The Museum of Media History may have an explanation for these figures.

Oh, Tampa Bay.

Obviously the Internet has not helped things, but the decline started way before real net penetration in the Japanese market.

What is interesting though is how far the street fashion sales have plummetted. Boon is less than 10% of its original numbers. Relax fell by more than 50%.

Can Can on the other hand is possibly the one magazine to actually go up in these desperate times. As the market gets smaller, things are seeming to congregate in more "mainstream" positions.

Obviously the Internet has not helped things, but the decline started way before real net penetration in the Japanese market.

Ah yes, I was temporarily forgetting that you tend to turn away from global trends as the reason for things happening in Japan, preferring instead particularist explanations that point to the possibility that Japan is in terminal decline because Shibuya-kei is dead. That's Neo-Nihonjinronisme!

is it my imagination or are there seemingly more different mags on the racks than there were in the late 90s? Theres more free mags/papers now and my friend at DNP says that is a major reason for the decline in regular mag sales. He also blames Book Off for the decline in bunkabon.

Free papers were definitely a contributing factor.

was temporarily forgetting that you tend to turn away from global trends as the reason for things happening in Japan

It's not fair to say that the Internet has been an equally "global" trend unless your time frame is in decades. The Japanese mag market probably shares a lot of factors with other markets, but I think it is equally ridiculous to say, whatever caused it in America also caused it in Japan! without actually having supporting proof.

You should know that MySpace is huge in Japan! Just like the rest of the world!

Did the luxury brand market also peak in the US or UK in 1996? I have never heard that, and I would be surprised if they had similar reasons.

I don't know the answer to these questions but I'd be interested to know what the trend has been in magazine cover prices over the same period and whether the decline in readership has matched the decline in sales.

hey david

this is off topic, but do you have or have you heard tell on the streets of nakameguro the new Cornelius single??

also, i can't wait for re-entry into tokyo.

also, thanks for throwing my ROBOT song into yer mixxx.

josh~

There's a certain synergy between this entry and Jean Snow's latest This Week in Magazines post. He suggests another reason Relax might be slipping: because it's stuck in the 90s and boring. Jean tells us a new magazine called EYESCREAM is "the new Relax" -- and that it even has a picture of Kiiiiiii in the current issue! So you'd think Marxy would like it and be telling us about it here, breathless with enthusiasm and overbrimming with well-being! Or about the relaunch of Tokion, the magazine he started with!

No, Relax is boring because it's "LOHAS." He never said that it's because "it's so 90s." The content is nothing like it was even 2 years ago. LOHAS = great for the earth, boring content.

I know little about the relaunch since the rights have been sold to INFAS and none of the original staff works there, but it could be interesting.

Anyone else want to punish me for not singing the praises of... EYESCREAM...

You think that's bad? Try judging the American music industry based on sales of Paula Abdul and C&C music factory in the early 90's vs. today!

Well hold on there. You have to prove that Boon and Relax are the "Paula Abdul" of the magazine industry. Which magazines do you suggest are the new leaders? I don't have all the data in the world, but basically the sales of every magazine - hold Can Cam - are slipping. Zipper has been able to stay constant, which means they must be doing well. Boon's massive plummet strikes me as interesting and explains why Harajuku street fashion is not so "genki."

Could you provide a link to your source? It would be interesting to see all the numbers.

marxy, I'm as convinced as I care to be about the decline in magazine sales. I'm just suggesting that your presentation begs a certain critique.

boon, from a very quick glance at any magazine rack has clearly been replaced... and replaced and replaced. Young mens street fashion mags are pretty numerous these days, was that the case back then? Seems like that market got subgenrified.

relax, damned if I know. But I don't believe you think its decline in sales is strictly a matter of the overall decline of the industry and not a shift in consumer tastes and quality of the rag.

Could you provide a link to your source?

Nope. I got these from the Audit Bureau of Circulation. I am not sure these numbers are publicly available. (But I swear on the Bible that I am not making them up!)

If 90% of magazines - from mainstays like Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun to marginal magazines like MacFan - are selling less and less copies (and this must fundamentally correspond with a loss in readership, no? It's not like they put their content online for free.), then it you must first look at the general rate of decline. Relax and Boon's decline has surpassed that, so yes, there is something about those magazines that reflects a greater trend. This is also reflected on the street. If Ape made t-shirts and jeans "fashion," why not just buy Uniqlo?

The fashion market also peaked in 1996, which makes me think there is a correlation in the decline of consumer budgets and the need for information on how to spend your discretionary income. Magazines are relatively cheap - compared to a $2000 bag - and yet, they started to decline fast - way before GOOGLE, YAHOO, TiVo, and all the other epoch-making media-changing companies came anywhere near this fair isle.

Oh, wait. The Japanese still don't have TiVo.

Oh, wait. The Japanese still don't have TiVo.

