Manga continues to recover from the recession of 2009 and the closing of Borders, a significant retailer for the category, in 2011. Publishers, on the other hand, are leery about repeating past mistakes and overburdening the market with too many products.
However, there are reasons to believe that the manga industry is thriving and will continue to develop in the future. There are a lot of good volumes coming out, and the manga and manga artbook sector is thriving. It appears to be continuously increasing. I believe the formerly messed-up market has finally returned to a normal and healthy pace.
Manga Benefits from Anime Streaming
For decades, manga (Japanese-style animated movies and serials) has had a strong sales link. Manga and anime are no longer considered a cultural outliers; they are now part of mainstream pop culture in North America. The increased availability of anime content on video streaming services like Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix, as well as Crunchyroll and other anime-centric sources, has had a substantial impact on manga and light book sales in North America.
Growth Is Fueled by Diversity
Manga has benefited from diversification as well, according to publishers, who have released a larger range of titles, expanded distribution, and sought out partnerships that go beyond geographic borders and into other parts of the entertainment industry. Another encouraging trend seen by publishers is the growing diversity of stories available. Though action-packed shonen manga series like Attack on Titan Merch, as well as fantasy-adventure isekai series (stories in which a character from the real world is transported into a fantasy or multiplayer-game world), continue to dominate, readers are increasingly purchasing manga with mature themes, such as horror stories and LGBTQ stories, as well as manga in the yaoi (boys’ love or BL) and yuri (girls’ love or GL).
Young Readers Manga
The majority of children in those age groups prefer popular shonen manga or more current anime releases. Meanwhile, they’re stocking up on all of the new all-ages and young adult comics that are currently flooding the market. They’re starving for comics, but manga refuses to feed them. For something that began as a test, it has quickly turned into a key driver of our digital sales growth and a stand-alone business.
Manga publication in North America is still mostly a licensing industry, with popular Japanese series being translated for the English-language market. Several publishers, on the other hand, are aiming to extend their offerings of original manga for English-language readers.
