It’s not like the volumes will be, removed, burned and never reprinted if they’re not bought in the release month.

That viz release the OP volumes doesn’t force you to buy them, it gives you a choise. All they do is making the volumes avaible in the US.

I read a manga volume pretty fast, and after I buy it, and afterwerds I can’t wait for the next one. Then I think the best is, if the most of the series is avaible?
If it stood to me(As a fan) Viz should just release ALL of the rest at once, to make me happy.
The reason they don’t do it like that (And ohter puplichers neiter does it.) is because they have a bigger chance of catching people, and making them continue to buy the volumes if they release them a bit slower, but with a smaller interval between them.

I can’t really see why anyone is arguring against the speed-up, the only thing it could hurt, it maybe viz themself, but that’s not really your problem is it?

“I’ve never heard of anyplace having discounts and then dropping them unless it’s a limited time sale.”

First, a caveat. I’m in the UK. If they do things dramatically differently in the USA (or wherever you may be), just bear that in mind.

Secondly, a qualifier. I’ve worked in the book trade, so I’m not just blowing smoke here. That, and I buy *hundreds* of books a year, so it’s in my interests to find the best deals I can.

That said, here’s how it works; here’s how places start with high(er) discounts and then drop them; and it’s down to two words. Frontlist, and backlist. New books versus old.

(I’m taking it as read that I’m only talking about buying books online here. Brick ‘n’ mortar stores simply can’t match online on price. That’s an axiom, it really is.)

The frontlist is where all the action is at. And thus, where all the discounts are. When a book is new – that is, when Amazon is taking pre-orders – is when the largest discounts are offered. Two reasons here, both linked. Firstly, Amazon don’t want to order books they can’t sell, so they want to get plenty of orders. Secondly, the more orders they get, the bigger the order they’ll place with the publisher, and then economies of scale come into play. The biggest order(s) Amazon will place will, with few exceptions, be the initial order(s) placed before publication and in the first few weeks (say a month, max) of release, as that’s when the demand will be highest.

Then they start cutting their discount, as their orders with the publisher get smaller. They’re not making so many savings to pass on. So a pre-order discount of 30%-35% will go down to maybe 10%-15%, simply because at that point they can’t supply the book at a better price without cutting their own throat (which does happen sometimes, when blowing out the stock in question is better than having it sitting around their warehouse taking up space).

When you get volumes more than, perhaps six months old, definitely a year or two old, then that’s right in the backlist. And with backlist titles, Amazon aren’t going to have many (any) copies sitting around their warehouse. If you order a backlist book, Amazon are only going to get a handful from the publisher. You’ll be lucky if there’s any discount to pass on at all. For me, buying a book (manga or otherwise) that falls into this category is almost painful. I have to balance the (comparatively) larger cost against how much I want the book.

This, then, is the long version of why I’m not happy with Viz’s plan to release One Piece at such a rate. This is why if I defer purchase of some or all of these volumes I’ll end up paying more. This is why I may very well simply decide not to purchase them at all after all.

Hope that clears things up some, if anyone’s still reading.

Two other points, Half Price Books, a major national used book store carries almost every volume of Naruto, Bleach and One Piece, so maybe that can now be the outlet for this large purchase for many of the readers or even try Powell’s. And secondly I think VIZ had to postpone this huge jump because of the OP storyline, the Princess Vivi/Alabasta story began over 2 years ago and is finally coming to it’s conclusion. Readers would be much more upset if they broke up that storyline.

I doubt I will be able to pick up all the new OP manga but I will try to pick up most of it, since the series is so very, very entertaining. I just sincerely hope VIZ takes the time to fully inform the SJ readers, like they did for Naruto, what takes place for the crew in OP over those volumes of manga.

So I definitely don’t think or at least don’t expect the push to be geared towards new readers, but it is a huge plus for anyone interested in the series since now you no longer have to wait months fo rthe next volume to come out if you’re getting into it.

And there’s nothing wrong with gradually getting them. No one says you have to get them when they come out, and to the person talkign about discounts, you’ve got it the other way around; the longer it is, the more discounts pop up. I’ve never heard of anyplace having discounts and then dropping them unless it’s a limited time sale. But anyways, it’s not like people are talking about One Piece left and right and the anime’s blaring on TV, you’re really not missing anythign if you take your time collecting the series. Plus, what happens when vol 53 comes out? It would be months at least for the next volume to come out and then you can balance your purchasing then.

So yeah, I don’t really understand why people are complaining. Yeah it sucks that we didn’t get this sooner and Viz is pretty stupid, but it’s their lost. We get up to date One Piece, we win.

I love my One Piece and I don’t want to lose 30 volumes with of story, but there is no way I can keep up with that. I will have to be one of those fans who drops it, unless someone bequeaths me several hundred dollars to keep buying manga.

No, it missed its mark because Viz didn’t do a successful enough job marketing it and let 4kids completely butcher the series’ image when they handed them the anime duties. There’s a reason One Piece is the most popular selling manga in Japan, even surpassing Dragon Ball at this point, and it’s not exactly fair to judge the series’ popularity on its own merits when these other factors have hindered it.

But I do agree with everything else you said, it’s insane that they didn’t think to do this earlier or more gradually and Viz is showing itself to care less and less about its readership.