Online comic markets striving

China’s online comics portal Weibo Manhua (manhua.weibo.com/) services online comics in the country. / Image captured from Weibo Manhua

Xu Ning, copyright manager at Chinabased Wei Comic

Masaki Yamashita, director at Japan-based Amutus Corporation

By Baek Byung-yeul

Manhua, manga and manhwa. These are the words for comics in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

While they are named differently in each country, more people are recognizing that they offer profitable business opportunities thanks to widely available Internet use.

Last week, the state-run Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) hosted the two-day International Content Conference, also known as DICON 2015, in Seoul, where content providers from around the world offered predictions of comic trends in Asia.

‘2.3 million enjoy online comics in China’

Xu Ning, a copyright manager of China-based Wei Comic, said the number of active users enjoying online comics in China is about 2.3 million.

“In China, some 1,000 comics are uploaded every day. It is because of the increased popularity of online comics and according to statistics, about 2.3 million Chinese are enjoying online comics on a daily basis,” Xu said during a press conference at DICON, held in COEX, southern Seoul, on Nov. 17.

Wei Comic provides comics content at Sina Weibo, China’s largest microblogging site, featuring the works of over 5,000 cartoonists. Introducing popular comic genres in China, Xu said humor and martial arts comics are the most popular.

As copyright manager of the company, Xu also said that China is putting its greatest efforts into deterring copyright infringement in cooperation with the government.

“We are giving various kinds of efforts to solve copyright infringement issues because those illegal actions can cause harmful effects to creators,” he said.

“Together with the government, we are trying to set up a fair market. Our company is running various kinds of copyright protection measures as well as reporting piracy sites violating copyright laws.”

Cover image of “Shadow Cat” featured in one of China’s online comics portal Weibo Manhua

Japan’s comics market in transition

Masaki Yamashita, a director at Japan-based online content provider Amutus Corporation, said the world’s biggest comics market is in a transition period from paper to online.

“Japan’s online comics market was started through web-based portals first before smartphones were everywhere. And at that time, about 80 percent of those online comics were paid for content, while most of them are serviced free of charge these days,” Yamashita said, adding that the online comics market in Japan is at a crossroads for establishing a standard for its business model. Amutus Corporation is one of the largest e-book service providers in Japan, running “Mecha Comic,” an online portal site specializing in comics.

“What we are considering is not just whether comics will be free or paid as there are various kinds of business models. For example, even if contents are serviced at no cost at the moment, there will be a charge for them after a period of time. Korea’s Lezhin Comics can be a great example,” he said.

Admitting that his country is still lagging behind Korea in online comics, the director revealed a bright future for Japan’s online comics market.

“It has not been long since online comics providers began servicing contents on a weekly or daily basis. In Japan, the mainstream business model is to publish comics serialized in online magazines.

“However, given that the market size of e-book sales last year was assessed to be around 100 billion yen ($811 million), I think the market scale of online comics will become as large as that number in the near future,” he said.