School Study Guides

6

Japanese Book News

Number 17

Japanese Books Abroad

The Spanish city of Barcelona was the setting for a three-

day Manga and Video Game Fair from October 11th to

13th 1996. This was an occasion for spot sales of Japanese

comics, animated cartoons and video games, and the

event—held behind a temporary partition on a platform at

Barcelona station—drew enthusiasts of these genres from

all over Spain.

Barcelona already plays host annually in May to the In-

ternational Comics Salon. Cartoonists and publishers are

invited from all over America and Europe and comics fans

gather there. Reflecting the popularity of manga in Eu-

rope, the organizers of these international comics conven-

tions invite popular Japanese artists to attend and strongly

encourage publishers to participate. Kôdansha, Shogaku-

kan and other publishers generally have booths at these

events at which they display their own comics and they

discuss business projects with publishers from other coun-

tries. The Kôdansha booth, for instance, attracts young

Spanish cartoonists with hopes of selling their own work.

In addition to their own interest in Japanese comics, they

know that Kôdansha’s weekly comic magazine 

Morning

frequently carries work by European artists.

Two-way Trade

Barcelona has its own major comics publisher, Planeta-De

Agostini, which enjoyed great success by winning the race

to publish Toriyama Akira’s Dragon Ball series, the ani-

mated version that has been very popular on Spanish tele-

vision. Planeta’s current Japanese hit is 3\3 Eyes, Takada

Yûzô’s fantasy series depicting adventures in a magical

world. The company launched its Spanish version in

1993, following up with a series of video animations in

1996. Another fantasy series doing well in Spain is Fu-

jishima Kôsuke’s Aa! Megami-sama (“Oh, My God-

dess!”), translated into Spanish as Ah! Mi Diosa. At one

point Planeta was actually publishing a magazine entitled

Shonen Magazine devoted entirely to Japanese comics,

though it is currently out of print.

While Planeta focuses mainly on comics for children,

another Barcelona-based publisher, Ediciones La Cúpula,

publishes a pair of comic monthlies for adults, El Vibora

(Poison Snake) and Kiss Komix. The latter consists en-

tirely of sex comics, but the former also serializes Tanaka

Seiji’s dinosaur adventure Gon and various manga by

Ôtomo Katsuhiro. 

Although it appears to be little known, Kiss Komix

translates and publishes sex comics by Japanese artists

(the graphic details outlawed by Japanese censorship re-

stored to the original) along with Spanish, French, and Ar-

gentinian pornographic comics. The manga are

re-published in book form after serialization and are

growing in popularity.

One feature of the Barcelona manga fairs is that along-

side the Spanish and French translations are a fair number

of original Japanese editions which seem to attract just as

much attention. Just as in the United States and various

Asian countries, so too in Europe there are young manga

fans who are not content merely to read translated mate-

rial, but want to read “the real thing,” and learn Japanese

for that specific purpose. There are various fan magazines

relating to manga and Japanese animation, and informa-

tion on manga flows so quickly that true devotees are far

better informed than the average Japanese reader.

The French Connection

In May 1995, at an international animation festival at the

French town of Annecy, Takahata Isao, director of Heisei

tanuki gassen ponpoko [Heisei Era Battle Ponpoko of the

Raccoon Dogs], winner of the full-length feature anima-

tion prize, found himself surrounded by a group of fans.

This group of enthusiasts proved to be the producers of

a magazine for fans of Japanese animations. They told the

author they were planning a voluminous “Encyclopedia of

Japanese Animation.” Meanwhile, in Paris, Kurenai no

buta [The Crimson Pig], a film by Takahata’s colleague

Miyazaki Hayao, was about to open. The video of

Miyazaki’s best-known work, Kaze no tani no Naushika

(Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind), has sold very well

in America and Europe, and Miyazaki’s feature-length

manga on which the video was based has been translated

into English, published in the United States, and widely

read both there and in Europe. Miyazaki enjoys a growing

international reputation as a creator of animations, and in

particular as the creator of Nausicaä.

In the bookshops of Paris one may find French transla-

tions of 3\3 Eyes, Oh, My Goddess!, Dragon Ball, of

course, along with Ôtomo Katsuhiro’s Akira and Taka-

hashi Rumiko’s Ranma Half and Maison Ikkoku. Stacks of

French re-makes of Japanese animation videos are also

available. But that is not all. On the ground floor of Paris

Junku, a large bookshop close to the Opera, there is an im-

pressive stock of original Japanese publications. The

target customers are young French manga fans along with

fans and dealers from other European countries who know

the bookshop’s reputation.

Paris also boasts more than ten shops that make them a

specialty. One, located near Redru Rollin station on the

metro, is Atomic Club. The shop only opened in 1995,

and is run by a Japanese, 25-year-old Ônishi Hiroaki.

Ônishi was born in Osaka, but came to Paris at the age of

nine because of his father’s work and went on to study

management at a French university. He discovered manga

on a return visit to Japan three years ago. Entranced by

all-action tales of heroism such as 

Hokuto no Ken (Fist of

the North Star), he found himself wanting to introduce

them to French readers.

True to his roots as a native of the merchant city of

Osaka, Ônishi developed his own import route. It in-

volved working through secondhand book dealers in the

Osaka region. Most paperback manga published in Japan

find their way very quickly into the second-hand book-

shops. They are as good as new and far cheaper than when

purchased from the publisher. The system has worked so

well that these days Ônishi acts as a wholesaler, helping

supply some of the other manga bookshops in Paris. A

group of young fans gathers at the Atomic Club every Sat-

Manga Publishing: Trends in

Europe

Ono Kôsei

---