Statistics released by Japan’s Research Institute of Publications has revealed that the sales of manga has fell to 481 billion yen (about US$4.1 billion) in 2006, a decrease of 4% from the previous year. This meant a fifth year straight in dropping sales.

In 2006, 754 million volumes of manga magazines sold in the country stood at 754 million which actually pales in comparison to the peak of 1995 which sold 1.34 billion copies.Japanese and American researchers are proposing several explanations for the drop in sales and readership numbers.

These include an overall decrease in the percentage of young people in Japan, simple lack of interest in reading, and, a growing dissatisfaction with the lack of originality found in many manga.

At the same time, as the Reseach Institute for Publications also found, sales of manga for mobile phones are rising, reaching 4.6 billion yen (US$39 million) in 2005 and as much as twice that last year.

I would actually think that maybe its because of the growing amount of merchandise in the anime/manga industry. With so many character goods, soundtracks and figurines to buy, I guess maybe Japanese are spending less money on manga. Or maybe many otaku simple ran out of space in their room to buy any more manga. =P