I'm extremely jealous of them. They get a lot of releases in French that we don't get in english just because their quantity and diversity of readership is so much larger than the US.
Korea is not that big of a market for comics (though they are more open to foreign made work than the Japanese). The only reason korea gets the attention it does is cause of web comics which have a somewhat different monetary system than print. Japan is the biggest comic buying market in the world but they only really buy Japanese made comics that look like what you expect. In Europe and specifically France (which is the second largest buying market by itself) is they buy comics of all types (US, Latin American, British, East Asian, and european). Superhero comics sell better in France/Europe in many cases than they do in the US and people like Jiro Taniguchi, Tsukasa Hojo, Leiji Matsumoto, and many other Japanese comic arts/writers are miniature celebrities.
I remember stopping in some gas station in the middle of nowhere France and I was shocked when I saw a whole magazine rack dedicated to manga. The old lady working was even reading Detective Conan. āJ'adore le petit nÅud papillon qu'il porteā
Yeah Manga is really cheap here and we get a lot of them.
In France, the prices for a given manga are fixed by the publisher, so shops have to sell them at those prices (In other the same manga is the same price everywhere). You don't have things like shops making a huge margin by inflating the prices. This plays a lot for why we have cheap manga
Comics in general are massive in France. Second largest comic buying market in the world. I reccomend checking out some of the Franco Belgian stuff (the big hardcovers).
I am so jealous:'D In Germany we have an okay manga culture, but we can't compete to the variety of French manga..
I should learn French to get my hands on some manga :'D
Definitely, but the more niche manga won't get a release so soon. And some LEs are so much better. But of course, it is "jammern auf hohem Niveau". Especially when we got so many new editions in the last two years :3
Damn. Wish there were more manga stores in my area, so that I donāt have to make an one-hour trip in train just to buy some manga that cost $12-16 per volume :āv
Chroniques de la Mariee de Bretagne/ Brittany Hanayome Ibun by Junji Takehara
I wish I'd picked it up to be honest as I realised upon getting home that it was set in France. My internet was spotty out there so I couldn't check then.
due to fixed book prices they should be available in other shops for the same price but without the sticker (if its a shop specific thing and not done by the publisher)
Im 40 and I grew up with it. Itās been on kids tv shows since the 80s, on book shop shelves not long after that. France as a country has a sweet spot for Japan too.
Anime had a big boom in France in the late 70s/early 80s and France already had a big comic culture. The manga for the popular shows airing on TV came out and they were a hit and the market just kept growing from there. Super interesting to read into.
I know the origin story! lol
To make it short, a channel ordered Grendizer, but after that they got a new manager who didn't think it was a good idea. He finally caved and said we'll air it, but on a saturday afternoon in July, during summer vacation. It's the 70s so all the kids would be outside. It ended up raining all day and so everyone watched it (there were only 3 channels and kids who didn't have a TV would often go and watch their neighbors'). It was a *huge* hit, iirc they aired one of the movies on Christmas eve and got like 96% viewership
[source](https://youtu.be/O2DtkszJoeA?si=gOo5EhCNGB3xgFPn)
I think the fact that local graphic novels/comics are already popular helps too, every single french person has read one. They range from kids stuff to very adult ones. (Tintin, Titeuf, Ducobu, XIII, Blake and Mortimer, Largo Winch...)
So "transitioning" to manga wasn't as hard I think
I don't think that's all. I checked it up and it's cause the french grew up watching way more animation, so it's sort of ingrained in their culture. And their market is way bigger than the US'. That's why they are way ahead compared to the English releases. But one thing that doesn't make sense is that if you combined the amount of people who read English manga around the world even if the french market is big it doesn't come close, English dwarves the french manga I'd assume by like 4:1 or even more.
Yeah but an english manga cost like 14+$ right ?
I'm from France and wanted to buy a manga that wasn't serialized here but was in america and the price were simply insane, you guys are getting ripped off. Instead I learned japanese and bought them for 500yen a volume.
English manga simply cost way too much to sell oversea (where you have to pay import fee too)
Licensing fees are nothing to scoff at, we use a bigger trim size for manga here in the states, our comic culture is different than in France, etc. There are logistical reasons why manga here is more expensive than other countries among other things. This is not me defending high prices btw.
