context: comics

How big are manga?

Absolutely enormous. Their annual sales by value (and their comics are VERY cheap) are about ten times the value of all comic sales throughout the whole of Europe (pop. 728m, about five times Japan's). In 2002, comics in Japan made up 38% of the publishing market (along with books and mags). The weekly Shonen Jump's sales, post-recession, slipped from 6m down to 3m - to give that context, there are only a few American comics (and the US has twice the population of Japan) selling over 100k each month. The books still go well - a world record for a first printing of a book (of any kind) was set not so long ago by a volume of One Piece: over 2.5m. It sold out.

A few more specifics:

Conventions

Earning a living

Then there is the question of how they are published and read:

Anthologies

Book collections

Reading speed

Where to find them

Translations

forwards: Why are manga so successful?