Shinto dude, shinto.

Nick, come on, you're putting things in my mouth that are just not there, and I have no idea where you got that. I've been quite obvious over the past months (even year) that the reason I think RELAX is boring is because it's NOT the magazine it used to be. It's now a boring LOHAS-themed magazine, and not a good one at that. If it still covered the sort of things it did in the nineties (culture), I might still like it. And I'm not saying EYESCREAM is terrific, just that it covers the sort of thing that RELAX used to cover.

The All Japan Magazine and Book Publishers’ and Editors’Association calculates magazine sales in 2004 as 1,300 billion yen, a decrease of 1.7%.

The weeklies experienced the biggest drop in sales, fashion titles are doing OK.

The number of magazines sold declined 3.4% to 2,971 billion, but it is inaccurate to suggest that magazine circulation figures are dropping across the board.

Over the same period, the number of titles grew to 3,624 - an increase of 130 titles.

That indicates publishers are responding to the diversification of readers' needs with small runs of multiple titles.

According to the Statistics Bureau at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, there were 5,420 registered publishers in 2004.

This was a decrease from 2001, but there was a 3.0% increase in the number of employees, up to 97,796 people.

The figures also show that the publishing industry is overwhelmingly made up of small and medium-sized firms or sole proprietorships - not just nasty corporations like Shueisha.

As Nate rightly points out, Boon may be going bust, but there are plenty of new alternatives.

Men's street fashion magazines experiencing sales growth include best-selling Men's Non-no and Popeye, which recently went monthly (was originally bi-weekly).

Smart and HUGE also seem to be doing quite well, as is Men's Joker.

As I have pointed out here before, the demise of Boon is not only a result of demographic change, it is also an indication of a shift in the tastes of young male Japanese consumers. Perhaps fewer of them are interested in aping U.S. urban style.

Lots of female teen fashion mags like PS, JILLE and Fudge are going strong, and while Can Cam is strong, it is by no means the only mag in this segment to experience an increase in sales in recent years: ギャル mags JJ and new Shueisha title PINKY are selling well, too.

ILM's Seven Seas is a highly successful title, but the industry's star performer is LEON, which is said to net somewhere between １億～２億 in ad sales every issue, and has seen circulation creep up steadily over the past three years.

FYI:

The new look (all-Japanese) Tokion has Haruyuki Kato, formerly of Studio Voice, as Editor in Chief. The Fashion Director is French artist item idem (Cyril) and art director is Yasushi Fujimoto of CAP, who also does VOGUE, Brutus, etc. It will launch in September.

INFAS will also soon relaunch Ryuko Tsushin along the lines of SPUR / Ginza.

Numero Tokyo, headed up by former Vogue Fashion Editor Ako Tanaka, is also due to hit stores this autumn.

That'll be another title to add to the long list of licensed publications like VOGUE, GQ, Esquire, Harper's, ELLE, cosmopolitan, Figaro, DAZED, NYLON, etc.

The number of magazines sold declined 3.4% to 2,971 billion, but it is inaccurate to suggest that magazine circulation figures are dropping across the board.

A glance at these ABC stats and I would guess that 80% of magazines have seen a serious decline in sales over the last 5-7 years. There surely are more niche magazines than before, but if it was just an issue of decentralization, the market would not be shrinking in total.

Here is some graphical representation: http://www.esapp.co.jp/mediacompas/contents_02.htm

the demise of Boon is not only a result of demographic change, it is also an indication of a shift in the tastes of young male Japanese consumers. Perhaps fewer of them are interested in aping U.S. urban style.

Boon always struck me as a very unique "Harajuku" publication - focusing on vintage and domestic street wear brands. It at least became that way post-UraHara boom. I am not sure it was about "aping" hip hop or Jansport backpacks. Surely doesn't fit today's bling bling Omotesando revival.

That being said, Smart was selling 297,908 in early 1999 and then stopped reporting. That is not usually a good sign.

I too have heard that Men's Joker is doing well, but I am not sure how that translates into sales. Cool Trans stopped reporting in late 2002 when its sales went to 94,148 (after being 345,667 in late 1996.) Fineboys is around 103,176 - after being in the 240K range for the late 90s. Casa Brutus is now at 35K, down a half since 2001. I'd love to see Brutus numbers.

Leon is one of the few mags to be doing better, but it still only gets around 72K. I would imagine the magazine's prestige boosts the ad sales.

ギャル mags JJ and new Shueisha title PINKY are selling well, too.

JJ strikes me as a mag for grown-up gyaru - like Can Cam with worse taste. To say it is "selling well" is not correct: it dropped from 470,555 issues in the end of 2001 to the present 241,589. I don't have numbers for Pinky, but my guess is that Can Cam has prospered at similar mags' detriment. ViVi, S Cawaii!, with, More, LUCi - all declining.

