Fair. I agree if manga were to be graded it would be an overwhelming amount of modern or known titles.
Thanks for clarifying. I’m a lot less familiar with Western comic books so the covers do indeed illustrate what is going on within each issue (as a teaser of sorts) quite well.
While I do find a lot of modern manga today (especially shounens) feature the main character or cast standing around or striking a pose, a lot of the smaller press or non-serialized manga are quite unique in their cover art! Some of these you wouldn’t even think came out of Japan.
The value of grading manga is like the value of grading modern common Pokémon cards. This stuff is manufactured in the cheapest way possible, on the cheapest materials and then printed into oblivion. It serves absolutely no purpose as a “collectable” except for people who want to own and read the whole story.
These are more like graphic novels rather than typical manga. What’s the market/desire for graded Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns books?
Edit - Talking specifically about the books you can just walk into any book shop and buy. Not the original comics which probably do have some value I am assuming.
Nope lol. While I’m pretty interested in manga history, art and storytelling, I am not very familiar with print runs or rarity of items. While the stuff in my photo was smaller press, they are also English localizations that happened many years later after the original Japanese releases (some only after the author in question gained worldwide notoriety - which was the case for Satoshi Kon and Asano Inio’s early works).
I think I would only want to grade an item like this if I fully understood its history, significance, and I was also a huge fan of the work itself! Being more niche, it would be less so for increasing the value of the item but moreso for historical preservation. There are a couple Japanese doujin CDs from some music groups/artists I like prior to their major debut that I wouldn’t mind having encased for that reason.
Mangas do have the limited series where they reprint the first volume in color. Usually sold for $1k on eBay. I feel like those would be the ones normies would be hunting for. If Japan sees people are hunting them, other new series would be doing it.That is what I assume.
Plus some people who collect graded are older. So older mangas will be noticed like Slam Dunk or Evangelion. temporary image hosting
Random one I looked for.
Attack on Titan has one listed for $3k
I’d be interested to know if its just tankobans that they are grading or possibly issues of Jump itself. All the pictures I have seen are all English manga.
Seems like a possible use of the grading… but at the same time how much do mangas like these actually move on marketplaces? How would a graded version change that other than put even more of a premium on it?
I think this venture will do pretty well for 2 reasons:
I can imagine alot of people wanting to encapsulate and display the first edition or favorite volume of their favorite manga. (Me being one of them, how cool would it be to have a mint Naruto Vol. 1 2003 limited holo cover??)
And then the flipper side, many people will buy high graded anything. Even if we dont know who wants to grade manga doesnt mean bgs wont be grading since people are allergic to money and will buy anything slightly cool with a 9.8 or 10. Flippers will grade and sell their stuff similarly to some of the c/uc’s that get graded and flipped today
I have been into manga collecting for a few years now. Honestly, this doesn’t surprise me at all. I think manga is close enough to comics that it’s not a stretch for them to be graded too. A lot of collectors have rare out of print manga bagged up on their shelves as it is. I think it’s perfectly logical that some of them would opt to preserve them in a slab instead.
For me personally this isn’t something that I will dive too deep into but I wouldn’t mind having a few of my favorite volumes graded and displayed.
I agree but now having a grading service a lot of the resellers/ scalpers will be involved.
Idk if you noticed Anime is now for the normies.
Met women that love anime and you would have never guess it.
Tbh modern American comics sucks because it’s too politically correct. Always see people complain on Instagram or Twitter.
I definitely think this will be a very lucrative side venture. There’s so many things to have encapsulated for a whole diverse amount of reasons.
-The first original volumes of long running manga (Bleach, Naruto, Dragon Ball, Wild 7, …) or currently ongoing manga (One Piece, Golga 13, Grappler Baki, Hajime no Ippo, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, …).
-More inherently expensive original volumes like Gantz, Mushishi, Phoenix, Red River, …
-Obscure, retro and niche manga or special releases.
-Conservation.
-And last, but not least the manga people hold dearest. That one special serialization that really stuck with you and maybe even gave you a new look on life or helped you through a tough period.
And as mentioned before, an added bonus is the labels actually look really nice as well. And manga cover art never disappoints so that’s a great combo sandwich right there.
