[EVA] Has Viz entirely ceased production on the Sadamoto manga?

[Gwern Branwen]

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Codename V
<revolutionofevangelion_dot_org at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The New York City area is almost entirely devoid of the Sadamoto Evangelion
> manga.
>
> I normally check out the manga section of local bookstores etc. just to see
> what's on shelves these days, and I noticed that in the Borders I go by -- which
> usually has several volumes of the Sadamoto manga in stock -- all of the
> Sadamoto volumes had quickly vanished.  After two or three weeks, I was confused
> why they weren't eventually replaced with new ones.  Now I realize that stock
> and shipment being what it is, seasonal release etc. this might not be anything
> odd....but to not have either the first volume, or the most recent volume, and
> for that long, made me curious.
>
> So I asked one of the staffers to run it through the computer, and as it turned
> out, virtually every Borders in the New York City area didn't have the Sadamoto
> manga in stock anymore  (maybe one or two stores had a solitary volume that
> happened to still be on the shelf), and *none* of the stores had any volumes on
> order.
>
> So I went over to Barnes & Noble, asked them to run it through their computer
> too, and it turns out that they were also virtually out of stock at all NYC area
> stores, and there were no orders to replace them.
>
> So you can't find it on shelves anymore.  Granted things like Volume 9 were kind
> of rare, but even places I'd normally see Volume 1 or the most recent volume,
> simply ran out and aren't getting more.
>
> Is this just normal seasonal variation?  That is, its been a while since Volume
> 11 came out, maybe it just ran its course.  but by that logic, why were the
> first few volumes, 1-5 or so, always in stock after all these years, only to
> stop right now?
>
> Is this a reflection of the big downsizing Viz had to do in Spring?  Could it
> even be a symptom of Khara and Gainax fighting with each other? ("Khara" has
> been retroactively added onto the cover of past issues made long before Khara
> existed)

I like the Khara fighting theory, but my view is that anyone with a
gram of sense would say that getting out issues is foolishness - the
cost of starting and stopping translation & printing again and again
and again as Sadamoto delays or cancels chapter after chapter
outweighs the opportunity cost of waiting for Sadamoto to actually
finish the series. Maybe Viz has simply decided that Rebuild means
Sadamoto won't be delivering for a long time* and to shift resources
elsewhere.

* Come to think of it, when was the last chapter released? Last year?

-- 
gwern