Observations on the American Manga Market

by Aliena Shoemaker

There was a time when the local Borders was the only store in my city that carried manga (Japanese comics) in the trade paper back format. The titles the store carried were limited to a grand total of about five. The titles included had either been readily available to the North American audience for multiple years via their on-screen adaptations (such as Dragonball Z) or they were the most popular titles in Japan at the time (mostly titles by the group CLAMP like X and Chobits). Selection was limited, and if you did not live in a large city with a China or Japan Town, it was practically impossible to find anything other than what was available for mass market purchase. Some random paper issues could be located in specialty comic stores from time to time but they were often badly-translated and hard to collect due to bad distribution.

Fast forward ten years. Now one may walk into any bookstore of a decent size and find a manga section that takes up from one to four rows. Some comic stores have whole floors dedicated to the translated comics. Some sci-fi and fantasy fans had been watching badly subtitled VHS tapes of anime (Japanese animation) like Gundam that they dug up in China Town since the 80’s. So why the (relatively) sudden boom in anime and manga in America?

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