Forum - View topicINTEREST: Manga Sales Boom in France After 18-Year-Olds Get Free Money to Spend on the Arts
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Yune Amagiri
 Posts: 929 Location: France |
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It first started around late 70' when french animes distributors decided to make a certain bet. They learned that compared to the moderately expensive US animes and the way too much expensive awkward European productions, it was cheaper for them to buy the rights and dub japanese animes which were yet unknown in Europe. It was a risky bet because of how different everything was in japanese animes compared to what their audience was used until then, in particular the Mecha genre. Long story short, one of the first japanese anime in France, UFO Robo Grendizer, which aired 3 years after Japan and was renamed "Goldorak" in France, end up reaching almost 100% audience during most episodes. It soon became a phenomenon, even bigger than it was in Japan and make French people aware of the japanese culture. Following this success, they have broaden the genre they broadcast and started to license many mangas. At this point it was pretty much a snowball effect which is still ongoing 4 decades later. Fun fact : Japanese culture boom in Italy also started for the very same reasons a year or so after France, they both wanted to save money in a stagnant market and found an unexpected vein of gold. |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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Cyber Blue comes to mind. It was a manga made Tetsuo Hara, the artist for Fist of the North Star, and a writer using the pen name Bob not long after FotNS ended. It never really took off; it gets a little too crazy for its own good. It's apparently remembered well enough in Japan, though, that they let someone take a crack at reimagining the series. Anyhow, the even made YouTube ads for their release of it some years ago for it. (I'm not entirely sure if this was its first publication over there or a reprint...) Fist of the North Star is big enough that some random manga that's essentially a footnote in Tetsuo Hara's backlog was seen as important enough to publish over there. Meanwhile, we're only just now getting a release of Fist of the North Star that looks like its actually gonna cover the whole thing.* I honestly don't know what the raw manga sales numbers are in France versus the US, but the French definitely enjoy a much, much greater variety of manga. Meanwhile, the US has struggled to get even the biggest JUMP hits of the '80s fully printed in English outside of Dragon Ball and, more recently, JoJo's. *There was the eOneBook thing, but I count that as more of an international release |
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AkaRed
 Posts: 411 |
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To add to the discourse Manga and Anime culture started back in the 70's thanks to program such as Récré A2 and later in the 80's and 90's with the famous Club Dorothée so three decades of generations who grew up with the work of Osamu Tesuka, Leiji Matsumoto, Akira Toriyama or even Go Nagai. As for the Club Dorothée let's put some data into perspective. Between 1987 and 1997, Club Dorothée was watched by an average of 55% of 4-14 year olds and achieved up to 60% of the audience as a whole with peaks of 86%. A record never equaled since (In France). At its peak, the show will occupy up to 26 hours of airtime per week and more than 40 hours during school holidays, Dorothée being, moreover, the director of programs of the TF1 youth unit. TF1 is of course the first channel in France (TF1 stand for: Télévision Française 1) As for Dorothée herself she appeared in several Japanese Tokusatsu as actress one that come in my mind is Chōjū Sentai Liveman which she have a essential rôle for the team and another one is Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya. So France and Japan have 50 years old long history in regard to Manga and Anime. |
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Kraz
Posts: 23 |
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Manga is not anime, if anime became popular in France at the end of the 70s, all the manga magazines failed in the 70s and the 80s...
There's no real success in manga in France before the mid-90s and Dragon Ball (Glénat published Akira before DB but contrary of a popular myth it was not a big success at that time), and it really exploded in the 2000s only. It seems in France we always spent a lot in books, including 'french' comics (aka Bandes Dessinées) so once you got a generation raised with anime, they had no issue buying both BD and manga for themselves and their kids. But saying this is only because anime was popular is bullsh*t, we were far from the only country to get an invasion of anime in the 80s, and yet we're the only one with such a big market. I've very little knowledge of the book market in the USA, it looks like graphic novels were mainly sold in Comic shops, who were tied with comics distributors, it has probably not helped. |
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kgw
 Posts: 1057 Location: Spain, EU |
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The anime boom of the 90s all over Europe* + French comic book (BD) sector = manga success. Something similar happened in Italy (which have a strong industry, too) or Germany. Even in my country, Spain (to lower degree because our publisher house were never so strong), which at one point was feed by the Spanish branch of French Glénat publishing house.
*Many "classic" series, from Dragon Ball, Captain Tsubasa, Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, First of the North Star, Dragon Quest... were buy by European distributors who then sold them to local tv stations. For example, the whole T5 network (Spain & Italy). |
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