I have spoken before about manga demographics, specifically about josei manga but also touching on other demographics like shonen, shojo and seinen. Interestingly, in my experience, I have found that many Western fans of manga are familiar with these four demographics (to the extent that they understand who they’re targeted at) but many show confusion upon my mentioning of a fifth demographic, kodomo. Taking this into account, I think it’s important that Western manga fans understand and know what kodomo manga is.
Let’s begin with what kodomo manga is. The word kodomo means children in Japanese. Therefore, kodomo manga refers to manga aimed at children. However, to specify further, it specifically refers to a target audience younger than 12 since shonen and shojo titles are aimed at male and female teenagers respectively. However, there can be quite a bit of overlap and it is not uncommon to see some series referred as kodomo and shonen/shojo interchangeably.
When discussing kodomo manga, you will inevitably come across a particular manga magazine called “CoroCoro Comic”. Originally released in 1977, CoroCoro Comic has gone on to become one of the most successful manga magazines of all time. Easily the most popular series released via CoroCoro Comic is Doraemon, a manga about a robotic cat who is sent back in time to help a boy called Nobita. However, CoroCoro Comic has also seen manga series from franchises such as Pokémon, Beyblade and even a Minions series!
There are other kodomo manga magazines such as Televi-Kun and Pucchigumi but the circulation figures for these magazines pale compared to CoroCoro Comic. In fact, many kodomo manga magazines such as Comic Bom Bom and Comic Bun-Bun have been cancelled due to declining circulation and replaced with shonen/shojo magazines.
You would think that kodomo manga, being aimed at children, would be an easy sell for Western audiences. However, as far as I’m aware, Viz Media seems to be the only publisher interested in this market with releases of Pokémon, Legend of Zelda, Splatoon etc. Doraemon, as popular as it is in Japan and many other parts of the world, has only seen a digital release in English via Amazon Kindle. While the lack of popularity of kodomo manga in the West might seem surprising, I have to remember that many Western comics are already aimed at children and that many Western manga fans were originally drawn to the medium for the more adult storytelling. I have also heard of several stories of children being interested in manga but being put off by the black and white artwork.
However, I think an area that kodomo manga can be interesting to Western manga fans is to learn Japanese. Japanese can be a complex language to learn given the use of logograms (kanji) with multiple readings and sharp differences between formal and casual Japanese. However, kodomo manga expects the target audience, children, to have relatively basic reading skills and are typically written in relatively simple Japanese. Because of this, it is generally recommended that people beginning to learn Japanese import some kodomo manga such as Doraemon to supplement their learning.
In conclusion, I think it is important that more and more Western manga fans know about kodomo manga. Not only is it a helpful learning method for the language but, as manga fans grow older and begin having families, kodomo manga can be a great way to introduce their children to the medium. Let me know your thoughts on kodomo manga, if you have read any, if you have learned Japanese via kodomo manga and any additional information you have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!