Interesting. I agree with Butcher that just because a story is told in three volumes does not dictate what goes in what volume, regardless of whether the first volume must come to some sort of satisfying conclusion or not. However, I found Queenie Chan's essay a little hard to follow, and I'm not sure she was actually saying that Act I must be in volume 1 and Act II in volume 2, or if she did, what she meant by it.
I also seriously doubt that the vast majority of readers of manga in the western world judge OEL volumes differently from Japanese volumes based on their knowledge of first publication by chapter vs. first publication by volume. For one thing, I am not so sure that most of them are even aware of that; for another, I think it's putting the cart before the horse. The pacing and structure is different partly because of the writer's knowledge of how it will come out: it's not being interpreted differently by readers because of the readers' knowledge of chapter vs. tankoubon.
Finally, I do think that a lot of OEL first volumes have much less plot and pay-off, and more set-up that Japanese first volumes, but a) it is also a frequent problem with Japanese manga, b) that is a common beginner's mistake in many media. Read a lot of novel manuscripts, and you frequently find that the story actually begins on page 10, or 40, or 112.
no subject
I also seriously doubt that the vast majority of readers of manga in the western world judge OEL volumes differently from Japanese volumes based on their knowledge of first publication by chapter vs. first publication by volume. For one thing, I am not so sure that most of them are even aware of that; for another, I think it's putting the cart before the horse. The pacing and structure is different partly because of the writer's knowledge of how it will come out: it's not being interpreted differently by readers because of the readers' knowledge of chapter vs. tankoubon.
Finally, I do think that a lot of OEL first volumes have much less plot and pay-off, and more set-up that Japanese first volumes, but a) it is also a frequent problem with Japanese manga, b) that is a common beginner's mistake in many media. Read a lot of novel manuscripts, and you frequently find that the story actually begins on page 10, or 40, or 112.