The manga market - Italy

1.2 The global market

Born in Japan during the modernizing and nationalist Meiji era, the first manga were inspired by European comics and published in newspapers. Influenced by post-war American comics, mangaka began drawing their manga in the form we know today. On the subject, however, Japan is no longer the only home state of manga, but there is a rise of manga signed South Korea.

Japan

According to the AJPEA (***) [***].

In ****, sales of manga in print form reached *,***.* billion yen, an increase of *.*% over ****. While books and magazines decreased by about one percentage point, manga in closed book form increased by **%, and **.*% in electronic form [***].

Physical sales are showing losses for the **th year in a row, while the digital sector is progressing very rapidly, driven by the closure of pirate sites, including the very popular Manga Mura, which had more than *** million visitors per month before its closure in **** [***].

On a global scale, manga distribution is very important to the country of the Rising Sun and is part of a very specific cultural strategy called "Cool Japan"; it refers to the aspects of Japanese culture that non-Japanese perceive as "cool." This strategy is part of the global spread of Japan's brand, which aims ...

1.3 The Italian market

In the last five years there has been a rapid growth in the interest of the Western world in Japanese manga. In Italy, too, the same trend has been registered in the publishing sector, which, as in Japan, is worth several billion lire. This market has captured not only the attention of an increasing number of readers, introducing new consumers and increasing the frequency of purchase, but also that of publishers. Among the experts of the sector who observe the trend of this phenomenon and the young generations more and more attentive to new products, manga seems to be slowly but surely entering the Italian publishing scene [***]

The Italian Publishers Association (***), sold **,*** copies in ****. Other hits this year include [***]:

Demon Slayers Tokyo Ravagers Jujutsu Kaisen Attack of the Giants

Copies of Manga Sold in the Bookshop Circuit Italy, ****-****, in Millions of Units. Source: ****

As can be deduced from the graph obtained with AIE's data, the copies of comics sold had an increase of +***% in one year, of which Manga occupied a very important [***] part.

2.1 Demand Overview

In Italy the readers of manga and comics are almost * million, and **% are on average also readers of fiction, non-fiction and other books.

Evolution of Comics and Manga Readers Italy, ****-****, in Millions of Units. Source: ****

As can be seen from the graph, the number of readers of comics and manga has increased exponentially, tripling in ** years from **** to ****.

Research carried out by the Italian Publishers Association in collaboration with ALDUS UP and Eudicomemerge shows that comics are a genre more frequented by men (***), even if the gap that divides the two genders tends to recompose itself "thanks to manga, which offer readers stories that better intercept their interests," comments Luca Valtorta, journalist for La Repubblica, but also thanks to the arrival of comics in bookshops, echoes Schiavone, "a context of fruition where they can be more at ease.

Consumption of Comics and Manga by age Italy, ****, in %. Source: Giornaledellalibreria As the graph suggests, reading comics and manga is a passion that in **** unites more young people than the elderly, even if not in a preponderant way since consumption is spread quite evenly among all ages. On the contrary, we can say that reading comics is very present up to the ...

2.2 Drivers of Manga Demand: Influencers and Anime in Streaming Platforms

The very specific cultural strategy called "Cool Japan" that we mentioned earlier involves a range of content from Japanese culture that is shared with the rest of the world. One content that is directly related to the world of manga is anime.

"Anime" comes from an English translation, specifically "Animation." That word has been transliterated to obtain the word Animēshon. This term in Japan is used to refer to any form of animation, regardless of geographic origin or style. Outside Japan, the term is used to refer exclusively to Japanese-made animation works [***].

Anime are conceived differently by their authors; in fact in Japan they are distinguished between:

manga eiga (***): i.e. those whose drawings were taken from a manga. dōga eiga (***): i.e. the stories born as animated films, without any other origin.

Thanks to the push of influencers, e-commerce and Twitch, in recent years manga has experienced a new rise in Italy. But going back in time, the first wave of "golden age" of manga, was in the **s; Japanese manga had in fact created curiosity, interest and passion since those years in the new adults who, thanks to their new economic possibilities, could finally buy the ...

2.3 Scantrad and copyright infringement

Any cultural work can be stolen and copied. Illegal downloading has made headlines in the media with the records broken by The Iron Throne in this field.

Manga is no exception and is not exempt from this phenomenon, quite the contrary. Scantrad is a process of scanning chapter pages published in Japan in specialized magazines and then translating them for publication on the Internet.