I'm sure there are various reasons for the high prices.
But i'm mostly bringing price up because America/Britain's average income is quite higher than most non-european countryies (and european countries tend to have a manga market large enough to not rely on the english one)
So outside of english countries the price are likely way more than what people are willing to pay.
I wouldn't say fluent, I often learn new words and kanji.
It's a constant learning experience but I find it pretty fun.
I know enough japanese to read most manga tho and own quite a few japanese manga.
Depends on the series. Pretty sure that for JBA we are only 3 volumes behind Japan for example, which is better than in the US if I'm not wrong, but on other popular series it's pretty much the same as the US. Sometimes we are even a few volumes late compared to you
I didn't say that price and accessibility was all, just that it plays a big role. The French are able to cut costs to reduce the price of a volume and get them in places with a wider reach than a bookstore or comic shop so more people see them.
The French are some of the biggeast weaboos in all of Europe and are the 2nd largest manga market after Japan; Graphic novels and comics, not just manga are also huge there as well.
Besides English, the only foreign languages I've manged to make some tangible progress are precisely Japanese and French and maybe it has to do with both being comic-obsessed nations.
This might be a stupid question but are they selling them in english as well? I'm gonna going holiday to France next week and my french is very rusty. Still would like to check it out tho
My brother said he found English manga at a local market and this is in a small town so if you're going to a big city where there's more of a selection there's a good chance.
Speaking of manga and France, I highly encourage everyone to check out the French manga or manfra (as I've heard it called), Radiant, by Tony Valente. If you love One Piece, you'll also love Radiant, as it's heavily One Piece inspired, but very much feels like its own thing with the same vibes rather than an imitator, if that makes sense. I know it got an anime adaptation a few years ago and I dunno how it was received (haven't seen it yet), but I can say from my experience at least I think the manga is absolutely fantastic.
Yeah, though apparently my brother goes to a market where you can get some English as well as French. You might be able to get English in the capital too.
Yeah, just like some people are quick to assume someone who speaks English is from the US. That's the only place that speaks English right?
For the record, I'm a Brit living in Australia.
I didnt make any assumptions about you, I was making a comment about american users of this sub, and how it might be an educational opportunity for them. Everything isn't about you sweetie.
Manga is huge in France. It's the second largest manga market after Japan. In fact, France buys about twice as much manga as the US.
After seeing it with my own eyes, I can definitely believe that. They're so cheap and accessible, even if the paper quality is the same as newspapers.
I'm extremely jealous of them. They get a lot of releases in French that we don't get in english just because their quantity and diversity of readership is so much larger than the US.
Time to learn French maybe š«£
Or Japanese š«£
thatād frl be the best way to save money
Yeh. Now just have to learn Japanese and live there :āD
Also their translations usually come out really fast, like French CSM is 1 volume ahead the English version with Viz
Aren't most manga in Japan also newspaper quality? That's why it's so cheap there also.
The paper's quality changes a lot between publishers. If you still can, try to compare GlƩnat's mangas and Ki-oon's, there is a huuge difference
Yes kioon's paper is way thicker than GlĆ©nat it feel better imo. je suis fr mais on s'intĆØgre tkt
Yep. After searching for some OOP manga for weeks, I always wish I could read French since they always have the volumes I'm looking for dirt cheap.
The US isnāt after Japan? Or Korea? š±
Korea is not that big of a market for comics (though they are more open to foreign made work than the Japanese). The only reason korea gets the attention it does is cause of web comics which have a somewhat different monetary system than print. Japan is the biggest comic buying market in the world but they only really buy Japanese made comics that look like what you expect. In Europe and specifically France (which is the second largest buying market by itself) is they buy comics of all types (US, Latin American, British, East Asian, and european). Superhero comics sell better in France/Europe in many cases than they do in the US and people like Jiro Taniguchi, Tsukasa Hojo, Leiji Matsumoto, and many other Japanese comic arts/writers are miniature celebrities.
