Forum - View topicNEWS: BusinessWeek Mag Reports on Manga Popularity in Europe
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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 That's like someone saying they don't like the idea of Newfoundland being considered part of North America or Taiwan part of Asia. Possibly you should cancel your next few manga purchases and buy a map and some history books instead.
Than Europe? The population of Northern and Central America combined is about 324 million, the population of Europe is about 729 million. Even if by "Europe" we just mean the European Union, it's still about 495 million. Of course, much of Europe buys very little manga (hence the recent news of Japanese government plans to increase manga sales in former Warsaw Pact nations), so what we're talking about is not really high manga sales across the whole of Europe but, rather, extremely high sales (relative to the US) in some Western European nations being balanced out by very few sales further East. |
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Urd
 Posts: 317 Location: Paris, France |
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You're perfectly right, comics aren't considered for children in France, I thought that was the case everywhere else. 
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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I don't know where you got your numbers, but the populations of just Canada, US, and Mexico add up to over 443.1 million. And to be clear, when I say Europe, I don't mean any of the former Eastern Bloc countries, the United Kingdom, Ireland or Turkey. Which would bring the population's well into the 300's. In other words when I say Europe I mean it in a classical sense. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Thanks!
Japanese and Britons are quite similar in this regard: they don't like being called as Asians, and when they use the word Asia-Jin (アジア人) in Japanese it's most likely they don't take Japanese into account. Hatena Diary wrote "日本人が使う場合は日本人以外のアジア人を指すことが多い。" Read Datsu-A Ron if you want to know more about it. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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Actually it's closer to Hawaii not wanting to be seen as part of America. A small set of islands sitting off at the side. But I'm from the UK and I feel the exact opposite, we should throw ourselves wholeheartedly into Europe; even from a simply ideological view that Europe>Britain; if the economic numbers don't pan out... As for the Euro, adopting it in due course. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Oops. You're quite right. One of the various maps hanging up in my office (makes me feel like a Bond villain) is a demographic world map - evidently it has a pretty major typo. Well, since it gives its sources as being the UN and the CIA, I certainly hope it was a typo. Anyway, I really should have caught it but it was late and I was tired and...sorry... 
Hmm. I can see why you'd exclude Turkey (with the exception of Istanbul, it's in Asia) and the relatively impoverished former Eastern Bloc. But the UK and Ireland? Why?
I don't think Hawaii is a valid analogy at all. Until a couple of centuries ago, there was no connection between Hawaii and North America whatsoever. The British Isles, on the other hand, have been intriniscally linked with Europe in terms of culture, language, religion, politics, art, ethnicity, trade, diplomacy and philosophy for thousands of years. It wasn't until relatively recently (the 19th Century) that we started seeing ourselves less as a European power and more as a distinct global entity but, in a post-Imperial age, that's just self-delusional at this point. Besides, the English Channel is less than 50 miles wide at its narrowest point whereas Hawaii is a couple of thousand miles from California...
Well I can agree with you wholeheartedly on that.
That's interesting given the Japanese obsession with pan-Asian imperialism back in the early-mid 20th Century. But I suppose Japan has never quite reconciled its Asian history, religion and culture with it's late 19th / early 20th Century obsession with all things Western European. In the late 1800s, some government ministers were even calling for the Japanese language to be scrapped and replaced with standard (British) English - they even set up English-language schools. And the post-war relationship with the US can only have compounded that cultural divide. Possibly Japan's increasing economic links with South Korea and China and its peripheral involvement with ASEAN will see Japanese viewpoints changing over the next few decades? |
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Hi no Neko
 Posts: 204 Location: Austin, TX |
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Part of me loves how this is turning into a geography discussion! x3
Nope, not like that here in America, at least. Comics are seen as either for young children, or sweaty, middle-aged guys that live in their mom's basement. The "normal" adults that do read comics, or at least admit to reading them, stick to the comic strips in the newspaper, and while some of those are pretty good, it's not quite the same as reading a good-sized comic book. :[ |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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I did say in a classical sense. Look, there are two very valid explanations, one simple and one a little more complicated. I don't really want to go into a history lesson or bore anyone, so I will stay with the simple explanation. And tell it from a distinctly American perspective. First, I would like to say that from solely a plate tectonics, or membership to the EU(of which the UK contributes even more than France) viewpoint. Then yes, the UK is indeed part of Europe. I would also like to point out that the pound is still used, and that most don't consider the bond between states of the EU to be of the same closeness of that of the States of America(that statement is both true and false at the same time depending on the circumstance). Plus I