How do you explain the success of scantrad in Italy and abroad? Although illegal, this process allows millions of readers to access chapters easily, quickly and free of charge, unlike tomes that collect several chapters, must be paid for and take several months to publish. For the Jaimini's Box site alone, one can make a damage cost estimate of between *.* and *.* million per month for the manga market. Much more than a phenomenon, scantrad allows many manga to be introduced to the general public, to try them out and find out if they like them or not. The act of buying a "material" manga would, after all, only be an act of kindness and recognition for the mangaka, and not intended for actual reading-discovery.

One can also compare this situation to what series broadcasters - Netflix, Hulu, ...

3.1 Market organization

In Italy, the number of companies that operate only in the production and distribution of manga is concentrated around a dozen, considering that the market is a subset of the Italian publishing market.

The main Italian publishing houses that deal with manga are:

Star Comics Planet Manga Flashbook Goen J-Pop GP Publishing (***) Kappalab Magic Press Ronin Manga

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3.2 Value chain

Thanks to the work done at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Rome it is possible to observe the value chain of manga, from conception to retail. Below is a sketch of the value chain of the actual process of making an Italian edition of a manga.

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A linear process but that always requires a phase of approval by the Japanese publisher.

3.3 Distribution channels

In Italy, the diffusion of comics takes place essentially through five sales channels, to which e-commerce is now added as a distribution channel of great impact. The main channels are therefore

Bookshops Newsstands Comics shops Online sales channels Exhibition markets E-commerce

In **** the book market grew and so did the comics market, which saw its sales almost triple compared to ****. As far as sales channels are concerned, below is the increase in sales in the various sales channels [***].

Increase Incidence of Sales Channels Comics and Manga Italy, ****, in % Source: ****

4.1 Type of Manga offer

In Italy manga are sold in a specific format that differs from classic comics: they are usually pocket editions (***). The classic style of a manga character is a round head with large eyes and small nose; the proportions of the body are not very realistic and the muscles are not very prominent. The manga story is divided into arcs and each arc is sold in one or more volumes. So the story makes sense and generally continues in chronological order [***].

Also and especially for manga there are many different styles and you can find several works with a semi-realistic stroke:

TheKodomo: In many cases, the story is very childlike and funny. TheShônen: for kids from * to ** years old with a story that is often full of action and adventure, with a main character that is usually young and male, grows during the plot and is usually serialized for years and years, growing together with its readers. To this type of manga belong the famous Naruto, Dragonball and Hunterxhunter. TheShôjo: for girls of the same age with a more romantic and much less violent orientation, generally evoking school life. TheSeinen: for men over **, often more violent than the shônen ...

4.2 Price trends and the rise in paper prices

Normally, the average price of a manga varies little. Most licenses whose publishers are sure to run out of copies receive preferential treatment with a lower than average price (***). Below we see the average price of the ** best-selling comics in ****.

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The prices of Manga and more generally of comics are very influenced by the price of paper and basic materials used. These prices in recent years have soared. According to Assocarta, prices in the paper industry have exploded due to the pandemic. Pulp for paper and paperboard production increased **% (***) from late **** to June ****, a six-month period, to $*,***/ton and $*,***/ton, respectively.

Insufficient supply is putting pressure on the European market, which is nonetheless strong. Prices for paper and cardboard for recycling rose ***% and ***% in six months from October **** to May ****, to *** and *** euros per ton, respectively. Raw material for recycling is now much more expensive, not least because the European market demands it for packaging, thanks to the boom in e-commerce.

Production costs also influence prices, in addition to market dynamics and the law of supply and demand. Assocarta says the sector is "energy heavy," and that the price of gas in Italy and Europe has been rising steadily since ...

4.3 Manga and Anime Fairs in Italy

In recent years, in Italy, there has been an explosion of comics, games and cosplay fairs, most of which are village festivals focused on 'youth' entertainment, with a combination of second-hand sales, costume parties and exhibitions of collectible past works. Most of them are cleverly deserted by publishers and authors (***), which should be an indicator of the quality of the proposal, but it is also true that the attendance figures provided by the organizations are often so fanciful that incredible developments are hypothesized in the following editions [***].

They can therefore be defined as real fairs that, based on the success of the previous year, decide to repeat the following year. In the Italian panorama, in recent years have established a dozen fairs of comics and manga:

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5.1 Legal framework and copyright law

LLhe presence of the term "comic book" or "manga" in Italian law does not imply that this form of literary and aesthetic expression is not protected. Copyright protection applies to these works. There was no protection for comics or cartoonists before this branch of the law "intervened," despite the phenomenal growth of Italian comics publishing after World War II.

With the Italian copyright law of April **, ****, no. *** [***].

6.1 Segmentation

• Shûeisha
• Panini Comics
• Star Comics
• RW Edizioni
• Flashbook Edizioni
• J-POP
• Kappalab