Singapore news site on how American girls love manga

The Electric New Paper, an online newspaper/site from Singapore, reports on 'U.S. girls' new love affair'...guess it's news to them:

Teenagers flock to bookshops like Kinokuniya for Japanese comic books, not just in Japan, or here in Singapore, but in the US too.

Americans can't get enough of shojo manga, the racy comics for schoolgirls, Mainichi Shimbun reported.

The comics have featured adult themes.


'We now devote one third of our entire floor space to comics,' Japanese weekly Shukan Shincho quoted an employee at Kinokuniya's New York outlet as saying.

About 80 per cent of the store's customers are American teen girls.

The shojo manga they buy are, like the Japanese versions, read from right to left, but the text is in English.

'Kids from junior high and high school flood the store as soon as school finishes,' the Kinokuniya employee said.

And Japanese publishers are no doubt the winners in this.