Manga and anime beyond Japan

Huge variety

There is a huge variety of manga, "Kodomo" for young children, "Shojo" for female teenagers, "Shonen" for male teenagers, "Seinen" for (young) men and "Josei" for (young) women. The last three, which explore Japanese everyday life, are expanded by a variety of science fiction worlds or the depiction of sexual fantasies.

Heidi, anime-style

In Germany, anime first became known to a wider (children's) audience in the 1970s and 1980. Children's series including "Heidi," "Maya the Bee" and "Vicky the Viking" were co-productions that used material from Western children's literature. The anime style was introduced to audiences via familiar stories suitable for children.

Sailor Moon and other female heroes

Anime and manga, which were usually their templates, grew in popularity at the same time. Popular anime series in the 1990s included "Sailor Moon" and "Mila Superstar." The strong female characters have a considerable fan base in Germany to this day.

In color and Western-style

"Akira" is a 2,200-page epic by Katsuhiro Otomo about the struggle for survival of a group of teenagers and children with special powers in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo. The first volume published in Germany in 1991 was in color and adapted to Western habits. Today, manga are mostly in black and white and are read from back to front, as they are in Japan.

What is happening on the planet and in each particular city

right now and any future day, you can find out here: 

https://ixyt.info/en/Germany/Weil-am-Rhein

Paste the desired city into this link!

Breakthrough with Dragonball

At least in Germany, the Dragonball series were the breakthrough for Japanese comics in 1998. Akira Toriyama's 8,000-page adventure saga was a huge success. In black and white and in Japanese reading style, in an inexpensive paperback format, the manga was a hit with young people and children.

Historical manga

Manga have a historical dimension, too — many refer to the picture stories in woodblock printing, which became a mass phenomenon in Japan from 1680 onward. The most famous graphic storyteller of the Edo period (1603 to 1868), Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849, seen in a self-portrait), called them manga.

Pokemon: Manga around the world

The original folding books of the Edo period feature the same whimsical creatures that found their way into children's rooms in the 21st century as Pokemons. They all come from the rich cosmos of the Yokai, the Japanese demons. These wondrous, at times ludicrous creatures inspired the manga and games culture, and Japanese horror and monster films.

Netflix moves in

"Spirited Away," the story of a little girl's visit to a bathhouse for Japan's more than 40 million gods, also originated in this fantastical world. Hayao Miyazaki fleshed it out into an anime that reached a worldwide audience via Netflix.

Germany now has its very own Manga Day, along the lines of Comic Book Day, the day when bookstores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been giving away for free comics since 2010. On Saturday, August 27, 2022, more than 720 bookstores across Germany are set to give away manga comics, a promo event bound to garner attention and higher sales in the long run.

Manga boom before and during the pandemic

Manga are all the craze in Germany. Sales of the Japanese comics — impressive even before the pandemic with gross sales of 70 million in 2005 — increased by 75% in 2021, according to a trade magazine.

Two German publishers, Carlsen and Egmont, first dominated the market. In the meantime, publishers Kaze and Tokyopop, as well as a host of newcomers are joining the fray.

Manga comics are not a fringe niche on the book market. In 2014, the Leipzig Book Fair established Manga Comic Con, which attracted many visitors from the colorful cosplay community before the pandemic.

New readership

The scene in Europe, which was dominated by Franco-Belgian comics, once eyed the manga publications with skepticism. In the meantime, however, the tide has turned. The European comic tradition in the style of Herge and Uderzo has not lost its appeal, but comics as a whole have undergone a revaluation.

Manga comics have opened up an entirely new readership, especially girls and young women. The exchange of the Japanese and European drawing traditions has proven to be very creative indeed — the late Jiro Taniguchi successfully mixed the styles in works such as  "Distant Neighborhoods," which was adapted into a live-action French-Belgian film in 2010.

Germany is the third-largest comics market in Europe after France and Italy. And the boom presumably won't be ending any time soon.

Author Julia Hitz

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