Based on fresh data released to Premium subscribers last week, we took a look at the popularity of anime and manga among 13-25-year-olds, and analyzed what young people think, especially compared with their thoughts on anime and manga just 6 months ago. The charts and graphs are quite fascinating and represent market opportunities within specific demographics, and yet a decrease in others, indicating that it remains a dynamic entertainment industry.
For Weekly and Premium subscribers only here’s the data, charts, and story on manga and anime as a form of entertainment: “Measuring the Manga and Anime Popularity in Youth Culture Markets.”” NULL The popularity of last week’s stories, including “Anime Expo Attracts Largest Crowd of Anime/Manga Fans and Industry in America with Conferences, Cosplay, Masquerade Ball, Midnight Tea, Movies, Dance, Gaming, Karaoke, and Exhibition Hall” and “Anime Expo Fashionistas Showcase Latest Trends in Styles Impacting Mainstream Fashion Including Gothemo, Maid Caf?, Goth-Lolita, Cosplay, Visual Kei, J-Rock, Accessories, Collectibles, and Backpacks” indicated that many readers are interested in the changing landscape of the entertainment industry when it comes to today’s youth culture marketplace of 13-25-year-olds. As mainstream media and entertainment continue to lose marketshare based on the increase in preferences for niche entertainment types, consumer-generated content, and a plethora of other market influences, anime and manga from Japan, continue to have an impact on a new generation -from entertainment, reading patterns, cultural influences, events, music, art, and fashion.
Based on fresh data released to Premium subscribers last week, we took a look at the popularity of anime and manga among 13-25-year-olds, and analyzed what young people think, especially compared with their thoughts on anime and manga just 6 months ago. The charts and graphs are quite fascinating and represent market opportunities within specific demographics, and yet a decrease in others, indicating that it remains a dynamic entertainment industry.
For Weekly and Premium subscribers only, here’s the data, charts, and story on manga and anime as a form of entertainment: “Measuring the Manga and Anime Popularity in Youth Culture Markets.”” As part of Label Networks’ Spring Youth Culture Study 2008, we added several questions to the entertainment section, including preferences and popularity for reading manga, watching anime, top websites, the popularity of J-rock bands, among other Japanese-inspired subcultures.
Based on a representative sampling of 13-25-year-olds across 49 locations, when asked “In the last 6 months, how often are you reading manga comics?” still a fairly large percentage of the marketplace is not reading them with 67.3% of males and 79.8% of females. This indicates that the market for manga comics is still somewhat niche, however looking at the rest of the results by gender and age groups, much can revealed in terms of where it’s strong now and where it’s headed.
For example, 13.5% of males are reading manga Just as frequently along with 7.6% of females, indicating that the market does have strong percentages, although niche, that do read manga. Coupled with the numbers from Anime Expo in terms of changes in their registration from the show last week, the increase this year according to the Society of Promotion for Japanese Anime, came from 13-18-year-olds females which for the first time outnumber males in the same age range.
According to our data, 9.3% of males say they are reading manga Less frequently compared with 7.1% of females, and 9.9% of males are reading manga More frequently compared with 5.5% of females.
When looking at the results to this question by age groups, it’s clear that the younger the demographic, the higher the percentages that are reading manga. There are direct correlations that the younger the demographics, the higher they are reading manga Just as frequently and even higher percentages among younger demographics that are reading More frequently with 11.6% of 13-14-year-olds compared with only 2.4% of 21-25-year-olds. This indicates that a new generation of manga readers is coming into the marketplace and should be noted.
If you compare these results to the question, “In the last 6 months, how often do you watch anime?” percentages are higher among females in general compared with reading manga, however males still do have higher percentages that are watching anime. 7.3% of males are watching anime More frequently in the last 6 months along with 5.9% of females. Basically, .4% of females are watching anime more frequently than reading manga comics.
At Anime Expo earlier this month, one of the conferences pointed out that new demographics are coming into manga and anime from different directions. One such example is the increase among young females coming into manga and particularly anime from the music industry and fashion. J-rock and J-pop bands continue to have an impact, particularly on America’s youth-oriented emo and alt-rock audiences, which for many people is where they are first introduced to Japanese culture in general. In addition, the growing fascination of the Harajuku girl, maid cafes fashion, Gothic Lolita, and Victorian pirate have also introduced girls to manga and anime in ways other than simply understanding Otaku culture and the art of manga and anime.
Interestingly, by age groups, younger demographics are watching anime more frequently than older demographics with 18.4% of 13-14-year-olds saying Just as frequently compared with 8.8% of 21-25-year-olds. However the same age groups also have higher percentages that are watching anime Less frequently at 14.4% followed by 15-17-year-olds at 11.7% compared with 7.1% of 21-25-year-olds. One of the most important aspects to note when it comes to anime however, is that percentages spike among 18-20-year-olds that say they are watching anime More frequently at 7.1%, which along with 13-14-year-olds at 7.9%, indicate where the market opportunities lie.
