Japan's growing cultural power. The example of manga in France

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Japan’s growing cultural power. The example of manga

in France

Jean-Marie Bouissou

To cite this version:

Jean-Marie Bouissou. Japan’s growing cultural power. The example of manga in France. Berndt;

Jaqueline; Richter; Ste. Reading Manga: Local and global Perceptions of Japanese Comics, Leipziger

Universitätverlag, pp.149-165, 2006, 9783865831231. �hal-00972716�

Page 6

JAPAN’S GROWING CULTURAL POWER:

THE EXAMPLE OF MANGA IN FRANCE

Jean-Marie BOUISSOU

A paper presented at the international conference

“Mobile and Pop Culture in Asia”,

Université Hallym, Chuncheon, Corée “(28 et 29 octobre 2006)

Published in Jaqueline BERNDT and Steffi RICHTER, eds.

Reading Manga: Local and global Perceptions of Japanese Comics

Leipziger Universitätverlag, 2006

This paper is an attempt to analyse the success of manga on the international market of

cultural goods in the same way as the success of any other commercial product, with

special attention to the case of France – not only because France is this author’s country,

but also because it is – with the possible exception of Korea – the most developed export

market for manga, still well ahead of the United States.

Starting with the translation of Ôtomo Katsuhiro’s Akira in 1990-1991, manga has gained

a 38 % share of the French comics market. According to my computation

, as of

December 31, 2005, 628 titles from 231 manga artists (mangaka) have been translated

in French, and several dozens of new volumes keep pouring every month

. Last but not

least the manga has replaced martial arts as the main reason why young people chose to

study things Japanese at university.

My starting point is a statement of fact. Manga appeared in a very specific cultural

and historic context, i.e. the unique experience of the atomic cataclysm and the traumas

inflicted on Japanese society by fast-track modernisation under the pressure of

threatening external forces. Manga comes from a country whose international cultural

influence was for a long time very limited, and it is radically different from everything

that Japan exported in the past in this field. While Japanese cultural commodities that

have been successful in the Europe since the end of the 19th century, such as ukiyoe

woodcut prints or Zen gardens, were finally – if not immediately, depending of the

countries and audiences – treated as part of high culture, and exhibited aesthetic based

on the values of equilibrium, refinement and spirituality, manga is a form of popular

culture founded chiefly – at least as far as the products that are most successful in

France are concerned – on various forms of excess, confrontation and sensual pleasure.

Author’s calculation based on Dunis and Krecinba (2004) for 1989-2004 and Animeland Hors-Série (12-2005).

During 2005, an average of 7 new mangaka have been introduced every month to the French manga fans . For

the sole month of December, no less than 91 new volumes have been published by 16 publishers – including 9

new titles and 82 volumes of already running series. Source: Animeland 117 (December 2005), p. 99.

And yet, manga is becoming a global cultural product that appeals to a very wide

spectrum of audiences. This is an interesting paradox.

This raises the question of how this product found a mass market outside its

original sphere. At a time when cultural globalisation is on the increase in tandem with

economic globalisation, the significance of this question goes way beyond the framework

of “Japanese studies” and could be of interest for specialists of international phenomena

linked to the problematics of either “identities” or “soft power”

I chose an “economics-based” approach, starting with an analysis of the particular

niche that manga occupies in the international cultural market – what I call “pure

pleasure products” (I shall return to this concept later), then defining the conditions a

product must fulfil in order to succeed in this niche, and then determining whether

manga does so.

This approach seems to have two major drawbacks. The first one is that I focused

only upon those manga that succeeded most on the French market – especially the series

for the teenagers called shônen manga (for boys) and shôjo manga (for girls), which

have been the key for opening the country of la bande dessinée to Japanese exports and

still constitute the bulk of the sales, even though new genres – manga for adults,

historical fictions, manga dealing with social problems or politics, and the old gekiga –

are attracting a growing readership. But since my question is why manga succeeded, it is

only natural to limit my analysis to successful genres, even if this does not do justice to

the fascinating diversity of the universe of manga.

The second drawback is that the way I ask the question might well dictate the reply.

Having defined the criteria of commercial success for a “pure pleasure product” and

established that manga is successful, it is well too tempting for the researcher to

conclude ipso facto that manga does fulfil these criteria – and to “prove” it by grossly

oversimplifying the universe of manga to retain only those elements that bear out his

conclusion. But here again, the question is not that of manga per se, but of its

consumption. Now all consumption is by nature a process of selection and processing –

one could even say “digestion”. French readers, like any others, take only what they

need from the manga universe and appropriate it as they please. Their approach is

essentially reductive, and it is this reduction that interests us. Duplicating this reduction

is the only means of answering the question, which is not “what is manga?” but “how did

manga become a global cultural product?”.

