Beckett has begun a grading service for manga courtesy of the /mangacollectors Subreddit. Unsurprisingly, most of the reactions are negative. And rightfully so because “grading” isn't something many manga fans aren't concerned about or whether a manga volume is the 1st print or not.
For me, I find the grading system to be useless when it applies to U.S. printed manga because the majority of releases are just the standard version with no fancy extras. The system will make sense for variant covers and limited edition versions of manga, but only a handful of titles gets that special variant. The problem is that only mega popular series, the ones with numerous merch and anime seasons, like Attack on Titan, have the special releases. Other little known manga series don't get that, even if that series is beloved by many fans, such as Nana. It's a great series with a devoted and big fan base, but unfortunately not big enough for the publishers. This would probably cause a shift in what types of titles get an English language license and receive higher priority from the American manga publishers (I hope that is not the case). Printing these special editions costs money, so much of the priority would go to the big titles like My Hero Academia, which would leave other manga that don't fit in with the Shōnen Jump formula in the dust. I'm already seeing that treatment with some series.
A notable example is Requiem of the Rose King. As of this typing, the physical version of volume 3 of Rose King is still out of stock in 2024 (with the last printing happening several years ago). Even though the series is beloved by fans and there are people who want to buy it for their collection, they can't. On the other hand, series such as Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia receive not only special editions and box sets, but frequent reprints of the volumes. I get it that those titles are popular (no hate to those series). But as a result, fans of series like Requiem of the Rose King get the short end of the stick, with waiting forever for a restocking for some volumes and little to no special extras.
The grading system will affect manga publishing in the United States, and not for the better. To make manga grading worthwhile for some people, the publishers will have to publish variant and limited editions of manga series. Since printing and licensing costs money, the publishers will have to spend their resources on a few titles that have or equal levels of popularity to blockbuster Shōnen Jump type series to have the special editions of several series. Manga that don't fit within that mold will have a limited presence in America (or worse, doesn't receive an English translation at all). As a result, there will be less variety of genres within manga and the American manga market be oversaturated with the same series with the usual shōnen formula. As America becomes filled with those types of stories, people will become tired of seeing the similar type of stuff repeatedly and move on to something else.
A similar scenario I described above can be seen currently going on with the recent Marvel movies, with people discussing the superhero fatigue and its causes. I hope manga and anime don't go down that same path.
My short version is that the grading system is a cash grab. The grading system can potentially harm the manga landscape in the US due to the grading system unintentionally favoring series that fit within a small section of the manga genre and demographics. Thus, it will cause manga to become stale in the US for many readers.
I sincerely hope that I'm looking too much into stuff and the grading service is just a fad.
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