Manga – history and popularity in the world - PART II

Presently in Japan, there is manga available for prople of all ages. There is a huge range of subjects including romance, adventure, comedy, drama, historical, fantasy and science fiction, horror, mystery and so on. What is your favorite and why? Since the early 1950s, manga has become an important and major part of the publishing industry in Japan. A survey in 2007 showed that manga alone have earned the publication industry an astouding 404 billion yen, equal to approximately 3.6 billion USD. In your opinion what was the reason of such big success?

Weekly Shonen Jump

















Manga was first printed in magazines such as Newtype or Shonen Jump, each issue being a compilation of single chapters from different series. After a series is published in such form for a while, the chapters are collected by publishers and printed in the form of small books, called ''tankoubon''. They are much like the American graphic novels or paperbacks. Have you ever read any ?

Nakayoshi, a shojo magazine

Tankoubon use better-quality paper for printing, and are are helpful if someone finds the costs of weekly or montly magazines too high.

Manga is primarily classified by the gender and age of target readers. This is especially visible in segregating books and magazines directed at boys and those meant for girls. Each one has a distinctive style of cover art and in most bookstores are placed on seperate shelves. Of course demographics do not limit readership. It is not unusual for female readers to subscribe to series meant for boys or the other way around :) Have You ever done so as well? Or watch few years ago Sailor Moon etc ?

In Japan, there are also places called ''manga cafes'' (manga kissaten), where people can come to drink coffee and read manga. Some even stay there over night.
There has also been a large increase in the popularity of original webmanga, which are drawn by artists from all over the world and uploaded for online viewing.


Aside from original works, there are also ''doujinshi'', which are produced by small independent publishing companies. Most of these are parody stories of already existing popular manga or anime series, or include characters of such series, much like fanfiction. Unlike fanfiction though, doujinshi are sold without causing any copyright issues. In 2007 alone, doujishi in Japan sold for a sum of almost 28 billion yen.



During the past three dacades the international popularity has considerably grown, since its debut in the U.S.. Not only has it gained thousands of fans from all over the world, but it has also influenced the comic markets from outside of Japan and has greatly effected comic artists internationally.
Manga found their way into the U.S. markets gradually, first through the popularity of anime, and soon after independently. Most fans became aware of manga in the 1980s, however, anime was more accessible and easier to obtain, therefore remained more popular. One of the first known manga translated into English was the autobiographical story ''Barefoot Gen'' by Keiji Nakazawa. Later in the mid-1980s and 1990s, more manga were translated, including famous series such as ''Lone Wolf and Cub'', ''Akira'', ''Golgo 13'' and ''Appleseed''. Do you know any very popular manga series that can be found in Poland ? Do you remember the beginnings of manga in Poland.

In the mid–1990s, the U.S. manga market made an upturn with the publication of Masamune Shirow's ''Ghost in the Shell'', which quickly became extremely popular among fans.



The next success was the manga ''Sailor Moon'' by Naoko Takeuchi, which during the years 1995-1998 had been published in over 23 countries.

Currently the popularity of manga has increased immensly, at present the American manga market makes an average of 175 million USD from sales yearly.

The influence manga has had on European cartoons differs from what the United States experienced. Italy and France have broadcasted anime since the early 1970s and French art has been borrowing from Japanese style since the 19th century.
In addition to that, manga has been distributed since the 1950s gaining a very wide readership. Since 2004, the sales of manga in France have reached one-third of yearly comics sales. Within just France and Germany alone, the sales of manga have reached over 212 million dollars. French publishers distributing translated manga include: Asuka, Kana, Glenat, Pika Edition, Casterman and many others.



Publishers have also translated manga into German, Italian, Dutch and many other languages, including Polish. The most known publishers in Europe include Tokyopop, Egmont, Golancz, Titan Books and Random House. In Poland the two main manga publishers are J.P.Fantastica, known simply as JPF, and Waneko. Did you ever read a magazine like Kawaii? Do you find manga childish? Why ?