In order to answer this question, initially, I have treated manga like any other

manufactured product by analysing its advantages compared with its two international

competitors – American comics and French and Belgian bandes dessinées. Secondly, I

have taken into account the specificities of cultural products. They are commodities used

by consumers to fulfil an extremely varied “need for pleasure”, and invested with

numerous significances which determine their value beyond any economic

considerations

. It is as if the manufacturer has produced only “an empty form” that can

be used in many different ways, which make its value range from “almost nothing” to

“billions of dollars”. This leads us to ask why manga above other products has this

capacity to be imbued with meaning by today’s French consumers of comics strips. Lastly,

I turn my attention to the soft power that Japan can derive from the global spread of

manga. I sought to investigate what resources manga can provide Japan in terms of

This is why my research centre (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, belonging to the Fondation

Nationale des Sciences Politiques) is presently funding my work on manga – quite a big first in the French

academic world of both political science and international relations.

For example, in 1998, it was the audience that turned I will survive, the pop song by Gloria Gaylor, into the

unofficial anthem of the Football World Cup, by investing it with the fighting spirit embodied by the French

team, and which made it a multi-million earning hit.

potential influence on French public opinion. As a researcher in an institute devoted

chiefly to international relations and political science, I could not ignore this question.

The second and third parts of this paper are based on the analysis, as yet

incomplete, of a survey I am conducting among French manga readers. This survey has

been conducted through Internet. As of December 2005, it has generated 123 answers –

64 from male readers and 59 from female fans, ranging from ages 14 to 31. 61,7% of

the respondents are university students, 27,6% are people in work and 10,5% are high

school students or below. Due to the exclusive use of Internet, the survey has a very

strong bias towards the more intellectually and materially well-equipped fraction of

manga’s readers, but it nevertheless encompasses a large variety of social conditions.

This is still a work in progress, but it is already apparent that the new answers which

continue to come do not modify substantially the results.

This survey produced a clear view of the most successful series among the French

students and people in work manga fans in 2005

. The most interesting result is probably

the fact that the fans mix up all the genres. The three superstars – equally popular

among and young men and women – are Nana (a shôjo manga by Yazawa Aï), 20

Century Boys (a seinen manga by Urasawa Naoki) and Great Teacher Onizuka (a shônen

manga by Fujisawa Toru) in that order – preceding a mixed bunch of shônen manga for

teenagers (One Piece by Oda Eiichirô, Dragon Ball by Toriyama Akira, and Naruto by

Kishimoto Masashi) and for more grown-up audience (City Hunter by Hojo Tsukasa),

shôjo manga (Fruits Basket by Takaya Natsuki), and seinen manga (Monster, by Urasawa

Naoki City Hunter (Hojo Tsukasa), plus a lonely piece of cyberpunk science fiction

(Gunnm by Kishiro Yukito)

. Thus it seems that the genre – and even age – categories

are not very significant for the purpose of analyzing “how manga has succeeded in

France”. As a consequence, I feel entitled here to analyze “manga” as

a whole.

Another important point to note is that all the series among this Top Ten are from

the 90’s (Dragon Ball and City Hunter started in Japan in 1985 and 1986 but lasted well

into the 90’s), and so are most of those which appear in the more detailed results in

Annex I. As a consequence, it remains to be seen if my analysis could apply to the

gigantic production of the first generation of mangaka

I - MANGA AS A MANUFACTURED PRODUCT

1) Cultural products as the new pillar of developed economies

As globalisation leads to the delocalisation of material commodities production,

goods that are “chiefly non-material”, like services of all kinds, R&D, design and cultural

products, are becoming a pillar of the most advanced economies. It is no coincidence

that the world’s two most highly developed countries – the USA and Japan – are also

today’s biggest exporters of cultural commodities. This has been true of the USA for a

long time, but it is new for Japan, and all the more surprising as its culture was

traditionally seen, including by the Japanese themselves, as being very specific, contrary

to western cultures which claimed to have a universal quality and were therefore

naturally exportable. Nor is it a coincidence if the easing of trade restrictions on cultural

Since my poll was intended for students and above, although some teenagers have also responded, these are too

few to get significant results.

For more detailed results, see Annex I.

As more and more works from Tezuka Osamu, Shirato Sampei, Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Chiba Tatsuya and the like

are being published – or will be published soon – in France, this would be possible in a not too-distant future.

commodities has led to a clash between the champions of the “global market” and the

defenders of the “cultural exception”. As for any product, the conflict is about commercial

principles, with the major exporters (USA, Japan) pitted against those anxious to protect

a waning cultural production capacity (France) or a developing one (Korea).

From an economic point of view, cultural products offer numerous advantages

compared with industrial products. They are often inexpensive to develop and

manufacture. They can be produced in a variety of formats thanks to the media mix

which reinforces their impact and increases profits. On the one hand, they are consumed

almost immediately, which leads to a frenzied demand for more; but on the other, they

can be exploited for decades, like the Beatles’ catalogue. The dissemination of cultural

commodities takes numerous forms, which are becoming less and less concrete, thus

allowing new producers to bypass existing controlled distribution channels. Lastly,

although manufacturing techniques are simple and it is very easy to copy the finished

product, the know-how required to develop them is very hard to emulate.

