In ten years, the volume of the French manga market, the second largest in the world behind Japan, has increased fourfold. “Manga is reaching new heights, even though it had already had a historic year in 2021,” revealed a consultant from the GfK institute.
About one in seven books bought in France in 2022 was a manga, with growth expected to continue given the young age of readers, according to a study revealed by the GfK institute on 26 January. This institute, which is a benchmark for book sales, noted at the International Comics Festival in Angoulême that manga represented 57% of the comics market in volume, which itself accounts for 25.2% of the book market.
The Culture Pass, Manga Pass: a preconceived idea?
While no manga appeared among the 100 best-selling books in 2019, there were three in 2020, 24 in 2021 and 28 in 2022. “Manga is reaching new heights, even though it had already had a historic year in 2021,” said Casseline Rosello, a GfK consultant, at a press conference. In ten years, the volume of the French manga market, the second largest in the world behind Japan, has increased fourfold. It reached 381 million euros in value in 2022. One manga genre, shonen (aimed at teenage boys), alone accounts for 43% of comic book sales in France.
These very popular titles, such as the 253,000 copies of the first volume of One Piece in 2022, are generally the beginnings of a series at a low price, to convince the reader to go further. One Piece has 103 volumes to date in French. The role of the Culture Pass, a state subsidy for secondary school pupils and students to buy cultural products, is to be put into perspective. “The Culture Pass, which would be a Manga Pass, is a preconceived idea,” Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak said in Angoulême on 27 January. In terms of books bought with this pass, the main item purchased by its holders, manga accounts for 43% of sales in volume, and 29% in value.
A growing readership
In 2022, “readers who were already buying manga bought a little less. There was more growth among those who did not buy them”, Casseline Rosello pointed out. This year’s Angoulême Festival welcomes several manga stars such as Hajime Isayama (Attack of the Titans), Ryoichi Ikegami, creator of the Crying Freeman series among others, and Junji Ito (Maniac by Junji Ito, a macabre anthology on Netflix).