(This is going to be LONG post, but hopefully one readers will feel like reading.)
Wow! 2015 went by quickly! But I don’t think it’s because we were necessarily having fun. For me, I think it’s because I’m dreading 2016 and the US Presidential race that will consume the year. Anyhow, 2015 was a fairly slow year for us. I mostly blame myself because I had a real-life medical issue that were affecting me. Hopefully I’ll be healthy in 2016.
Manga-wise, like 2014, 2015 was the year of the “Kanojo ni Naru Hi” series. These two series continue to outperform the next most popular series, “Sabaku no Harem” by ~2.5x. This is thanks to a large and loyal male fanbase. Thank you guys for giving Crimson Flower lots of positive support by reading this series on our. May you continue to support us in 2016. And please keep buying Ogura’s books! We international readers do have an impact in Japan when we buy the Japanese books!
I want to use this post mainly to provide some statistics for those of your who are interested. I’ll write a post about our plans for 2016 in a different post.
So let’s get on with the stats! (These come from Google Analytics)
Top 10 releases (1 being the most popular):
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Chapter 10
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Chapter 7
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Chapter 11
- Sabaku no Harem Chapter 1
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Chapter 8
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Chapter 12
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Chapter 9
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Another Chapter 10
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Another Chapter 11
- Kanojo ni Naru Hi Another Chapter 8
Top 10 Oneshot releases (updated 12/31/2015):
- Yurayura Yureru
- Trick or Kiss
- Akai Ito
- Million Dollar Man
- The Boy has a Secret — Cold Blood
- Chou no Ito
- Joifo
- Ibitsu Renaikan
- One-Day Idol
- Dare mo Heya Shiranai
Least Read Oneshots (Ending with the worst):
- Saite no Kimi wo Wasurenai (You have to be in the right mood.)
- Death Puzzle (I think the gore scared people off)
- Hoshifuru Oka no Majo (I can’t figure out why so few people read this one. It’s very cute!)
Least Read Series: “Bread and Butter” (The fans were few but loyal.)
Top 10 Visiting Countries
- USA
- Indonesia
- Canada
- Malaysia
- France
- Australia
- Germany
- UK
- Singapore
- Thailand
Reader Age Breakdown
- 18 – 24 years 68.4%
- 25 – 34 years 26.7%
- 35 – 44 years 2.7%
- 45+ years 2.2%
Gender Split
- Female 60%
- Male 40%
- On “Kanojo ni Naru Hi” release days Males were 80% of the readership
Reader Tech
- PC/Laptop 84%
- Tablets 13%
- Phones 3%
New Series in 2015
- Seishun Away/ Seiten Kickoff
- Hana ni, Kamitsuku
- Koori no Joou
Series Completed in 2015
- Nemurenu Ou ni Sasagu Yogatari
Dropped Series
- Bread & Butter (It’s never-ending shoujo that we can’t keep up with.)
CF Series that got Licensed
- Ojousama no Untenshu (“The Heiress and Chauffeur” Viz/Shojobeat, the first volume will release in May 2016.)
I haven’t fully processed what this information indicates. The overwhelming success of “Kanojo ni Naru Hi” does give me pause to think about the state of shoujo — as in where da women at?! I think that’s my question in general. The spike of male reader when we release “Kanojo ni Naru Hi” is ~4x the most number of female readers on any series we release. Is typical shoujo in the US dying? Or are the females bingeing manga aggregators and crap sites like Raffamanga and Otakumole and not even waiting for scanlations, much less even tolerating licensing because you have to wait and pay for it. My heart is heavy. But I’ll save my thoughts for another end-of-the-year post.
Please feel free to leave your thoughts about this information and what it means to you. I’m interested to hear opinions about release success and failure as well as matters of readership and gender.
The Crimson Flower Blog 
Thank you for all the wonderful works you’ve shared with us in 2015! See you in 2016~
Hello,
Thanks for all your hard work for the scanlations. I don’t think shoujo is dying but mostly I’ve been looking for josei works since I’m slowly aging out of the rage for most of their audience orz.
Thanks for another great year! I hope you’ll be in good health in the coming years 🙂
Well, I’m probably the only Brazilian man here, I have hope that someday the others came to know the beauty in Kanojo ni naru hi, is so good, thanks for bring it to a “readable” language.
Malaysian here!
Represent
And good job guys, and thanks for translating them mangas
Shoujo isn’t dying, but I noticed in my tenure of scanlation that I’d see plenty of comments on our releases from sites like KissManga, MangaHere, Batoto, etc as well as a positive trend on BakaUpdates while our actual website received little traffic and maybe a comment here and there. Viewing the stats on BU gave me far more of an indication of what people actually liked and motivated me to continue working on what we had. That said, oneshots don’t seem to be as popular these days; people want series that go far at least two volumes. The only way oneshots/one volumes gain fans is through luck and a conclusion that is either tragic or adorable – there is no inbetween (I’m exaggerating… probably).
Perhaps because we do a lot of oneshots, they get good readership here because they are expected. As for shoujo series, I’m starting not to see the point of doing them since most people seem to be satisfied with the crap at Raffa/Otakumole Which is ironic because ladies claim to go to Raffa/OM because series get dropped. Since they don’t actually read at the scanlators’ website, we scanlators see low readership and feel less motivated to work on a series. Sooo… “quit hitting yourself… Quit hitting yourself…” Meh…
BU has become useless for gauging manga because they won’t filter out the novels. I don’t go to aggs because the forums are toxic. All I know is what I see from my stats. It’s not good for series (except the two Kanojo ni Naru Hi series) on my end. Ultimately, readers treat shoujo as if it’s low value and disposable. It’s easier just for people to strap into a trough at an agg and gorge until their eyeballs bleed. Who give a shit about where the manga came from, much less buying it. (Yeah, I’m feeling bitter.) Maybe I should say instead that shoujo scanlation is just about dead due to translation overlay and groups switching focus to BL.
At this point, we work on series because we really love the series despite the lack of readership. I do enjoy getting comments, though, and I appreciate every reader who comes to the blog instead of bingeing at an agg. I also feel very happy to see people clicking on the links to purchase. I hope at least a few of those clicks end as completed purchases.
I’ve been fan for this few months and I’m lure here by Yurayura Yureru one-shot because I’m downloader type and hate reading online. After that I follow Kanojo Ni Naru hi and I’m grateful for the crimson flower to keep scanlating it.
This scans is one of the best scanslation that I’ve been following, your series and one-shot selections are the best 😀
I hope your health will become better and see you next and next and neeexxxtttt year too 😀
Thanks, Hikari! I’m glad you enjoy our releases :). Happy New Year to you!
thanks ^^
happy new year to you too 😉
Thanks for all the hard work! I’m not one for online reader sites – they drive me nuts (and I have issues with them making money off free scans) – so if I can’t download scans directly from a group (or buy them in print when the book is licensed) I just go without. I suspect I’m in the minority though since I doubt many people have a bookmarks folder of 30+ groups. Checking that every 1-2 weeks to see what’s been released and needs downloading is worth the effort for me though. I also don’t download from groups that keep scanning after something has been licensed. If it’s licensed and can be bought in print, we should be buying it so I really appreciate that you keep us informed when we can buy projects that you’ve worked on in the past. It helps that you work on interesting titles and do a good quality job too. Short version: keep up the good work (and Happy New Year!).
Use a RSS feed, so better.
Yeah, that’s what I use to follow blogs.