From a broader perspective, cultural commodities also enable the countries that

dominate the market to propagate their value system. And so they are endowed with a

“soft power” which can be used to promote these countries’ national interests in various

areas, as shown by Joseph Nye (1990, 2004). Cultural products are not by any means

the only vehicles of soft power, but they make a huge contribution. We could well ask

whether there is a connection between the rapid expansion of Japanese popular culture

worldwide in recent years and the dwindling influence of the dominant US culture as a

reaction to the Bush administration’s ruthless policy of hegemony.

2) The comparative advantages of manga in the global comics market.

Manga has driven the success of Japanese cultural commodity exports. True,

television series preceded manga in the European market, and it does not enjoy the

same recognition as the animated films of Miyazaki Hayao, for example, and probably

generates smaller profits than video games. But it is manga that provided the television

series and the animation and video games industries with their imaginary universes,

value systems, often their plot lines and even the graphic designers’ labour. And so it is

fair to say that the Japanese cultural export industry basically relies on manga.

The first key advantage of manga compared with its main competitors in the global

marketplace, French bandes dessinées and American comics, is being a mass industrial

product, manufactured on far more massive scale. In 2002, the manga industry produced

some 1.5 billion copies – magazines and books combined (SKK 2003)

– as against 40

million French bandes dessinées (Caractère 2004, Internet) and 110 million American

comics

. As a result, manga is much cheaper: the French consumer can buy up to 300

pages of manga for 6 to 9 euro, whereas a 46-page comic album can cost over 12 euro.

Furthermore, the volume of production gives manga more commercial muscle than its

competitors. Many Japanese series exported to France are long enough to supply the

market for several years at a rate of one volume every two months, whereas the most

successful French and Belgian bande dessinée series like Asterix and Tintin would provide

the Japanese market with barely two compilation volumes (in the standard tankobon

format of about 300 pages) in total : even if they sold well, it would be a one-off success.

In their national mass market, the Japanese manga producers have developed a

marketing strategy which relies on products tailored to each category of customer down

to the most specialist niche market. In France, the narrowness of the market has made

the producers adopt the opposite strategy. The only way they can sell millions of albums

Estimation from Schodt (1996), p.50.

is to produce series that will appeal to all their customers, children and adults, at the

same time. The slogan of the weekly Tintin comics magazine, “Pour les jeunes de 7 à 77

ans” (For the young at heart from 7 to 77), perfectly encapsulates this strategy. Most of

the bestselling bandes dessinées are “one size fits all” series, neither truly for children

nor adults – like Asterix or Lucky Luke; furthermore, they are confined to a single genre

– offbeat humour – for the plot lines cannot be “adult” (drama, love, sex, social issues)

at the risk of losing the children’s market, and only humour will appeal to adults in

stories with plot lines aimed at children. This rather narrow genre alone is not enough to

create a mass market.

The Japanese cultural commodities industry is also unrivalled in the way its various

branches interact to develop media mixes the likes of which do not exist in France. As

well as boosting profits, these media mixes open up distribution channels that make it

possible to circumvent national protectionist policies. In France, the penetration of

manga is entirely thanks to the TV series, or, among today’s generation, to computer-

and-cards games (Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh): 95% of my respondents discovered manga in

this way. Manga came up against the hostility of parents, teachers, the media, the

government

and the major bandes dessinées publishers, who boycotted them. The TV

series, OAV and DVD of animation films were a way to overcome this hostility by creating

a demand directly among young people

and this demand was exploited by new young

publishers who were themselves fans of the TV series and Japanese animation films. The

media mix of TV series, animated films and computer games created both the demand

for manga and the entrepreneurs who fulfilled it.

To help create the market – or because they were not very interested by exports at

the beginning, or both –, the Japanese publishers then sold manga publication rights at

cut-price rates; now, once the market has been consolidated, they can sell the rights at a

much higher price. Separated by a quarter of a century, there is a striking similarity

between the manga industry’s success story and that of the other major Japanese export

industries, such as the automobile. The strategy is the same. First stage: consolidate in a

captive national market, shielded from competition, and develop comparative advantages

in terms of productivity and costs. Second stage: forge ahead in the export market by

practising dumping and bypassing protectionism using innovative methods – while the

automotive industry delocalised its production to the heart of “enemy territory”, manga

has surreptitiously circumvented its defences by using new distribution networks.

If one adds that the manga industry has many other points in common with the

major Japanese export industries – for example the dual structure (major publishing

houses which organise the production of numerous small or family studios) and a highly

trained labour force (amateur mangaka who learn the trade in clubs and dojinshi)

, then

the success of manga outside Japan can therefore be analysed mutatis mutandis like that

of any other industrial product. But strategy alone would not have been sufficient if

manga had not also been a product of superior quality in this very specific field of cultural

commodities – or rather what I call “pure pleasure products”.

II - MANGA AS A “PURE PLEASURE PRODUCT”

1) What is a “pure pleasure product”?

As exemplified by the Kriegel Commission (2002), appointed by the French government to examine the

problem of violence and pornography on television, which denounced the (mostly Japanese) series for teenagers

shown on French television.

