Young Japanese people are reading less and less manga: magazines are declining and digital isn't accessible to them

Japanese researcher and journalist Ichishi Iida has put numbers to a trend that worries the manga industry: children and teenagers in Japan are reading fewer and fewer comics. In a column for President Online, Iida compiled school surveys from different decades and concluded that young audiences are drifting away from both print and digital platforms.

The data is stark when it comes to magazines. According to the Japan School Library Association, in the 1980s a junior high school student read about ten magazines a month; by 2025 that figure had fallen to one, and 77.7% of junior high school students said they read none. Reading of physical volumes also fell by nearly twenty percentage points between 1985 and 2023 across elementary, junior high, and high school.

The digital transition doesn't make up for the decline. Only 49% of high school students read manga on screens, and just 15% in elementary school. Iida argues that Japanese apps are designed for adults: subscriptions and frequent microtransactions shut out those without credit cards or their own income. By comparison, Korean webtoons did manage to build an accessible ecosystem for that audience.

The case of Weekly Shonen Jump illustrates the collapse: its junior high school readership went from nearly 500 in 1996 to 54 in 2019, according to data cited by Unseen Japan. Corocoro Comics, by contrast, maintains a solid base among elementary school children.

Iida's thesis is not unanimous. Editors at Square Enix and Kadokawa responded that young people aren't abandoning manga, but rather migrating from print to apps, and noted that the debate over the "death of manga" is a recurring one in Japan. Even so, they agree that the industry needs more accessible digital channels so as not to lose the next generation of readers.

Originally published on Anitsu by Mateo Henríquez. Text reviewed and fact-checked for DonOtaku on November 5, 2026; the original date is preserved.