PopTeen is up!

CUTiE stopped reporting in 99, but it can't be doing as well. Zipper seems to be picking up their slack a bit, although they have lost sales from their peak period in the late 90s.

The new look (all-Japanese) Tokion has Haruyuki Kato, formerly of Studio Voice, as Editor in C</i<

The post-AdamGlickman American Tokion has little content that would be interesting to Japanese reader, so it is fitting that they try something new. Funny that Tokion will split AGAIN into two editions that have nothing to do with each other. I look forward to seeing what INFAS does with the license.

Am i the only person in the world who likes the new relax better than the old one ?? i mean never having been a bape /gadget/grafitti fan i best remember the old relax in its glory days for the "freshness burger" issue and the like. the new one , while evidently struggling for focus and direction has

1. intelligent, ambiguous (post-modern by the marxy/momus initial definition of the term here) fashion stories superior in their subtlety and (political) edgy-ness to most, if not all, (not-only) japanese magazines. [the ishihara/gangster and the fashion shikh/onsen stories from a few months back have stuck to my mind]

2. good reading stuff. in the last issue from spanish siesta to tokyo insomniacs (apparently a 'majority' 70%) - that's only for those can be bothered to go beyond cool japanese images.

3. well-curated contextualizing encyclopedia-type content , like studio voice at its best. the last issue relevantly covers from malarme, andre breton and surrealists to john cage and brian eno.

rather than being 90s i get the feeling it's quite in tune with a certain new european wavelength (微妙).

i don't think it is nor trying to be a 'lohas' magazine as such -in the sense that it surely does touch on supposedly lohas things but rather than present those things as some ideological, progressive, alternative, exotic etc it shows them rather candidly as atarimaena mono. post-lohas?? also unlike most lohas magazines it does have some edge and dirt.

this is just my gut reaction. havn't actualy 'analyzed' the magazine as such nor have i a clue as to how this relates to sales figures.

Most people liked Relax and its ilk for being first-class product porn (with artists and individuals too becoming things to be consumed). If a magazine isn't going to give me that, I would rather read something verging on cultural criticism or analysis, and Relax kind of falls through the cracks.

I do find the magazine's LOHAS/non-LOHAS angle to be respectible - better for the world than product porn certainly. But none of these magazines has found a way to be good for the earth and interesting to those who aren't already dedicated to the cause. This is a big challenge, and I would love to see someone solve it.

It is my understanding that Adam is still running U.S. Tokion.

Adam sold it off last Fall.

The latest issue of doomed Relax arrived on my desk this morning. I like Asami Kiyokawa's slot, but apart from that it's true: Relax Sucks.

Especially awful is the fashion story at the back and the "Art Trip to Altered States" section, which totally falls apart after 1960. What on earth is Makiko Kudo doing under the label Virtual Realism? Where's Ron Mueck?

I kind of had a crush on Asami Kiyokawa for a while.

I just remembered that it was way before her art got picked up - she made a mean 読者モデル for CUTiE.

none of these magazines has found a way to be good for the earth and interesting to those who aren't already dedicated to the cause.

I very much doubt Relax went LOHAS because it was, morally, the right thing to do. They went LOHAS because it's the fastest-growing trend in Japanese lifestyles, spawning more new lifestyle titles than any other theme at the moment. They went LOHAS because up to 60% of the Japanese population, according to this Metropolis article, have "LOHAS leanings", though half of them may not know the term or be prepared to pay extra for sustainable products. Relax went LOHAS in their own self-interest, and because, unlike you, they expect this trend to grow and to bring new readers with it. Whether they can do this by running old ku:nel features six months later is another matter.

I am always too busy eating and sleeping to be bothered to pick up a magazine about it.

LOHAS magazines could be a total paradigm shift: Japanese magazines have mostly been catalog/manuals. You nary need a manual to live the "right" eco-friendly, non-consumptive lifestyle. (Cynically speaking, I guess you would...)

Whether people associate themselves with LOHAS or not, there does not seem to be a huge market in LOHAS media yet. Lots of titles, little sales.

But why kill all those trees to find out how to not kill trees?

(Readers - please do not print out this blog to read it.)

Relax went LOHAS in their own self-interest, and because, unlike you, they expect this trend to grow and to bring new readers with it. Whether they can do this by running old ku:nel features six months later is another matter.

And look where they are now.

CUT TO: Exterior. Graveyard. Night.

Readership might not decline as fast as sales. There are a lot more manga kissaten around than 10 years ago and many have extensive magazine selections. People could also choose to browse in bookshops and conbini rather than buy if their budgets are tight. I don't know the answer which is why I was wondering out loud.

Liquid Pegasus - no news about the Cornelius single.

I am always too busy eating and sleeping to be bothered to pick up a magazine about it.