This is how the things went, rather than a deliberate strategy by Japanese publishers, which did not seem to

have been fully aware of the potential of manga as an export product before the mids-90’s.

Mangaka : manga artists. Dojinshi: the extremely developed world of amateur manga.

A “cultural” product is defined not so much by its material nature (book, film, CD,

work of art) as by the fact that necessity is not the prime consideration in the act of

purchasing it, unlike commodities that fulfil basic material needs such as food products or

textiles. However, this boundary is hazy: the purchase of some so-called “cultural”

products can have a practical purpose (“How to…” books, which the buyer hopes will help

to improve his or her life), while the fulfilment of material needs can be devoid of any

“necessity” (dinner in a three-star restaurant, a haute-couture garment). But for

products like a novel, a music CD or a manga album, the act of buying seems to be

driven by a quest for pleasure as an end in itself. That is why, in the following part of this

analysis, I shall abandon the hazy notion of “cultural product” in favour of that of “pure

pleasure product”

, the very antithesis of the “basic needs product” on which I have

modelled my definition.

To understand what makes manga so successful in this commercial niche, beyond

the comparative advantages resulting from its mode of production, we must first of all

explain what the consumer is looking for – in other words, what is “pleasure” when it is

not derived from the fulfilment of a material need.

In each person’s subconscious, the alchemy of “pure pleasure” has three

components. First there are the constants shaped by primitive impulses (the desire for

power, the search for security, sexual desire), and by the scenario common to the

development of all human beings living in society (the primal trauma of separation from

the mother, the painful discovery of the principle of reality, the turmoil associated with

adolescence, etc.). Second is the forms these constants take depending on each person’s

own history, and thirdly is the particular culture combined with factors such as education,

age or social category. The combination of these three components determines the

objects which give each individual pleasure in possessing them, as well as the situations

or scenarios that are pleasurable when he or she experiences them directly or vicariously,

via one form or other of the media.

And so a “pure pleasure product” will attract a customer base that is all the broader

in that it will be both “full” of constants common to the human species and “empty”

enough to let each person invest it with their own story and with the cultural specificities

associated with place and time. In this sense, teddy bears, dolls and the warrior or fairy

costume appear as prime examples of “pure pleasure products”. They are simple aids

that allow each child to make up their own story mixing various quantities of the three

ingredients as required. It is this infinite plasticity that explains why they never go out of

fashion.

But what is the function of this story for which the “pleasure product” acts as an aid

– or, to use an alchemy image: “What is the function of this reaction for which it is the

catalyst”? It aims to satisfy six fundamental psychological needs: the wish for power,

which makes pleasurable to control through possessing or learning things; the need for

achievement (to experience gratifying situations, even if vicariously); the need for

security (to re-live familiar situations which made us feel good); the need for excitement,

which prompts us to seek violent adrenalin-pumping emotions or feelings of different

kinds; the need for escape (remove ourselves from the mundane which is little gratifying

or stressful); and lastly the wish to be different from other people. A pleasure will be all

the more intense if it satisfies all six needs at the same time. This happens when a

person experiences a situation in which they feel powerful, which they recognise, which

arouses intense feelings, uproots them from their everyday life and turns them into an

“Pure” is to be understood in the sense of “having no relation to any basic material need, including that of

improving one’s situation”.

entirely different person. In this sense, the ideal pleasure is unquestionably that

experienced by serial killers and, to a lesser degree, junkies…

This last comment highlights the fact that the satisfaction of the six needs is hardly

compatible with day-to-day social life. It assumes means of escape from reality, be it for

the most mundane vicarious satisfactions (reading, films, video games) or the radical

marginalisation of the serial killer, by way of physical escape (holidays) or joining virtual

communities (Internet). Escape is therefore not only one of the six needs, but also, more

broadly, a “technical requirement” essential for their fulfilment.

2) Manga: a “pure pleasure product” of superior quality

Manga – at least the kind of manga (mostly shôjo manga and shônen manga of the

Shônen Jump and Margaret type, but nevertheless transcending the age and genre

categories and produced in the 90’s) which opened up the French market – appears to be

a better “pure pleasure product” than American comics and bandes dessinées. It draws

more powerfully on the great constants of the subconscious, is a better receptacle for

personal stories and cultural variables and responds more fully to the six fundamental

psychological needs.

2-1) Manga and the alchemy of pleasure

Anybody who has flicked through shônen or shôjo manga knows that their plot lines feed

on the traumas, fears and primitive desires of adolescents the world over: the pain of

separation from the mother, conflict with the father and rebellion against authority,

issues around virginity, the fear of rape in girls and that of castration in boys,

uncertainties over sexuality and the teenage personality, and even violent death. A

classic example is Great Teacher Onizuka, the shônen manga by Fujisawa Tôru which is

the second favourite series among manga fans of both sexes in my survey: all the girls

are raped or threatened with rape, nearly all the teenage protagonists have to face the

prospect of an immediate violent death, and the hero himself is killed at one point (he

resuscitates). The families are all at loggerheads or lone parent and, as in all manga, the

characters are all obsessed with the loss or preservation of virginity.

In the USA on the other hand, these subjects have been censured by the “politically

correct” or banned by the Comics Code; French bandes dessinées have been shying away

from them, both because of the genre’s pretensions to being an art form and its “one

size fits all” strategy. Manga plots therefore have a dramatic intensity and a crudeness

that European and American consumers are not accustomed to.

This intensity also results from manga’s mode of production, in particular its

publication in serial form which requires new plot developments every 25 or 30 pages,

and the length of the series, which allows the author to flesh out the characters. It is also

linked to market conditions, characterised by fierce competition: the formula for a

successful series is immediately copied, and the mangaka are constantly forced to raise

the ante in a way similar to the competition in the fast food market. Since all hamburgers

and all chips are similar, only quantity is left as the variable to oust the competition (the

“Supersize” strategy); similarly, many mangaka keep adding more drama, more sex or

more violence in order to overcome competition.

If the intensity of manga plot lines is one reason for its popularity among French

consumers

weary of a certain blandness in bandes dessinées, the often cruel mise en

scène of the subconscious can be disturbing or shocking. But the skill of manga is to let

the readers do as they please by appropriating the work to suit their own personal

In my study, it is the second most frequently cited reason by fans to explain their love of manga (70%)

history and culture. To assist this appropriation, the mangaka – especially those who

have been the most successful in the French market up to now – use processes that are

generally alien to bandes dessinées and comics.

The first consists of mixing opposing genres in the same series – comedy and

drama, the extraordinary and the mundane, violence and romance, realism and the

absurd – and this blend allows the readers to impart the tone that suits them. Here again,

Great Teacher Onizuka is a classic example, where the constant evocation of violence,

especially sexual, and death, does not prevent the series from being entertainingly funny

– and it is no coincidence that it ranks second favourite among the French fans

interviewed. The second process consists of setting extraordinary actions in the most

familiar surroundings (school, the neighbourhood) or of endowing characters similar to

the reader (schoolchildren, high-school students) with super-powers. The third is to

present the reader with a very broad range of characters to identify with: the major

series offer so many archetypal characters (the hero, the cunning character, the show-off,

the big tough guy, the short fat guy with glasses), that everyone can find one to identify

with

. French, Belgian and American writers are familiar with this formula, but their

short, less dramatic story lines offer much less scope for identification. Furthermore,

unlike bandes dessinées, manga allows the reader to identify even with the baddies,

because there is no clear boundary between Good and Evil, and heroes often overstep

the line: classic cases are the character of Tetsuo in Akira and that of Vegeta in

DragonBall, the two series that have been the most effective in opening up the French

market to manga. And – as the icing on the cake – the manga readers are often allowed

to write their own story, especially since Ôtomo Katsuhiro (Akira, once again…) made

fashionable the tendency to leave the ending open.

Manga thus incorporates the three components of the alchemy of pleasure. On the

one hand, the great constants of the subconscious give the plots their characteristic

intensity. On the other, the reader’s own history, personality and culture, are given free

rein to determine the tone of the story, choose the hero and even end it. Manga thus

achieves the feat of being both very “full” (too full even for readers of bandes dessinées,

who often lose the plot) and very “empty”. It is literally crammed with materials from our

collective subconscious, characters and action. But, insofar as it does not impose a tone,

a hero or an univocal meaning on the reader, manga is empty, or at least infinitely

flexible. This plasticity explains why the genre has been able to break out of its original

cultural and historical sphere and why its French readership is socially and culturally very

diverse, as my study shows, ranging from provincial high-school student and the

unemployed from the run-down Paris suburbs to “bobos”

, the product of Frances top

universities who move in financial or European lobbying circles (there is even a tax

inspector!).

However, manga do seem to be imbued with one unequivocal meaning. They give

adolescents the most moral life lesson possible: for boys, it is “Friendship, effort, victory”

(the slogan of Shûkan Shônen Jump), and for girls, it is “Endurance, friendship,

marriage”. But this lesson is repeated so many times throughout the series and is so

familiar to the readers that it could be argued – subject to a more in-depth study on this

question – that they see it as a familiar convention or stylistic device that is all the easier

to accept as this moral message does not prevent the plot from teeming with extreme

situations and shocking images. So although manga is not exactly “devoid of meaning ”,

since it does embody one, this meaning is “empty”, so little does it intrude on the

(French) reader’s imagination.

The most typical series offering an extremely diversified range of characters to identify with are Dragon Ball,

Naruto, One Piece and Fruits Basket, but also 20

Century Boys for a more mature audience, all 5 of which are

in the Top 10 favourite series in my survey.

Bobo: short for bourgeois bohème.

