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Adults 50 & Up have become the biggest manga readers in Japan, digitally

The manga demographic is skewing older as the industry becomes more popular.

Jiraiya in Naruto — Image credit: Pierrot

News by Trent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer

Published on Thu Aug 27 2026

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We tend to think of manga as a hobby for young people. After all, the industry only really exploded in the West in the past 25 years, so many middle-aged people didn’t grow up with it. However, in Japan, it is people in their 50s who are reading the most manga – at least, in the digital format.

That comes from a 2025 survey by Oricon, which also revealed just how deeply WEBTOON and other digital manga had penetrated Japanese pop culture. Of those surveyed, over 90% were at least familiar with WEBTOON and over 70% had viewed it before. However, the biggest takeaway is how the age demographic for digital manga has shifted. Those over 50 made up 53.8% of paying digital manga users, giving them a clear majority over other age groups.

There is some important context that will help bring this into perspective. First, this survey only reported on those who have paid for digital comics in Japan. As manga is an industry that is particularly prone to piracy and young people are more likely to pirate media, this will skew the results slightly. Also, this survey was specifically about digital manga, which could shift the demographics slightly.

Even with those caveats, we can still take a few things from the knowledge. There seems to be less of a stigma of comics being “for kids” in Japan than there used to be, which is probably reflected in the growth of the industry. While the shonen genre remains a mainstay in the industry, there is a massive market for stories aimed at older readers.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included...