But really, this argument says nothing. It's like saying "I'm much too busy shopping to pick up a consumer catalogue, mook, or magazine and read about products on offer."

LOHAS has two sides: one is about post-material lifestyles, the other is a marketing language used to talk about existing products on the market, products that people buy. Tourism, travel, health, de-stressing, bathing, these are all also products. Even sleep can be a product, if, for instance, people pay to take power naps. LOHAS mags mix in sustainable lifestyle advice, fair trade, health and ecology themes, with product recommendations and advertising.

You may be eating and sleeping, but are you eating and sleeping right? Read all about it, then buy the services. Why not? Conspicuous anti-consumption is also consumption. And a form of politics-through-the-market.

Would you pay more attention to it if middle-aged men were shouting about it from white vans over marching music?

was the issue about precious stones before or after the lohas switch?

I had no clue what LOHAS was till I just googled it. What an amzingly boring idea for a publication.

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LOHAS magazines could be a total paradigm shift: Japanese magazines have mostly been catalog/manuals. You nary need a manual to live the "right" eco-friendly, non-consumptive lifestyle. (Cynically speaking, I guess you would...)

Yes indeed. I have the July 2005 issue of SOTOKO, which lists 170 LOHAS products ranging from cars (including the VW New Beetle for some reason) to watches (apparently, the Cartier Platinum is the must-have in eco-watches) ...in order to live the right non-consumptive lifestyle, it seems you have to first get rid of all your stuff and replace it with the eco-friendly version. Oh, and Louis Vuitton is featured there too (LOHAS' choice of suitcase!).

Louis Vuitton is super LOHAS. That's why you see so much of it on the streets of Tokyo. Saving the world one $2000 handbag at a time.

I think the difference between "buy one expensive (semi versatile) thing and make it last until you can afford another one" and LOHAS is lost on the marketing world... or rather that it benefits producers and magazine publishers to conflate the two.
Slow life having disappeared in to LOHAS is significant. What was, just a year or so ago, an ethos of dropping out of consumptive society, making your own cutesy things cheaply is now a huge magazine endorsed consumptive pattern. The post-consumerist mini-trend of 2004-5 has been integrated already. How long can momus continue to endorse it?

I can't believe I'm actually going to defend LV, but I also saw that issue of SOTOKOTO with their huge list, and although I couldn't figure out the reason for a lot of entries, I think the LV one actually makes sense. LV bags have, as far as I know, a sort of lifetime support/guarantee going for them. The idea is that those bags are made to last, which definitely supports the LOHAS ideal.

I think the whole idea of fashion - the idea of artificially changing trends to create shifting class distinctions or make people buy new sets of clothing - is anti-LOHAS. Uniqlo may not have LOHAS working conditions, but at least it stablizes tastes. I can't say that no cultural change is interesting, but boy is it LOHAS.

I can't say that no cultural change is interesting, but boy is it LOHAS.

Unless of course someone comes up with lists of "This season's must have LOHAS items" (which are probably in some magazine already), then we are back to square one.

Jean: You are right, but the magazine entry did not mention that aspect. On the page preceeding the entry, Rie Hasegawa talks about how to select LOHAS clothes, and she mentions the importance of reducing waste etc. but stresses "the happy feeling you get from wearing something" as most important, which sounds like straight out of CanCam.

How long can momus continue to endorse it?

As long as it continues to make consumers aware that there are ethical choices to be made, I'll support it. LOHAS needs to be a marketing trend in order not to fade from view. It needs to be making someone somewhere money. Sustainability issues will not and cannot go away, because this (and equitable access to water supplies) is the 21st century's biggest theme, dwarfing terrorism. Even the US is (slowly, slowly) catching up: Walmart embraces sustainability. The fact that there are sneery calls for me to abandon this just bespeaks the levels of "moronic cynicsm" that prevail here. "Yes, it's not 100% pure, so let's abandon it and go back to non-ethical shopping."

I generally agree with you on this. LOHAS needs to be made to look sexy.

The only problem is that if you sell it as a superficial trend, why should believe that it will actually change behavior in the long-run? Marxism used to be big with the kids too and Japan doesn't even have a viable left-wing party.

Hmm... I guess I won't let the word moron bother me too much, since momus is so ready to dole out the word, and knows himself to be a Jackass Particularist (my coinage).
Walmart has, like every American corporation, "embraced" the environment or sustainability or whatever since the early nineties. Hybrid cars and organic fruits have been part of most citygoers lives for the better part of a decade (3 years ago in Japan it was macrobiotic diets). LOHAS, for the most part, is not new. That it arises now on the magazine rack, wearing all the trappings of short term trend doesn't seem to mean much for broader trends... my objection is that lohas potentially robs the movement of its teeth and (with brand name inclusion) prices healthy and sustainable lifestyles out of the common consumer's reach.