2-2) Manga and the six fundamental psychological needs

It would be hard to find a cultural product that presents the desire for power and

the need for achievement as extensively as manga. “Fulfilling their dream” (yume o

kanaeru) is the ultimate goal that the hero attains at the cost of both a bitter internal

struggle and an endless series of confrontations with all kind of competitors or evil

characters – as in Dragon Ball, One Piece and Naruto. But while those who identify with

Sangoku, Luffy or Naruto obtain immediate satisfaction, our survey shows that

identification is not the most widespread mode of consumption among French manga

readers

. That is no problem: manga can fulfil the need for power and achievement in

other ways. Its inexpensive cost, the fat albums and lengthy series make it easier for

avid manga readers than for collectors of the slim bande dessinée albums to build up

spectacular collections. On top of this, there is the plethora of goodies and posters

. And

there is also the gratifying feeling of developing a knowledge of a country and a culture

very different from our own and – last but not least – the pleasures of the lightly – or not

so lightly – erotic “fan service”.

There is no need to emphasise the need for excitement. Many manga – especially

those best liked by French fans – give even to the most aloof or blasé reader a good shot

of adrenalin. The action-packed stories, exaggerated intensity of the feelings and

situations and erotic titillation have no equivalent in comics, which have been

emasculated by the politically correct, or in bandes dessinées, whose artistic pretensions

make them steer equally clear of Grand Guignol or gore outrageousness, unbridled

comedy like Friends and the mawkishness of TV soap operas – forgetting that all these

genres have a popular mass-market following.

Manga also satisfies our need for security. It is a dramatic, violent world, but there

are no surprises. The readers make their way through shônen and shôjo manga amid

signs, symbols and graphic codes that all the mangaka use to some extent and which

they know by heart. They find the same situations repeated over and over again, the

heroes suffer the same trials and tribulations, and there is always the same moral

message. Even the sustained rate at which the books come out fulfils the reader’s need

for security by guaranteeing them to get their “fix” every two or three months (whereas

bande dessinée fans never know when their favourite author will grace them with a new

album, which they might sometimes wait years for).

On top of this, there is the kinship of the fan community which bande dessinée

readers do not experience. Our study showed how structured this world is and how it

constitutes a true social space where people come together. Even though the replies

which attest to an extremely high use of the Internet

cannot be considered as a valid

indicator, given the means by which the questionnaires were distributed, and even

though the sample is made up of the most active section of the readership, it is

significant that more than one respondent out of five belongs to a circle of fans beyond

the online chat rooms, that 80% of them “regularly” or “sometimes” exchange their

mangas with other fans, and that nearly all of them say they know other fans and “talk

about manga with them”.

The fulfilment of the need to be different also seems to be a major manga pleasure

factor. The fan has a knowledge and an expertise that are unusual. While anybody can

buy a manga, not everyone is capable of understanding all the codes, finding their way

In our sample, it was only the third reason cited by fans explaining their enthusiasm for manga (40%), a long

way behind escape (70%) and the intensity of the characters and the plots (65%). But the result would probably

be different with a proportion of the younger and less sophisticated readership.

Nearly all fans in our survey buy them.

100% of the sample uses it for information and around 86% join in discussion forums.

through the host of characters, remembering the ins and outs of plots that run for 3,000

pages and knowing the work of the famous mangaka in detail. Fans’ tendency to surf the

web to read series in scanlation

before the vulgum pecus, despite the relative

discomfort of this method, is part of the same need to differentiate themselves through

their expertise, as is the surprising number of those who state they want to learn

Japanese

and have even embarked on lessons

The differentness that gives enthusiasts an edge is boosted by the fact that manga

is still far from being accepted in France. More than half the respondents state that they

have sometimes been the subject of curiosity, more than a third, sarcasm, and more

than a quarter, disapproval. Half of those in work fear that their love of manga carries a

social risk and prefer to conceal it from their colleagues. In the last few years, manga has

become more mainstream : Taniguchi Jirô won a prize in 2003 at the Angoulême festival

– which is for the comics what the Cannes festival is for the movies industry – and

manga is sometimes getting favourable reviews in such sophisticated mainstream media

as Télérama and Le Monde

. But this does not affect our respondents much, as the

mangaka honoured by the intellectual establishment –like Taniguchi – are not the ones

they prefer, far from it

Lastly, if escape provides the most appropriate means of satisfying the six above

needs, here too manga enjoys advantages compared with bandes dessinées or American

comics.

This is thanks to its exotic origins and its borrowing from a non-western history,

mythology and folklore, but equally to the mangaka’s skill in playing on time and place,

and having their heroes travel to all four corners of the earth and the galaxy, and to

every imaginable time recess. Out of the ten favourite titles cited by the students and

working adults answering my survey, only two – Nana, by Yazawa Ai, and Monster, by

Urasawa Naoki – have a realist contemporary setting; all the others transport the reader

to purely fictitious worlds, other eras or supernatural dimensions.

This is only a crude analytical framework which I have outlined to explain

as methodically as possible how manga has become a crucial component of the cultural

globalisation that goes hand in hand with economic globalisation. It still begs for a more

detailed comparison between manga and its competitors on each of these six points. But

anybody who is the least bit familiar with the universal world of comics will be able to

add their own examples to the framework.

