Shopping Guide
From 71,000 titles on the Japanese eBook site eBookJapan, the top 20 most read eBooks of 2012 have been announced.
For the shonen manga category, Space Brothers grabbed first place. The popular manga has been serialized in Weekly Morning since 2008, and 19 volumes of the manga have been released to date. It has gathered great support from a wide range of people in their 20’s to 40’s. In April 2012, the TV anime adaptation began and is still currently broadcasting. Also, in May of the same year, a live-action film was created. The film went on to win various awards and became quite the hot topic.
In the shojo manga category, Glass Mask, which held the number one spot in the first half of the year, held on to its supremacy. The manga was the flagship work in the manga magazine Hana to Yume Comics, which began distribution in April 2012. Women throughout Japan are very fond of the manga regardless of their age and have supported the manga’s longevity since it began its serialization more than 30 years ago in the magazine Hana to Yume in 1975. Having been adapted into a TV drama, TV anime, and OVA, the manga has been successful in various forms of media and is proudly referred to as an extremely popular national longseller.
Furthermore, the manga of the the much-discussed live-action films Thermae Romae which stars Hiroshi Abe, and Ushijima the Loan Shark, which tells the story of people driven by money and lust, as well as the anime Chihayafuru, which is based around the feverous card game Karuta, ranked in the top five manga of their respective categories.
If you’re looking for new manga to read, why not pick up one of Japan’s most-read manga of 2012?
eBookJapan:
http://www.ebookjapan.jp/ebj/ (Japanese)
eBookJapan 2012 Top 20 eBook Ranking:
http://www.ebookjapan.jp/ebj/special/special_2012ranking.asp (Japanese)
Source:
http://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000185.000001485.html (Japanese)
