Digital manga grows amid publishing decline
Plus: Manga readers spend big on Piccoma app; Ghibli Park sets next opening dates; Reviving Japan's national manga and anime museum plans; and more
This is the weekly newsletter of Animenomics, covering the business of anime and manga. Today is Wednesday, July 26, 2023.
In case you missed it: Manga and anime creator Ippei Kuri, who founded anime studio Tatsunoko Production with his brothers, has died at the age of 83. Fandom researcher Patrick Macias shares an old interview on Substack.
Digital manga thrives in struggling publishing industry
Midyear publishing industry data released this week by the Research Institute for Publications, a unit of the All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher’s and Editor’s Association, shows that digital manga sales exceeded ¥227 billion (US$1.6 billion) for the first six months of the year.
Why it matters: Digital manga sales make up 90 percent of Japan’s entire e-book market, and a growth rate of 8.1 percent helps carry the wider digital publishing sector to new highs.
Light novels (young adult fiction accompanied with anime and manga art) are categorized with the general e-book segment, whose sales were generally flat.
Between the lines: Digital manga was the only publishing segment that saw growth compared to the first six months of 2022.
Sales of monthly manga magazines declined 12 percent, faster than the average 9.6 percent decline among all monthly magazines.
The report’s authors attribute the decline of paper manga sales to reduced demand from consumers staying at home.
What to watch: Should the current pace of book and magazine sales continue for the rest of the year, Japan’s publishing industry will have declined for the second year in a row.
Manga app Piccoma leads mobile consumer spending
Manga and webtoon reading app Piccoma has the highest consumer spending out of any mobile app in Japan in the first six months of 2023, according to new data published by mobile insights and analytics provider data.ai.
Why it matters: Piccoma’s total in-app purchases was higher than popular mobile game apps such as Monster Strike, Uma Musume Pretty Derby, and Fate/Grand Order.
Globally, Piccoma ranked 15th in consumer spending among all mobile apps and took 7th place when mobile game apps are excluded.
By the numbers: In the fiscal quarter ending May 2023, Piccoma’s South Korean parent company Kakao reported that the app had a gross merchandise value of ₩335.5 billion (US$262 million).
Piccoma controls more than 50 percent of the manga app market share in Japan and has been the world’s top manga app since 2021.
The app has more than 10 million monthly active users in Japan, and it has expanded operations to Europe.
What to watch: Operator Kakao Piccoma had planned for a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last December, but those plans were delayed to later this year.
Bloomberg reported last year that the company was valued at US$6 billion.
Clippings: Ghibli Park unveils second and third phases
Ghibli Park’s second and third phases will open in November 2023 and March 2024, respectively. The number of visitors to the park is on pace to reach 1.35 million in the first year, 30 percent more than expected. (The Nikkei)
Toho is purchasing creative agency Gaie, which specializes in digital marketing and advertising for the film industry. The firm has previously been hired on Toho anime releases such as Children of the Sea. (Animation Business Journal)
The First Slam Dunk overtook Suzume’s box office earnings last week to become Japan’s 14th highest earning film of all time. (Cinema Today)
In France, webtoons make a shift from digital to paper
“France is a country that devours culture, particularly through paper.”
— Pascal Lafine, editor of Delcourt, France’s third largest comics and manga publisher
Context: Lafine told France’s national public television broadcaster that the 2023 edition of Japan Expo saw a lot of interest in printed volumes of digital webtoon publications.
Delcourt is the local publisher of Solo Leveling, a webtoon title from South Korea whose Japanese anime adaptation is airing in 2024.
Lafine said Delcourt sold 200,000 print copies of Solo Leveling in the first six months of the work going on sale in France two years ago, convincing other companies to start publishing webtoons in print.
Japan revives national anime and manga museum plan
Taking advantage of the global interest in anime, several Japanese government agencies are seeking funding for the construction of a national art museum to preserve and exhibit manga and anime manuscripts.
Driving the story: The Agency for Cultural Affairs is formulating a basic plan for a national center of media arts this year and plans to submit a funding request in the 2024 fiscal year, the Nikkei financial newspaper reports.
What’s happening: A draft of the Cabinet Office’s Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform published in June included a line item for the national center of media arts as part of efforts in cultural promotion.
A survey conducted by the Japan Tourism Agency in 2022 found that 5.3 percent of foreign visitors went to sites with ties to films and anime.
Given that 8.7 percent of the survey’s respondents were interested to visit such sites again on the next visit, the government believes the museum is one more way to attract such tourists.
Some background: This isn’t the first time the Japanese government has floated the idea of a government-funded manga and art museum.
In 2009, the government of Prime Minister Taro Aso allocated ¥11.7 billion (US$83 million) for such an effort, but it was subsequently canceled when the opposition Democratic Party of Japan briefly took control of government.
A few dozen manga and anime museums already exist in Japan under private and regional administration, such as the Toei Animation Museum in Tokyo and the Kyoto International Manga Museum.
Between the lines: One non-tourism purpose of the museum is to prevent anime and manga manuscripts from being sold on the market, the Nikkei reports.
Manuscripts drawn by the iconic manga artist Osamu Tezuka fetched €269,400 (US$300,000) in a Paris auction in 2018.
Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. Sharing this newsletter helps others learn more about the anime and manga industries. You can also find us on Twitter and LinkedIn.