III. MANGA AS A VEHICLE FOR SOFT POWER

Another purpose of my survey was to analyse the soft power influence that Japan is

likely to derive from the fad for manga in France. Surprisingly enough, what I have found

is not quite new and sometimes paradoxical – beginning with the fact that, while it might

be thought that all manga fans love Japan, this is only very partially true: taking all ages

and both sexes together, less than half of the respondents find Japan “sympathique”

Two thirds of the respondents do so. Scanlation: translate, scan and put a manga online.

Two thirds of the working adults and more than half the students and young people.

25% of the respondents (apart from those in work, who do not have the time)

Télérama is a weekly cultural magazine cherished by left-leaning intellectuals, especially teachers. Le Monde

is the most influential French daily among the establishment.

Out of 177 titles cited by the working adults in our survey, there are only 2 by Taniguchi, and only 1 out of

207 titles cited by the students – and each one has been cited only once.

Comics once had a comparative advantage over bandes dessinées with their Wild-West and anthropomorphic

characters, but these figures now belong to the common cultural domain.

(likeable), and only 40% of the students do

. This suggests that the use of manga as a

vehicle for soft power cannot be taken for granted, and that the image of Japan among

manga fans is complex.

1) An image that is not very original

First point to note: the traditional base on which the image of Japan in France has

rested since the 1970s (Bouissou, 1994) – the decade when Japan became visible once

more in the French media and in publishing, and when it shrugged off the bad image

inherited from World War II and from defeat for that of the model of economic success –

remains unchanged among manga readers. For them, the archipelago still seems to be a

“very different” country, “full of spirituality” and “hard-working”. Insofar as the most

popular series among manga fans are not – at least at first glance – those which best

convey the values of spirituality and the work ethic that come to mind when they think of

Japan, it is tempting to conclude that they have a pre-existing image of Japan in their

minds, on which manga only builds. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the

older the readers are, the more firmly rooted this traditional image is

, and the less they

feel that manga has changed it

And yet a major element of traditional imagery is missing: harmony and consensus.

The two items “inner peace” and “harmonious, consensual” achieve very low scores

. It

is tempting to explain this by the fact that shônen and shôjo manga plot lines are based

on the torments of adolescence and confrontation. And yet, even the most violent series

often end with the restoration of harmony for the community and inner peace for each

character

. It would appear that the readers, as we suggested earlier, pick and choose,

taking from manga what pleases them and ignoring what doesn’t suit them. Alongside

the image of a Japan that is “full of spirituality” and “hardworking”, French readers have

in their minds a second image which does not fit in with notions of harmony and “inner

peace”: that of a country “full of contradictions”

“stressed out”

and, in particular,

uneasy over its sexuality

There is nothing surprising in this. Insofar as the painful insecurities of adolescence

and young people’s experimentation with love and sex are the stock in trade of shônen

and shôjo manga, it would have been surprising if Japan seen through these media had

appeared to be comfortable with itself mentally and physically. But this bias does not

explain everything. Well before the French market opened up to manga, the notions of

contradictions and ruthlessness were already central to the negative image of Japan that

came to be superimposed (without obliterating it) on the positive image during the 1980s,

culminating in open Japanophobia which was only dispelled by Japan’s crisis (Bouissou

1994: 108-109). There too, it would seem that manga fans inherited an image forged

The item “likeable” only ranks 4th among the adjectives selected by the working adults to describe Japan, and

6th among the students.

The three items achieve an average score of 60% among working adults, of 57.6% among students and 53.6%

among the youngest interviewees.

37% of working adults derived only a “classic, with no surprises ” view of Japan from manga, as against only

25% of students and 6% of the youngest interviewees.

Between 2% and 7% according to ages.

Emblematic in this respect is – once again – GTO, the second most popular manga among students and

working adults of both sexes.

57% of working adults, 52% of students, 38% of the youngest interviewees.

43% of working adults, 42% of students.

40% of working adults, 37% of students (of whom 35% also consider it to be “repressed”).

over about a quarter of a century – which would explain why, as with the traditional

positive image, its resonance depends on age

The image of Japan in the eyes of manga readers thus appears to be rather

unoriginal. Overall it conforms with the mixture of Japanophilia/Japanophobia that

dominated the French media and public opinion since the end of the 1980s. And so

manga does not appear to have – or has not yet – brought in anything new (which

should disarm the critics who accuse it of sullying the image of Japan as well as the

minds of French youth).

2) Elements of a revival

All the same, it is not apposite to conclude that manga is not a powerful vehicle for

soft power. The survey shows that it does attract a new audience to Japan: only 15% of

the youngest respondents were interested in Japan or Asia in general before beginning to

read manga; the percentage is not even half of students (46%) and it is 57% of working

adults. Manga also gives the country a new image – or at least people think so: nearly

two thirds of the respondents consider that manga has “changed their view of Japan”.