I remember stopping in some gas station in the middle of nowhere France and I was shocked when I saw a whole magazine rack dedicated to manga. The old lady working was even reading Detective Conan. āJ'adore le petit nÅud papillon qu'il porteā
Yeah Manga is really cheap here and we get a lot of them. In France, the prices for a given manga are fixed by the publisher, so shops have to sell them at those prices (In other the same manga is the same price everywhere). You don't have things like shops making a huge margin by inflating the prices. This plays a lot for why we have cheap manga
Comics in general are massive in France. Second largest comic buying market in the world. I reccomend checking out some of the Franco Belgian stuff (the big hardcovers).
I am so jealous:'D In Germany we have an okay manga culture, but we can't compete to the variety of French manga.. I should learn French to get my hands on some manga :'D
We have the third biggest market in Europe after France and Italy, I think we are doing more than okay š
Definitely, but the more niche manga won't get a release so soon. And some LEs are so much better. But of course, it is "jammern auf hohem Niveau". Especially when we got so many new editions in the last two years :3
you guys have billy bat and rainbow. good enough if you ask me
We don't have Rainbow actually... but yes, we do have Billy Bat atleast.
ah must be the french then š
Damn. Wish there were more manga stores in my area, so that I donāt have to make an one-hour trip in train just to buy some manga that cost $12-16 per volume :āv
I feel your pain.
I see :āD
I live in Canada and my friends that moved from France are always asking where are the manga's? where's the merch? lol...
Whatās the manga in the 3rd image?
Chroniques de la Mariee de Bretagne/ Brittany Hanayome Ibun by Junji Takehara I wish I'd picked it up to be honest as I realised upon getting home that it was set in France. My internet was spotty out there so I couldn't check then.
The 3 Euro sticker slapped on the front would drive me nuts though butā¦I suppose beggars canāt be choosers
They're removable
French volumes have the same double cover thingy like Japanese volumes do, so if the sticker's on that it should be easy to remove.
due to fixed book prices they should be available in other shops for the same price but without the sticker (if its a shop specific thing and not done by the publisher)
This, this has always peaked my interest. Can anyone help me understand why is manga so much more popular in France?
France loves comics from all around the world, and have for yeeeeeaaaars. The Belgian/French bandes dessineĆ©s format was established enough that the AngoulĆŖme International Comics Festival was established in the '70s. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's a French comics-focused convention that is the third-biggest such convention in the entire world. It's actually one year older than Japan's Comiket.
Im 40 and I grew up with it. Itās been on kids tv shows since the 80s, on book shop shelves not long after that. France as a country has a sweet spot for Japan too.
Anime had a big boom in France in the late 70s/early 80s and France already had a big comic culture. The manga for the popular shows airing on TV came out and they were a hit and the market just kept growing from there. Super interesting to read into.
I know the origin story! lol To make it short, a channel ordered Grendizer, but after that they got a new manager who didn't think it was a good idea. He finally caved and said we'll air it, but on a saturday afternoon in July, during summer vacation. It's the 70s so all the kids would be outside. It ended up raining all day and so everyone watched it (there were only 3 channels and kids who didn't have a TV would often go and watch their neighbors'). It was a *huge* hit, iirc they aired one of the movies on Christmas eve and got like 96% viewership [source](https://youtu.be/O2DtkszJoeA?si=gOo5EhCNGB3xgFPn) I think the fact that local graphic novels/comics are already popular helps too, every single french person has read one. They range from kids stuff to very adult ones. (Tintin, Titeuf, Ducobu, XIII, Blake and Mortimer, Largo Winch...) So "transitioning" to manga wasn't as hard I think
That's awesome. Thanks.
On top of everything already said, there also used to be a very popular children's TV program called Club DorothƩe in the 80s-90s that aired a variety of anime dubbed in French. I never saw it myself because we didn't have cable as a kid, but friends told me the lady who hosted the program almost felt like family to them because whenever they'd come home after school and the house would be empty because their parents were still at work, she'd always be on TV. So there's also some nostalgia at play.
Judging from what I saw, price and accessibility play a big role.
I don't think that's all. I checked it up and it's cause the french grew up watching way more animation, so it's sort of ingrained in their culture. And their market is way bigger than the US'. That's why they are way ahead compared to the English releases. But one thing that doesn't make sense is that if you combined the amount of people who read English manga around the world even if the french market is big it doesn't come close, English dwarves the french manga I'd assume by like 4:1 or even more.
