Manga cafe

A manga café (漫画喫茶, マンガ喫茶) is a type of café, originating from Japan, where people can read manga. People pay for the amount of time they stay in the café. Most manga cafés also offer internet access like internet cafés (ネットカフェ) and vice versa, making the two terms mostly interchangeable in Japan. Additional services include video games, television, snacks/beverages, vending machines, and more. Like Japanese cafés in general, smoking is usually permitted.

The cost for the first 30 minutes typically ranges from 100 to 300 yen.[1] Larger blocks of time are usually available at discounted rates. Some manga cafés offer overnight stays.

More recently, the concept of manga cafés has spread to Europe.

Services

Services available at a cafe may include:

• Seating: reading seat, non-smoking seat, sofa, massage chair, party room, internet seat, pair seat, zashiki (tatami matted), reclining seat
• PC: disc burners, office software, color printers, photocopier, TV
• Facilities: movies/DVDs, shower room, darts, magazines, PC class, music CDs, nail salon, pool table, newspapers, CATV/CS broadcast, table tennis, slot machine, tanning bed, mahjong

Roles of manga cafés

• 1) As a complex cultural space Various changes and improvements helped transform manga cafés into cultural spaces. They became places of relaxation, conversation, and meetings. The business sells coffee, drinks, and other refreshments to act as cafes. Modern facilities and services have also been introduced to improve cleanliness and functionality of interiors.
• 2) As a channel for the production of comic books Manga cafés were initially started as channels for producing comic books. Originally they were places that provided comics but also served as places to buy or trade this material. For Comic Cakes in South Korea, run by the Haksan Cultural Centre, the cafe is a place to read manga but it also displays and sells over 10,000 paintings and other related products. This is not only to enhance sales, but to also serve as a new distribution and market research channel for publishers.[2]
• 3) As a space for creating cartoon culture Manga cafés are also used as communication spaces for cartoonists and their readers. Writers sometimes visit manga cafés to communicate directly with readers, and cartoonists promote their own works. Artists' interactions with the community are enhanced, while readers can meet with and talk directly to creators in order to better understand material and increase their interest levels in the material.[2]

Manga cafés by country

Criticisms

Recently, there have been complaints from manga publishing/distribution companies that manga cafés undermine their revenues. Generally, royalties are not paid for reading books and, due to the nature of the business, a single manga or graphic novel can be read by as many as 100 people. Profits go directly to the proprietors of the cafe rather than the manga distributors themselves. Public libraries on the other hand avoid this criticism because they do not make profits.

See also

• Net cafe refugee

Sources

• Macias, Patick and Machiyama, Tomohiro. Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo-Tokyo, Stone Bridge Press, 2004. ISBN 1-880656-88-4
• Cubicle shelter: Public space for private use?, Visual Ethnography Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2012, Pages 60–80, Kilina, E.
• Manga cafés: A source of competition that has much to teach librarians | [Les «cafés mangas»: Une Concurrence Riche D'Enseignements], Bulletin des Bibliotheques de France, 57(4), pp. 54–58, 2012, Beudon, N.

External links