Even if this “new image” is often no more than the updating of the old image buried in

the collective French subconscious and even if “new” does not always mean “positive”,

the very fact that manga fans think that they are discovering something new proves that

times are changing. Furthermore, manga fans’ interest in Japan is very keen: three

quarters of the respondents (and 92% of the younger ones) want to go and visit the

country; two third would like to learn the language; half would like to meet Japanese

people and “find out more about Japan”, and 15% would even like to find a job

connected to Japan. On top of this, these newcomers display a strong missionary zeal

which will amplify the impact of manga as a medium, and more than three quarters of

them state that they will continue to read manga at age 50, thus providing for a long-

lasting influence.

Consequently, manga appears as an effective medium for drawing attention to and

conveying messages about Japan to a new audience. Noticeable is the fact that a section

at least of this new audience – the one that replied to our Internet survey – is socially

and culturally well equipped, in sharp contrast with the still-too-common image of manga

fan as a semi-illiterate youngster from suburban ghettos. If one adds that the bulk of the

manga audience has not been taken into account by the survey because of the Internet

bias, and that this neglected fraction is the youngest and the more popular one, the real

impact of this medium is certainly more powerful and more diversified than measured by

the survey. The survey suggests that manga’s soft power potential is strongest among

the younger respondents, because they are less knowledgeable about Japan. Less

influenced by pre-existing representations, through manga they have built up an image

of Japan that is much more favourable than that of their elders: they find it less shocking,

more likeable, less stressed, less repressed and less prey to contradictions. Unfortunately,

given the nature of the sample, this result only has a very low indicative value and needs

to be confirmed by a new study aimed at secondary school pupils, which I am currently

developing.

REFERENCES

The three items score an average of 46.6% of working adults, 43.6% of students but only 20.3% of the

youngest interviewees.

Around 80% of the respondents have already lent their mangas to one or several people with the intention of

converting others.

Animeland Hors Série (12.2005) : Manga. L’Année 2005, pp. 137-187

BOUISSOU, Jean-Marie (1994) : La représentation du Japon et son iconographie à travers

les hebdomadaires français (1979-1993). In: Mots 41 (December 1994), special issue

“Parler du Japan”, pp.99-115.

CARACTERE (2004) : http://caractere.net

DUNIS Fabrice, KRECINBA Florence (2004) : Guide du manga. France: Des origines à

2004. Strasbourg : Editions du Camphrier.

NYE, Joseph S. (1990): Soft Power. In: Foreign Policy 80 (Autumn), pp. 153-171

NYE, Joseph S. (2004): Soft power : the means to success in world politics. New York:

Public Affairs.

SCHODT, Frederik L. (1996): Dreamland Japan. Writings on Modern Manga. Berkeley

(Cal.): Stone Bridge Press.

SKK - Shuppan Kagaku Kenkyûjô (Publishing Research Institute), www.ajpea.or.jp.

Quoted in Stumpf, Sophie (2003) : Le potentiel de la bande dessinée française au Japon,

unpublished marketing study.

ANNEX I.

THE MOST LIKED SERIES AMONG STUDENTS AND PEOPLE IN WORK

FRENCH MANGA FANS

The fifteen most popular series among student boys

(in that order)

20th Century Boys (Urasawa Naoki), GTO (Fujisawa Toru), One Piece (Oda Eiichirô),

Dragon Ball (Toriyama Akira), Monster (Urasawa Naoki), Gunnm (Kishiro Yukito), Akira

(Otomo Katsuhiro), Hunter x Hunter (Togashi Yoshihiro), Planètes (Yukimura Makoto), City

Hunter (Hojo Tsukasa), Nana (Yazawa Ai), Evangelion (Sadamoto Yoshizuki) Berserk

(Miura Kentarô), Slam Dunk (Inoue Takahiko), Naruto (Kishimoto Masashi)

The fifteen most popular series among the men in work

(in that order)

Dragon Ball, GTO, 20the Century Boys, One Piece, Monster, Nana, City Hunter, Hunter x

Hunter, Bleach (Kubo Taito), Berserk, Basara (Tamura Yumi), Hokuto no Ken (Hara Tetsuo),

Sanctuary (Ikegami Ryoichi), Gunnm, Banana Fish (Yoshida Akimi)

The ten most popular series among the student girls

(in that order)

Nana, Fruits Basket (Takaya Natsuki), X (CLAMP), Détective Conan (Meitantei Conan,

Aoyama Gosho), City Hunter, 20

Century Boys, Naruto, Hikaru no go (Obata Takeshi),

Angel Sanctuary (Yuki Kaori), Ayashi no Ceres (Watase Yû), One Piece, Hanakimi (Nakajo

Hisaya), Dragon Ball, GTO, Monster, Fushigi Yûgi ( Watase Yû)

The fifteen most popular series among the women in work

(in that order)

Century Boys, Nana, Gunnm, Fruits Basket, Say Hello to Black Jack (Satô Shûhô),

Fushigi Yûgi, Saint Seya (Kuramada Masami), GTO, Hanayori dango (Kamio Yoko),

Monster, Naruto, RG Veda (Clamp), Ayashi no Ceres, Evangelion, Bleach

(Survey BOUISSOU – 2005)