TaehaP

TaehaP

A manga café (漫画喫茶, マンガ喫茶, mangakissa, "kissa" being short for "kissaten" which means café or cafeteria) is a kind of café in Japan where people can read manga. People pay for the time they stay in the café. Most manga cafés also offer internet access like internet cafés (ネットカフェ, netto kafe) and vice versa, making the two terms mostly interchangeable in Japan. (One large chain, Popeye, uses the term "media cafe"). Additional services include video games, television, snack/beverage vending machine, and more. Like Japanese cafés in general, smoking is usually permitted.

For an hour's stay, the cost is generally about 400 yen, with most places requiring customers to pay this as a minimum even if leaving earlier. Some manga cafés offer a service where one can stay for the night.

More recently, the concept of manga cafes has also popped up in Europe.

History of Manga Cafe in Japan

Manga Cafe is called a Mangakissa (漫画喫茶, マンガ喫茶 “kissa” being short for “kissaten” which means “tea room” in japanese). Basically Manga Cafe is a kind of café in where people can read manga/comics and relax. In Japan : reading manga in a cafe has long been a popular Japanese pastime, and it has now just been elevated to the next level. Manga Cafe is not much like standard idea of a cafe. However, most offering guests private individual booths and the option to stay for between 30 minutes and all night long. The first Manga Cafe was started in 1979 in small coffeeshop based in Nagoya, Tokyo. And It is still running with 300 coffeeshop chain today. Other brands have been created. And it is estimated today more than 3000 the number of Manga Cafés in Japan.

Services

Search criteria at a search engine site ("National Net Café / Mangakisa Search Engine (beta)"[1]) offers a glimpse of services that may be offered at a mangakisa:

• Seating: reading seat, non-smoking seat, sofa, massage chair, party room, internet seat, pair seat, zashiki (tatami matted), reclining seat
• PC: disc burners, office software, color printers, photocopier, TV
• Facilities: movies/DVDs, shower room, darts, magazines, PC class, music CDs, nail salon, pool table, newspapers, CATV/CS broadcast, table tennis, slot machine, tanning bed, mahjong

Roles of Manga Cafe

1. As a Complex Cultural Space It tried various changes to transform the Manga Cafe into a cultural complex. The Manga Cafe was transformed into a place of relaxation and conversation and into a place of meeting. It sells coffee, drinks, and refreshments together to play the role of cafe. In line with this, facilities are also being introduced in a modern manner so that the interior can be used hygienically.
2. As a Channel for the Production of Comic Books The Manga Cafe was started to be used as a channel for the production of comic books. In the past, Manga Cafe were used simply to provide comics, but Manga Cafe also serve as a place to sell books. For Comic Cakes in the South Korea, run by the Haksan Cultural Center, not only is it a place to read cartoons, but it also displays and sells 10,000 paintings and other related products. This is not only an effect of a simple increase in sales, but also a new sales route and a role as a market research center for publishers.
3. As a Space for Creating a Cartoon Culture It will be used as a space for creating a cartoon culture. The Manga Cafes are also used as communication spaces for cartoonists and cartoon readers. Cartoon writers sometimes visit Manga Cafe to communicate with readers, and cartoonists sometimes run their own comics. It presents opportunities to communicate directly with the reader, not just with the comic book or the cartoon page. As a cartoonist, it is a good opportunity to check the reader's reaction, and this can be expected to be the production of a good cartoon. The readers will be able to meet and talk directly with the cartoonist and change their perception of the cartoon as well as increase their interest in it.

Changes in the Contemporary of Manga cafe

Manga cafe in South Korea As the number of cafe brands grows, more and more people want to have their own time and space. So there are brands that combine traditional cafes and other content services to satisfy consumers. As one of them, a cartoon cafe that combines a cafe with a cartoon room started as a 'Nolsoop'. There are three representative examples such as Nolsoop and Beoltoon, Kongtoon in Korea Manga cafe brand. A brand store is a place where people experience it firsthand. And it is a space where you can increase brand experience and awareness. In addition to providing comics and drinks, it also offers a variety of foods and pleasures. Nolsoop has about 200 branches in Korea. Usage fees and hours are generally available in 1 hour increments, and if you buy a drink with 1 hour, you can use it at a cheaper price.Now, They are chain stores representing Manga cafes in Korea.

