84% of Japanese college students have never read Dragon Ball

[Shiyonasan]

I suppose it's only natural that a 30+ year old series like Dragon Ball isn't quite as popular as, say, One Piece or One Punch Man, but that percentage is shocking!

Your thoughts?

Sources: Anime News Network, Mixi News, Yara-On!

84% of Japanese College Students Have Never Read Dragon Ball

Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga and subsequent anime series is considered a major cornerstone of shōnen entertainment. The series' later debut on Toonami in 1998 was a gateway for a whole generation of anime fans.

Apparently that is no longer the case in Japan, where while Dragon Ball Super is currently airing, the manga ended over 20 years ago. My Navi Student polled 403 college students, both men and women, on whether they ever read Dragon Ball. Shockingly, only 64 answered that they had (15.9%). The other 339 people (84.1%) said no.

It appears the generation that read the manga didn't pass on the series to their offspring. Those who had read it, did so either because of the manga's reputation, they borrowed it from their boyfriend in junior high, it was readily available at the school library (or in one case, at a hair stylist) or their friends were reading it. Others started with the anime and then went back to read the manga afterwards.

Many who hadn't read it stated it was because the series was too long at 42 volumes, it seems dated, or they found the anime fulfilling enough.

[irreality]

Not so shocking: some of the ones that didn't read it saw the anime. And I'm sure it is part of the general consciousness where people haven't read something but think they know enough about it: e.g. I never read batman or superman comics but I still have a sense of the lore. Close to 20% is actually quite a lot for any book/comic.

[Gyt Kaliba]

That's a bit distressing, but at least it seems like they literally mean 'haven't read the manga specifically', and not 'aren't into the series in any way, shape, or form'. If the number of people that weren't at least watching the show or playing the games or what have you were that high, then we'd definitely have a bit more to worry about.

I mean, the manga is always going to be the original, that's no lie...but the biggest news for the franchise in the past decade or more have pretty much always been about the anime side of things far more. The manga was always readily available in Japan, but it was only in recent years that the original three anime series were finally available on home video. The anime is where our new stories have kept coming from, such as the Jump special, Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', and now Super (and heck, even Episode of Bardock and the Destroy All Saiyans remake). Sure, there have been manga adaptations of those, but they were secondary, mostly done for advertising purposes, or another way to have another product on the market. Heck, even Kai, for what it was, was very much something 'new' on the anime side of things - a way to watch the Z series without it taking nearly as much time.

Compare that to the manga though, what 'new' has it brought to the table in recent years? Re-releases, which while nice, don't bring much new to the table in the long run. A new ending, kinda sorta, and now a full color version? That's nice and all, but the new ending is minuscule in length, and while getting to see Toriyama's gorgeous art in full color is fun, it's still essentially a new coat of paint on the same product as before. We've had the Heroes manga, and SD, and now the Super manga, and various other little piecemeal things, but they've always essentially served as advertisement for something else, without really having a lot else to them beyond that.

I say this with absolutely no disrespect towards the manga - but with constant new material of much larger note happening on the anime side of things, I'm not really that surprised that the manga itself hasn't been read by newer, younger fans, even in Japan. I'm a little surprised that the actual number is that high, but not surprised that it's a factor at all.

[VegettoEX]

I hate to rain on the parade, but 403 responses doesn't seem statistically significant to me.

Hard for me to tell browsing through the Japanese article's text, but do they address this at all?

[ParkerAL]

I hate to rain on the parade, but 403 responses doesn't seem statistically significant to me.

Hard for me to tell browsing through the Japanese article's text, but do they address this at all?

My statistics is a bit rusty, but it depends on the size of the population they're sampling (Japanese college students) and whether their survey methods captured a representative sample.

For instance, polling organizations like Gallup and the Pew Research Center typically use (to my understanding) a random sample size of about 1,000 or 1,500 people to measure views of the national U.S. adult population for single polls.

http://www.pewresearch.org/methodology/ ... /sampling/

On paper, 403 sounds like a reasonable sample size, since the number of Japanese college students is of course much smaller than the United State's adult population. Does the Japanese text mention a margin of error? What were the methods used to select people to interview?

[DBZAOTA482]

This is pure blasphemy.

[Shiyonasan]

I hate to rain on the parade, but 403 responses doesn't seem statistically significant to me.

I won't argue with you there. A larger poll such as 1,000 or 2,000 people would be much more accurate.

Hard for me to tell browsing through the Japanese article's text, but do they address this at all?

I can't read Japanese, but the Google Translation (I know, I know, not exactly a completely reliable translation) says that some of the college students were from different prefectures:

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... t=&act=url

Also, Anime News Network says that My Navi Student conducted the poll, which I believe is this website right here (I don't see the poll on there, however):

https://gakumado.mynavi.jp/

My Navi itself seems to be a significant company which has a variety of services:

http://www.mynavi.jp/eng/company/

Regardless of this poll though, I have to imagine that there's a significant number of Japanese college students who haven't read the Dragon Ball manga. Perhaps more have watched the Dragon Ball anime than the Dragon Ball manga.

Also, as Herms said on Twitter, it would be better to meaningfully assess that figure with more information and context. Perhaps it would be better to show a graph with how many Japanese college students have read other popular shonen series compared to Dragon Ball and how many Japanese college students have watched the Dragon Ball anime compared to the Dragon Ball manga.

[Michsi]

It's not impossible considering most of those college students were probably born right around DB was ending, but 84% does seem a lot.

[Hellspawn28]

I guess most casuals only seen the anime and not reading the manga. Not too surprising to be honest. I also do tend to watch the anime first before reading the manga with more series. I saw the Devilman OVA's first before I read the manga and saw the 70's TV series. I'm also watching Akame Ga Kill and One Punch Man right now, but I plan to read the manga when I finish both of them.

[Lord Beerus]

I agree with VegettoEX and think asking more people in the survey would have provided a more representative sample of data.