Booksellers had noted the arrival in their shops of new faces leaving with dozens of volumes of Japanese comics under their arm.
The specialist editors had revealed a strong increase in sales of their flagship series.
The figures published this Thursday by Livres Hebdo confirm the intuition of an entire profession: the manga sector has benefited greatly from the Culture Pass, this envelope of 300 euros offered by the State to 18-year-olds for their cultural expenses.
More than 1.5 million copies of manga have been sold via the device since its generalization on May 21, according to data from Pass Culture.
Read alsoThe Culture pass leads to a manga rush
The Culture Pass lists 22 books that have been purchased in more than 5,000 copies each. The manga occupies 15 places including the first 12. Unsurprisingly, the most popular series in France dominate this top: more than 300,000 sales for
One Piece
, nearly 200,000 for
Demon Slayer
and
Attack on Titan
, 150,000 for
My Hero Academia
, between 105,000 and 115,000 for
Jujutsu Kaisen
, Berserk and
Naruto
.... Other more confidential series are emerging in the rankings, such as
Spy x Family
(20,000 sales),
Mashle
(13,000) or
Haikyu
(10,000). Note also the 20,000 sales of
Solo Leveling
, a Korean comic book.
Read also
One Piece
, the manga with 25 million sales in France
So what are the other books that have managed to find a place in this ranking? Law students took advantage of their Pass to acquire the annotated Civil Code (18,800 sales) and the
Lexicon of legal terms 2021-2022
(5,600 sales). The other works have benefited from a “
Netflix effect
” or a “
social media effect
”. This is the case of Burn after writing, a hybrid between a diary and a personal development manual that has become a phenomenon on TikTok (13,400 sales), of
Always more
, another personal development book written by influencer Léna Situations (11,600 sales). and
The Chronicle of the Bridgetons
, a novel adapted into a successful Netflix series (11,000 sales).
Only intruder in the ranking, the series of fantasy novels
La Passe-Miroir
, written by the French Christelle Dabos (5,400 sales).
This top 22 represents a third of book purchases made through the Culture Pass.
To date, 18-year-olds have purchased 164,582 different titles.
The video game in ambush
Six months after the generalization of the Culture Pass, the purchase of books remains in fact the main use of this envelope of 300 euros. "
The book represents 81.6% of reservations, against 5.5% for cinema and 4.6% for music,
" indicates the public body at
Le Figaro
. The orders of magnitude change when you look at the amounts spent. “
Books rise to 53% in value, followed by cinema at 17% and musical instruments at 13%. These are expensive!
"
Another category will soon be closely scrutinized: video games.
If gaming is eligible for the Culture Pass, the criteria are so restrictive that many players did not wish to participate in the system.
It must be said that digital players (music, video, press, games ...) do not touch a cent in the operation, unlike book publishers, theaters or cinemas.
Read alsoThe Culture pass makes the media cringe
But since November 10, Microsoft's “video game Netflix”, the Game Pass, has entered the Culture Pass.
18-year-olds will only be able to benefit from a three-month trial subscription, which will withdraw 30 euros from their pot, and they will only be able to play on PC.
But the content of the Game Pass, which includes 2021 games like
Flight Simulator
,
Halo Infinite
,
Forza Horizon 5
or
Age of Empire IV
, may well attract them.