• Nolsoop
• Beoltoon
• Kongtoon

There are various chain stores representing Manga cafe in Korea.Also,there is an increasing number of Manga cafe in the movie theater, so that people can enjoy Manga in various places, regardless of their location.

Now, Manga cafes are not just ending in enjoying comic books and novels, but are increasingly becoming a diverse range of play spaces for eating, board games, and relaxation.

In Japan, There is the recent social phenomenon of "net café refugees" (netto kafe nanmin - people who substitute 'manga cafes' for their domestic residence) is conditioned by new forms of leisure, information technology, social manners, and the long-term contraction of the Japanese domestic economy. The utility of leisure spaces in Tokyo has shifted in parallel with changes in the work habits and professional expectations among the Japanese poor and lower middle class. White-collar workers substitute karaoke's and saunas for living rooms, and they use capsule hotels in place of regular bedrooms. Many students and the chronic unemployed spend virtually all their time in gaming cafes and 24-hour's convenience stores. This study investigates the co-evolution of the "hidden homeless" and Tokyo Internet and comic book spaces called "Manga Cafe." Why are more Japanese people 'living' in Manga net café's? What can this tell us about changes in the Japanese urban fabric and social landscape? This work will try to investigate assumptions about distinction between public and private, what the role of "hidden homeless" in the process of changes of public space for private use and the dynamic of changes certain space under social changes.

In France, Manga Cafe has recently begun springing up. The concept, which originated in Japan, involves readers paying to read mangas. This alternative, or rather competitor, to traditional public library services has much to teach librarians. The cafés take full advantage of the specific nature of the manga format and the cultural practices that go along with it. These are often wholly unfamiliar to librarians, who are increasingly being required to build up manga collections.

Global current state of Manga Cafe

In July 2006, a coffee manga with a slightly modified and simplified concept to focus on the manga supply, opened in Paris, France, the first European coffee manga. Since 19 October 2008, in Toulouse, a library of manga and cyber cafés, based on the Japanese concept, has opened. Finally, a similar manga and cyber café opened in late 2011 in Lyon Place Vendome, the Hinata Kissa.

Since 2010, a coffee manga has also opened in Belgium, specifically in Braine l'Allemagne in the Brabant Wallon, the Cat's Eye Manga Café, which has just celebrated its 2 years. In early 2013 Belgium's largest coffee shop (230 m2) opened in Brussels. It's Otaka - Manga Café.

In 2011, the first coffee manga in North America, O-Taku Manga Lounge, opened in Montréal, Canada, reflecting the growing interest in manga and Japanese culture.

In 2014, Algeria's first coffee manga, HB Manga Kissa, opened in Algiers, the first coffee manga in Africa and the Arab world.

Criticisms

Recently, there have been complaints from manga publishing/distribution companies that say manga cafés are unfair. Generally, royalties are not paid for the reading of a book and, due to the nature of the business, a single manga or graphic novel can be read by as many as 100 people. The profits go directly to the proprietors of the cafe rather than the manga distributors themselves. (Public libraries avoid this criticism because they do not take profits.) Cafés, such as GeraGera, are competing with companies, such as Kinko's, for quick e-mail and internet service.

See also

• Net cafe refugee
• Manhwabang

References

• Macias, Patick and Machiyama, Tomohiro. Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo-Tokyo, Stone Bridge Press, 2004.
• Cubicle shelter: Public space for private use?, Visual Ethnography Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2012, Pages 60-80, Kilina, E.
• Manga cafés: A source of competition that has much to teach librarians | [Les «cafés mangas»: Une Concurrence Riche D'Enseignements], Bulletin des Bibliotheques de France, 57(4), pp. 54-58, 2012, Beudon, N.