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At the Digital Publishing Fair held in Tokyo as part of the Tokyo International Book Fair on Sunday, software company Celsys was demonstrating the phone’s prowess with manga. With a touch of the finger, a user can move the comics back and forth or flip them 90 degrees.
This is just the latest method by which avid comic readers can get their daily manga dose. Many people read them online. Of all the digital content purchased online, amounting to nearly 40 billion yen (over US$375 million) last year in Japan, about two-thirds was manga or other comics.
The Japanese government, having taken note of this trend, is set to promote Japanese comics and animation as part of the country's “soft power” exports. At the same time, the latest electronic devices are enhancing their production, distribution and viewing.
In a booklet called "Inside Out: A Mini Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture" published by the Foreign Press Center, a semi-official agency affiliated with the Foreign Ministry, comics and animation are referred to as "showcases for the strikingly rich imagination of Japan's artists, that serve as vehicles to project Japanese culture around the world."
This marks a significant move from the conventional view of Japanese culture, focused on the tea ceremony, calligraphy, refined handicrafts or Kabuki performances.
It was former Foreign Minister Taro Aso who initiated the current official drive to promote manga and “anime,” or animated cartoons. Aso admits that he has read many manga books himself, and finds in them "a way to understand contemporary Japanese people."
Promoting comics and cartoons is no joke. In March this year, the current Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura handed a letter of assignment to cartoon character Doraemon, appointing the blue cat as Japan’s first "anime ambassador." Manga and anime versions of Doraemon have been enormously successful since 1969, particularly among children.
Doraemon is a funny robot cat with human emotions that traveled back from the future to help a schoolboy by using his many futuristic gadgets.
Conventionally, manga and comics were presented in books and magazines. But as online digital publishing is gaining wider acceptance, especially with the proliferation of mobile phones among the young, manga publication online is taking root.
One of Japan’s largest online publishing houses, Papyless Company, reported seven-fold growth in the volume of downloaded contents between 2005 and 2007. Among 90,000 titles electrically in stock at the firm, approximately 15,000 titles are available for mobile phones – 3,000 of them manga and other comics.
For those who don’t want to keep the digital contents on their electronic bookshelves, so to speak, manga rentals are also available. Papyless now offers 48-hour viewing rights for just under one dollar, very reasonable for the pinched purse.
To find a specific manga title – even with only a vague memory of its author, period of publication, magazine in which it was published or related keywords – readers can now count on an online mega archive called TokyoMangaNet launched by MocoMona and Company just one week ago.
According to Munetaka Matsumoto, executive director of the firm, its online search engine covers about 140,000 manga stories of roughly 50,000 titles. It is linked to Amazon.com for net shopping. Responding to a growing demand for Japanese manga abroad, he expects to make the archive available in Korean, Chinese and English in the near future.
The archive reveals an amazing diversity of manga, far beyond mere entertainment. They include discourses on laws, history, medical science and academic instructions, through the medium of comic features and characters.
Manga producers are increasingly taking a worldwide perspective. In order to simplify the conversion of stories into foreign languages, Comic Packer, a full-digital manga production system, can allow separate entry of graphics and narratives on computers.
"This will facilitate manga's international outreach," said Sunao Tada of the Technical Supervisory Division of Kyodo Printing Company, which produced the tool. The company has already set up a local corporation in the United States exactly for that purpose, he said.
The government is also geared to promote manga as a new export line. The Content Law was passed in 2004 to facilitate protection of the industry in close public/private collaboration.
To nurture human talent, a university in Kyoto, west of Tokyo, established a full-scale faculty of manga in 2006 with over 500 students, including foreigners. They will examine manga's potential and cultural implications, as well as honing their skills as manga artists and producers.
They have already introduced a new version of the classic cartoon character “Astro Boy,” and other series created by the late Osamu Tezuka, arguably the godfather of manga.
According to "Inside Out," Astro Boy, a cute robot with super powers and a human soul, was a Japanese version of Superman. Some even say this character’s popularity led to Japan’s general acceptance of robots in workplaces and living spaces.
The original Astro Boy pioneered the genre in the 1950s and 1960s – now he is being shown online and on mobile phones with voice narratives, sound effects and column movement.
Though it has lost some business to computer games and other digital entertainment, the 500-billion yen (US$4.7 billion) manga market is strong enough to warrant further investment and development. In manga and anime, Japanese artists have found a vital and viable outlet for their creativity, and Japan has found a welcome way to project its soft power.
