The publishing market in Japan grew by 3.6 percent in 2021, revealed the All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher’s and Editor’s Association (AJPEA) which pegged the entire segment to be worth 1.6742 trillion yen or roughly US$14.70 billion, AnimeNewsNetwork reported. This marks three consecutive years of growth for the entire publishing industry taken as a whole. This also points to a stronger performance by the digital publishing segment which grew by 18.6 percent from 2020 to 2021 which more than made up for the 1.3 percent negative growth that the print market recorded during the period.
The digital comics market, in particular, made strong gains, which saw its market value rise to 411.4 billion yen or US$3.61 billion in 2021 from 342 billion yen or US$3 billion in 2020. This is being attributed to comics getting screen adaptations that added to their appeal over a wider section of the market. Plus, there have also been the likes of the Webtoon and Smartoon vertical scrolling comics that too saw a lot of positive uptakes among the masses. The sale of digital magazines however came down to 9.9 billion yen or US$86.98 million in 2021 compared to 11 billion yen (US$96.64 million) in 2020.
The sale of monthly and weekly print periodicals however came down 4.5 percent and 9.7 percent respectively from 2020 to 2021. To delve further into the monthly print periodicals market, magazines that are published regularly saw a 7 percent decline in sales while mooks suffered a decline of 14 percent. Manga sales had witnessed a 20 percent growth in sales in 2020 which had much to do with the immense popularity of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba though the segment again came down 1 percent in 2021.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
