With one in seven books sold, France has become the other manga country
In 2022, 28 titles of the genre have climbed into the ranking of the first 100 books purchased.
About one in seven books purchased in France in 2022 was a mangawith growth that should continue given the young age of readers, according to a study revealed by the institute GfK. The institute, which is a benchmark for book sales, noted during the International Comics Festival in Angoulême that manga accounted for 57% of the comic book market by volume, which itself accounts for 25.2% of the book market. “The manga is reaching new heights, after having already had a historic year in 2021”explained at a press conference a GfK consultant, Casseline Rosello.
In ten years, the volume of the French manga market, second in the world behind Japan, has quadrupled. It reached 381 million euros in value in 2022. A genre of manga, the shonen (intended for teenage boys), alone represents 43% of comic book sales in France.
new followers
While no manga appeared among the 100 best-selling books in 2019, there were three in 2020, 24 in 2021 and 28 in 2022. These very popular titles, like the 253,000 copies in 2022 of the first volume of One Piece , are generally low-cost series debuts, to convince the reader to pursue further. One Piece thus has 103 volumes to date in French.
The role of Cultural passstate subsidy to middle and high school students and students to buy cultural products, is to be put into perspective. “The Culture Pass which would be a manga Pass, it’s a received idea”underlined Thursday morning in Angoulême the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak.
As for the books purchased using this pass, the number one purchase item for its holders, manga represents 43% of sales in volume, and 29% in value. GfK noted the expansion of the manga customer base. In 2022, “Readers who were already buying manga bought slightly less. We have more growth on the side of those who did not buy it”underlined Casseline Rosello.
the Angouleme Festival this year welcomed several manga stars such as Hajime Isayama (The attack of the Titans ), Ryoichi Ikegami, designer among others of the series Crying Freemanor Junji Ito (Maniac by Junji Ito, macabre anthology on Netflix).
