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Reflections (in a little Japanese bowl)

'We are now in the condition of Manga as air' as Osamu Tezuka once wrote.

In contemporary Japan I think its not quite true - but one comes to feel like saying it. Compared to the pitiful and frankly disgraceful state of the comic book industry in the UK, Japan is really a comic book paradise. Take a walk down almost any sizeable street and there will soon be a 7/11 type shop with a manga section. These normal avenues for getting manga (equivalent to newsagents ina way) typically have around 150 to 200 different titles of trade paper backs, and about 30 large size regular monthly and weekly anthologies.

Every now and then you will also come across bookshops with larger manga sections - borders type bookshops here often have a manga section that will offer several hundred different books. And then there is the usually at least one really big speciality store for just manga in which your into the 10,000's. As of that wasn't enough thereare also manga libraries, where you can sit and read any manga from a range of 1000's for a small hourly fee. Another favourite of mine is the cyber cafes, where you can spend all day and all night if you like, for about 2 pounds an hour. Here you can use pool tables, massage rooms, karaoke, computers, get a private booth at no extra cost, free drinks included and of course... 1000's of manga to read!

Manga is available for browsing in hairdressers, the doctors, restaurants. Only yesterday a family sat next to me in a restaurant and each went immediately over to the shops section of manga (they only had about 300 books - not much to chose from!) and took one each. Soon father, mother and daughter were all happily ignoring each other, each reading their different mangas!

As I write this now my 7 year old Japanese nephew is sitting next to me, avidly reading an edition of The Ring manga. Its a strange mixing of worlds for me, because the manga ka who did that book, Sakura Mizuki, is a friend of mine. He was featured in my anthology book MANGA MOVER last year, his first time translated into English. He came over with me on the plane to London for the MANGA LIVE festival, and we are now working together on my next manga book THE JAPANESE DRAWING ROOM. Yet here next to me, oblivious of the production aspect of manga , is this little 7 year old kid thoroughly immersed in the consumption aspect of it. Reading Mizuki's work and going "Ohh, Sadako - scary!" Which is great to see...That is what's wonderful

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