Manga Manga Manga...

I must admit I'm not at all into manga. In fact I don't think I've so much as picked up a manga title and flipped through it. But I still got up early to go the 8 a.m. session with TokyoPop's Jeremy Ross--I even turned off a quite good-though-predictable Kevin Costner movie and put off eating breakfast. (I am a big fan of breakfast and a medium fan of Kevin Costner.)

I was really blown away about some of the stats given during this presentation. So here is a list of some of the things I learned, many of which surprised me. (I'm also a big fan of bulleted lists):

• Manga is the fastest growing publishing category and is a $300 million industry.
• 40% of all publishing in Japan is manga--it's read by all ages and covers an array of subjects.
• 70% of U.S. manga readers are age 13-19; 60-70% of them are female.
• TokyoPop makes up 52% of the U.S. manga market share.
• There are 61,331,000 teens in the U.S.

TokyoPop has just relaunched their website. Now people can post their artwork and stories, communicate on a forum, and even learn about manga from other publishers. If you're into this genre, sounds like a visit to their site should be in your future.

Number of times I typed the word mango while writing this entry: a bunch