Raising international manga artists

 A foreign manga festival was held at the Tokyo Big Site. I was employed as a consultant.

  There was a panel on international manga education. The theme was raising international manga artists. I’ll summarize what I said in the beginning:

  Japan is a manga paradise. Manga represent 64% of all published materials and 20% of all book sales. In Germany this figure is 1.6% and in France it’s 0.4%, so 20% is quite an outlier. Most of the anime that have become popular overseas have manga at their base. Manga are at the center of Japanese culture, and serve as a breeder reactor. 

  The term “Cool Japan” was born ten years ago. The phrase wasn’t born in Japan; it started overseas and was adopted by Japan. Japan is now asking herself how to recapture the manga. Domestically, manga haven’t been treated as important. It’s become a societal problem that there isn’t much education. However, when they started to become popular overseas the government finally recognized their importance and began to support them as artistic media. 

Ten years ago I was employed as the chairman of the IP headquarter in the government. That was when we started to concentrate on manga. I was also the chairman of the Pop Culture Committee. Manga writers were also on the committee and we debated measures of encouragement. On both committees, a major theme was the education of future manga artists. 

 It was then that the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture began to concentrate on the cultivation of human resources which led to the symposiums that we have today.

 At the same time, pop culture cannot be spearheaded by the government by way of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. It must be spearheaded by the citizens. We must always keep that in mind. On the other hand, it must be recognized that the comics of the US, the manga of Canada, the bande dessinnée of France, and our own manga are important cultural assets. The forms of expression found in manga are based upon the culture of their originating country, and it’s wonderful that they have evolved into such a deep and varied art form. I’d like to see those involved in the world of manga cooperate to raise the level of manga culture in the world.