April 17, 2006
Mobile manga beats out hard copy for lazy literati
Japan remains the world's undisputed manga monarch, but the way Japanese are enjoying cartoons is undergoing a fundamental change, according to Sunday Mainichi.
"Though manga readership has been declining here for over a decade, Japanese comics are more popular overseas than ever before.
Among the main reasons given for the decline in domestic manga readership has been the proliferation of the Internet and mobile phones.
... NTT solmare has carved a tidy niche for itself after merging the competing interests and its "Comic Site" has become the biggest mobile phone site dedicated to manga in Japan.
"We've passed 10 million downloads since starting the service in August 2004," a spokesman for the Osaka-based mobile phone company tells Sunday Mainichi. "We get about 2 million to 3 million downloads a month."
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