Manga Culture: The Average Reader to The Otaku
The Average Reader
In Japan, manga is more widely read than perhaps any other literature, and vastly outsells the American equivalent. In Japan, manga constitutes a multi-billion dollar publication industry. Manga are sold to both genders, those being sold to boys called shōnen and girls shōjo.
Manga are so widely read, even among the average reader that not only is there a cross-readership (boys reading girl manga and vice versa) but manga cafes called 'manga kissa' exist. At these cafes average citizens will drink coffee and read manga, just as a way to relax from everyday stresses. Sometimes patrons even stay overnight.
Manga culture, even amongst normal readers, provides such a booming industry that the 2003 gross income of the industry was $5 billion and their sale accounted for 40% of all books and magazines sold in Japan. These comes out to approximately 15 titles per person each year. To make a comparison to the U.S., the market in 2003 for comics was a mere $340 million.
Manga are sold in magazines, which usually have series running concurrently with between 20 to 40 pages per issue for each series.
Some relatively well-known publications are:
The Otaku
Otaku comes from an honorific Japanese term used for another's house or family, and is also an honorific second-person pronoun. Its modern day slang usage didn't appear until the 1980s, and was apparently coined by Akio Nakamori (an essayist) in 1983 in a series called An Investigation of "Otaku". It came from use between fans because it related to those who stayed at home and were unnecessarily distant in addressing others.
In modern day terms otaku is an obsessive fan for any particular theme, one of which is the manga otaku. Such is their level of obsession that the best comparison is the U.S. fanboy, or perhaps the Trekkie. Take The Simpsons Comic Book Guy and make him Japanese and you've got a decent example of what the otaku is like.
Although the term otaku often has negative connotations because of their obsessive behavior, many otaku take pride in the title. However, many Japanese actually consider usage of the term in a serious fashion to be an insult.
Stereotypically the otaku is male, but there are also female otaku or fujoshi. A small alleyway of Tokyo's Higashi Ikebukuro district is known as "Otome Road" ("Maiden's road"). In this area there are many bookstores devoted to comics and books filled with stories about homosexual men, in a genre called Yaoi or Shonen-ai. Dojinshi, manga produced by amateur fans, dominate the shelves along Otome Road, with a significant chunk of the comics' stories about more famous anime that imitate, parody or develop on characters who are usually household names in Japan.
In Japan anime is not as widely accepted and mainstreamed as manga. Because of this the otaku subculture has much influence over the mainstream anime industry in Japan. The area where otaku have the most influence in manga tends to be with dōjinshi. Manga published in the United States are more influenced by their respective otaku subculture than they are in Japan. This is because most people who read manga have some ties to the subculture in the US, whereas in Japan manga reading is more widespread.
Strange Distribution, the Otaku
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