August 02, 2010
Demographics (and manga)
General Electric modeled worldwide demographic trends starting in 1950 and projecting through 2050 and came up with the following.
Among other things, scrolling along the timeline clearly reveals Japan's short-lived, post-war baby boom and its echo. The U.S. counterpart peaked a decade later and practically spans an entire generation between Japan's boom and echo.
The first boom (among other things) energized the manga industry (and popular culture in Japan) in the 1960s when the boomers hits their teens. The echo a quarter-century later turned anime and manga into a billion dollar industry.
But now with the birth rate falling below replacement, a tertiary echo is not appearing and the audience is aging out of the market. A sign perhaps of things to come. I guess it's time to invest in medical robots.
Among other things, scrolling along the timeline clearly reveals Japan's short-lived, post-war baby boom and its echo. The U.S. counterpart peaked a decade later and practically spans an entire generation between Japan's boom and echo.
The first boom (among other things) energized the manga industry (and popular culture in Japan) in the 1960s when the boomers hits their teens. The echo a quarter-century later turned anime and manga into a billion dollar industry.
But now with the birth rate falling below replacement, a tertiary echo is not appearing and the audience is aging out of the market. A sign perhaps of things to come. I guess it's time to invest in medical robots.
Labels: demographics, economics, japan, manga, robots
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