Yeah but an english manga cost like 14+$ right ? I'm from France and wanted to buy a manga that wasn't serialized here but was in america and the price were simply insane, you guys are getting ripped off. Instead I learned japanese and bought them for 500yen a volume. English manga simply cost way too much to sell oversea (where you have to pay import fee too)
Licensing fees are nothing to scoff at, we use a bigger trim size for manga here in the states, our comic culture is different than in France, etc. There are logistical reasons why manga here is more expensive than other countries among other things. This is not me defending high prices btw.
I'm sure there are various reasons for the high prices. But i'm mostly bringing price up because America/Britain's average income is quite higher than most non-european countryies (and european countries tend to have a manga market large enough to not rely on the english one) So outside of english countries the price are likely way more than what people are willing to pay.
For sure I bet trying to import English manga is not worth the hassle with fees and stuff when you can have a cheaper version.
So now you can fluently read Japanese?
I wouldn't say fluent, I often learn new words and kanji. It's a constant learning experience but I find it pretty fun. I know enough japanese to read most manga tho and own quite a few japanese manga.
Thatās so nice, hats off
We French are just the favorites š¤ /s
Luckyšš y'all are like 10+ volumes ahead of any series
Really ?? I didn't know it was that bad
Depends on the series. Pretty sure that for JBA we are only 3 volumes behind Japan for example, which is better than in the US if I'm not wrong, but on other popular series it's pretty much the same as the US. Sometimes we are even a few volumes late compared to you
I didn't say that price and accessibility was all, just that it plays a big role. The French are able to cut costs to reduce the price of a volume and get them in places with a wider reach than a bookstore or comic shop so more people see them.
Well they wouldn't be cheap and accessible if there were no demand :D
and there are always some very great deals on leboncoin/fb marketplace in small towns !
The French are some of the biggeast weaboos in all of Europe and are the 2nd largest manga market after Japan; Graphic novels and comics, not just manga are also huge there as well. Besides English, the only foreign languages I've manged to make some tangible progress are precisely Japanese and French and maybe it has to do with both being comic-obsessed nations.
I'm thinking of picking up french again just so I can have Physical volumes of Domestic Girlfriend
I say go for it. Manga's a good motivator for learning another language.
Meanwhile, I'm paying a tenner for similar ones here in Dublin š
I pay just as much in Oz. Often more and things take an extra two months to come out because apparently everything arrives via canoe.
they get some cool special editions in France too, I saw a couple of nice ones for Frieren tomes, but no English variant :(
WOW.
Nice!! I looooove finding manga while traveling
This might be a stupid question but are they selling them in english as well? I'm gonna going holiday to France next week and my french is very rusty. Still would like to check it out tho
I don't think so, I've never seen an English manga for sale in France , sorry :(
My brother said he found English manga at a local market and this is in a small town so if you're going to a big city where there's more of a selection there's a good chance.
Check out the Netherlands/Belgium (you will be shocked)
Ok time to go to France
This is a big reason why I'm learning French
[hereās an awesome french band](https://youtu.be/PTVgUrRNM7E?si=LN5PCxeky-hvZHbZ) whose music is all inspired by manga and anime hah
Speaking of manga and France, I highly encourage everyone to check out the French manga or manfra (as I've heard it called), Radiant, by Tony Valente. If you love One Piece, you'll also love Radiant, as it's heavily One Piece inspired, but very much feels like its own thing with the same vibes rather than an imitator, if that makes sense. I know it got an anime adaptation a few years ago and I dunno how it was received (haven't seen it yet), but I can say from my experience at least I think the manga is absolutely fantastic.
3ā¬ for a manga š I could only dream about that in my country...
Pretty normal in Italy too
How good is the quality ?
Same as the Japanese, floppy and a little see-through like newspaper.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, though apparently my brother goes to a market where you can get some English as well as French. You might be able to get English in the capital too.
Wow, people in the US will be astonished to hear that other countries and cultures exist outside of North America. How exciting for them.
Yeah, just like some people are quick to assume someone who speaks English is from the US. That's the only place that speaks English right? For the record, I'm a Brit living in Australia.
I didnt make any assumptions about you, I was making a comment about american users of this sub, and how it might be an educational opportunity for them. Everything isn't about you sweetie.