Search
Partners
Anime News
|
Net Being Looked At As Medium For Pan-Asian Manga Distribution Date: 2/24/2005 |
| The forum event "Asian IN Comic 2005" sponsored by the Japan Foundation began on the 19th in Tokyo. Including Japanese, Chinese and Korean industry representatives, the top of online comic delivery was discussed. Both broadband access to the inernet has increased on wide scale among the member countries and environmental considerations were taken into account. Importing and exporting of comic content internationally appears to be a possibility of the near future. Several problems are being adressed now such as character rights, account method issues and security. Manga as an industry in Japan has recently leveled-off at the 500 billion Yen market level and reasons are cited as the falling birthrate and the absence of any significant hit titles to come out in the last few years. Contrasting this, PC and portable terminal users manga downloads within the country as well those who view it on mobile phones have increased dramatically. Net delivery of manga became a full scale industry about 5 years ago. Sites like the online bookstore Ebook Japan prove the viability of the online market with their 100,000 registered users. Ten sites currently deliver comics in South Korean, catering to about 40,000 readers. 10% of the online comic content there is Japanese manga. Meanwhile in China there are 37 companies delivering comics online in China and international import works make up about 60% of the content seen there. |
| Source: Anime News Service |
