The Pass Culture, the French version of Renziana's Culture Bonus, was launched last May and immediately conquered eighteen-year-olds. The State has decided to give them 300 euros to spend on art and culture, and they have spent it, in 75% of cases, on the purchase of books: a noble and pertinent action with the sense of the bonus, but the surprise is been that two-thirds of these books are Japanese manga (comics).. A rampant fashion beyond the Alps, which is also reflected in our parts. In Italy there is still no official data on how the money from the culture bonus launched in 2016 by the Renzi government and also confirmed in 2021 has been spent (there is time until August 31 to register for 18 apps and until 28 February 2022 to spend the 500 euros), but probably not by chance in the first half of 2021 the comics sector grew, recording numbers far higher than the pre-pandemic period, in a context – that of book sales – also improving but not as exciting.
According to the analysis carried out by the research office of the Associazione Italiana Editori-AIE on NielsenIQ data - which was presented online on the AIE website on 13 July - from 4 January to 20 June this year the comics sector has in fact tripled its sales (+214%), while books on games and free time even quadrupled them (+302%). Nothing to say about the fact that even a comic strip represents a cultural product, and that 18-year-olds could hardly expect to buy great classics of literature (which, moreover, are already studied at school). However, the dimension of the phenomenon makes us reflect, especially in France where it has been precisely calculated and presents impressive numbers, especially considering that the Pass Culture has been in force for a few months. Just to give an example, the One Piece series by Eiichiro Oda alone represents 8,3% of the entire transalpine “bandes dessinées” market, and in July the latest volume sold over 1 million copies. Since 2013, there are 25 million.
In Italy, the top ten best-selling books of the semester (we are talking about all books) include a comic strip: Stories from the Lyon Gamer district (Magazzini Salani), written by Davide Costa and drawn by Emanuele Virzì, under the supervision of Lyon himself Gamers. The first book of the same series, entitled The stories of the mystery, already in 2020 had already positioned itself among the 10 best-selling books of the year. In the first two months of 2021 the 18App Bonus guaranteed a expenditure of 75 million euros more compared to the previous year. Satisfied the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini: "In Italy, in the most acute phase of the pandemic, people have rediscovered reading and today's data confirm that there is still room for growth".
