This
article is about how digitization is affecting classic media. The Japanese
manga industry has always released stories in print first. Historically, if those
stories ever got put online, it was often done by third parties. Some manga also
get adapted into anime and are digitized this way. This piece talks about South
Korean web-comics called “webtoons” that are beginning to eclipse manga in
terms of popularity. With the ubiquity of computer technology, these comics are
more popular with “digital natives” because of the ease of access on phones. The
article addresses the question if manga should make the jump to digitization to
a “foreign, tech-savvy audience”. Opinions are split in the industry according
to the piece, but one argument for going digital is that manga magazine sales
have been spiraling downward, and that making the jump to webtoons could help
this. As a side note, this reminded me of the other article about Japanese companies
innovating and prioritizing digital technology as they move towards the future.
In
another article I read, as of 2017, the sale of digital manga surpassed their
print counterparts. Besides the reasons mentioned in the webtoons article, another
reason for the increased popularity of digital manga is that there were promotional
discounts for buying popular manga online. Another reason cited was that print
manga were becoming less popular because older popular series were ending with
no new popular print stories to replace them.
The
other main thrust of the provided article was that many Japanese probably do
not realize that the webtoons they are reading are from Korea and not Japan. Interestingly,
the Korean language, including names are changed to Japanese when the content
is provided to Japanese consumers. I found it very interesting that some
Japanese readers were completely turned off when the main character’s name was
kept Korean. Despite Japan’s increasing openness to foreigners, it seems that
in some realms they still prefer to keep it traditional. This made me wonder
about how other foreign media are received in Japan. During the leadup and
premiere of Avengers: Endgame, I saw tons of promotional material including
pop-up shops showcasing the American blockbuster. Why was this creative work so
popular, yet webtoons are shunned when discovered to be from Korea? Perhaps
because the movie is not a traditionally Japanese medium or style of art
(unlike manga), there is no issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment