Published in Jaqueline BERNDT and Steffi RICHTER, eds. Reading Manga: Local and global Perceptions of Japanese Comics

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 computation1, 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 month2. 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 cultura