wasn't basing it soley on the membership to the EU, just as I don't consider Canada and Mexico to be part of the United States based on NAFTA. Also continental movement is the only known thing in the universe to be in fact slower than molasses. ;) But I am speaking from strictly a cultural point of view. Of which of all the nations on the continent, is generally closest to our own. Which is why in common speak, when someone says they are going on holiday in Europe, they generally mean somewhere between Greece straight up to the Scandinavian states and over to Portugal and everywhere in between that triangle. But not including the UK and Ireland. If they are going to the UK as well, they usually say something like, "I am going to Europe, plus England". This of course will become less and less evident as the further disintegration of history and traditions of the British Isles ensues, and the population takes a more cosmopolitan Parisian-esque nature. But I don't think we are there, yet. On a more comical note. When an English fellow calls us fat and ugly, we don't hate him as much as when say, a Frenchman says it, because we feel at least the English man said it to our face. Ludicrous? Absolutely. In short, in common launguage we just don't consider it to be part of Europe. It is not meant to be an insult to either Europe as a whole, nor to the UK. It is just an acknowledgement of the differences we see, and the perceived closness to our own culture. From a second historical perspective, I believe an expanded solid description can be made. But as I said I am not going to get in to that, as it will assuredly be longwinded, misunderstood, and start senseless arguments. Plus even I as you might have gathered, recognize a period of change that is occuring, except I don't acclaim full annulment of the things that have come before. But as I said, I am viewing it from a classical point of view. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Dargonxtc -
Thanks for the sensible, considered answer. I understand your American perspective argument and I certainly wasn't taking your omission as an insult. I'm still not sure the omission makes sense, even from an American perspective, given that the context of the report is economic rather than cultural (Ireland has adopted the Euro and Britain is not the only EU nation not to have done so) and that was the source of my confusion. Oh, and if I might be particularly pedantic for a moment (even by my standards), Europe in a "classical sense" would be Europe from an ancient Greek / Roman perspective and would include North Africa and the near Middle East whilst excluding pretty much everywhere north of the Balkans. |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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This is true, and bad vocabulary on my part. But I think you got what I was saying. Perhaps a "post WWII, pre-globalization point of view" would make more sense. Although I am not sure if that is right either. I am having a block at the moment. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Fear not, Donald Rumsfeld has the answer. |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Hmm, as the term Old Europe sounds descriptive enough. I want to distance myself as far as possible from that wiki entry as I can. As laid out by the several of the pundits mentioned in that entry it appears to be much too narrow. And much too 24 hour changeable news cycle 'gotcha' story of the day to have any real meaning. At least for my purposes. |
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hentai4me
Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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Defining Europe is pretty tough...just look at sporting bodies...European sports tournaments run the whole gamut of strangeness including Israel in some while not in others, Armenia on some while excluded form others, Russia is both in and out depending upon prevailing politics...
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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This is rather old news to us here as France and Germany were always way ahead of the rest of Europe for graphic novels and animation as their culture never adheared to the dogma "cartoons are just for kids" and have used animation and graphic novels to tell adult stories for years. The UK has only just in the last six years picked up on manga and even though it still is growing it still has a way to go to be at France and Germany's level because of that ingrained dogma. Manga and anime is also starting to show buds of growth in the other European countries that have become members of the EU since the fall of the "Iron Curtain".
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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The inclusion of Israel in some obstensibly European events was a political decision rather than a geographical one. With regards to Russia, defining the eastern border of Europe is always problematic because Europe isn't a continent at all, geologically speaking - it's a historical and cultural construct that is comprised of, essentially, Medieval Christendom (minus Ethiopia of course). I think that, traditionally, the most commonly used eastern boundry is the Ural Mountains to the Black Sea (think of a line running south from the Kara Sea that cuts south-west before it hits Kazakhstan and culminates in Georgia). So all of the historical Russia is included in "Europe" but certainly not all of the post-18th Century Russian Empire / the current Russian Federation. The inhabitants of cities like St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kursk certainly think of themselves as Europeans.
Ah, I was being facetious. Rumsfeld isn't exactly popular to the west of the old Iron Curtain... I don't think there is actually a commonly used term for the area you're describing. Western Europe would be the closest but that generally includes the UK and Ireland. "Western Continental Europe" would just about cover it but it's a bit of a mouthful. |
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