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BusinessWeek Mag Reports on Manga Popularity in Europe

An article in BusinessWeek magazine notes that a recent study by Japan's External Trade Research Organization (JETRO) has found that Europe is the world's second-largest market for manga. Sales of manga in France and Germany alone totaled US$212 million, compared to approximately US$200 million in the United States. Manga publisher Tokyopop, which maintains a German office, calculates that some 70% of all comics sold in that country originate in Japan, while according to figures assembled by the French Association of Comic Critics and Journalists, some 40 different publishers released 1,152 individual volumes of manga in that country throughout the course of 2007. In the United States, 2007 saw the publication of 1,468 volumes, and this number is projected to grow to over 1,700 next year.