It’s 11 in the morning and it’s been a while now that Jofre and Arnau haven’t taken their eyes off the cartoons. Today it’s time to laugh with Mortadelo and Filemón but in his backpack they have a wide variety of reading for the whole week. “We also like Naruto a lot,” they say almost in unison. His grandparents smile proudly at such enthusiasm. There are many days when the four of them come to the Ignasi Iglésias – Can Fabra library to read and stock up on new titles. The center is specialized in comics and manga and has, together with the Tecla Sala library, from l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, one of the richest collections in the province of Barcelona. Therefore, the brothers always find something of interest. But they are not the only ones who have decided to immerse themselves in Japanese comics these months.
The Barcelona Libraries report that, in general, the most requested and borrowed books this summer in the Catalan capital’s library network are manga. The king is K?hei Horikoshi and his My Hero Academia series of volumes, which has accumulated 185 loans as a whole since spring. It is closely followed by Koyoharu Gotouge’s Guardians of the Night and Ken Wakui’s Tokyo Revengers, as well as classics like Dragon Ball or Detective Conan.
From the Servei de Biblioteques they confirm that the trend is spreading throughout Catalonia: “Manga is the most demanded among the young public”. It would not be strange if it were repeated in more territories, especially those that have been enjoying anime for years thanks to the regional channels, “although each place has its particularity. It just so happens that manga has an appeal to children of all ages. Also those of 60 years, although it is the youngest who come closest en masse, not only in summer but throughout the year. Of course, at this time the loans multiply mainly for two reasons: because there is more leisure time and for a matter of purchasing power since they work by series that can exceed one hundred volumes, as is the case with One Piece. This causes users to buy a book but borrow the rest, sometimes five at a time, or more, to do marathons since they are usually easy reads. By proxy, it is allowed to take up to thirty, but it is not usual, ”says Julián Figueres, librarian at Gabriel García Márquez, who helps to break down the data.
Its center, which opened just over a year ago in the Sant Martí district, is devoted to the work of the Colombian Nobel Prize winner and to Latin American literature and cartoonist Francisco Ibáñez, whose comics are precisely disappearing from all libraries. “It always happens but, since his death, things have gotten worse. Something similar happens with Milan Kundera. In the list of loans, there is a growing interest in returning to his work ”.
The novel ranking, however, is led in Barcelona by Eva Baltasar y su Boulder, the work that led her to be a finalist for the Booker Prize in this past edition. It is followed closely by Irene Solà with the editorial success Canto jo i la muntanya balla, which since it won the Premi Llibres Anagrama in 2019 has not stopped succeeding, and has even become a play. There is also no shortage of names on the list such as Eva García Sáenz de Urturi, the best-selling author in Spanish this Sant Jordi, who continues to attract readers with her Kraken series; or Julia Navarro and the novel Nowhere, with which she addresses Islamic terrorism from multiple angles.
“A very beautiful phenomenon has been occurring for some time now, which is reading to women. The names mentioned correspond to the most read authors of the spring so far, which indicates that they are also the ones selected by many readers to take in their suitcases this summer. It is a global ranking of novels, which does not separate genres, but they are still the preferred ones. Along with them, yes, I must name Carmen Mola, which is actually a pseudonym, but who continues to encourage people to come to bookstores thanks to La Bestia, the book with which she won the Planeta prize”, indicates Figueres .
All these titles, together with the travel guides and some long-winded classics that are easier to access with free time, such as the Iliad or The Odyssey, circulate a lot these weeks thanks to interlibrary loan, “a free service that can be take advantage of the entire network of libraries. If you want a book and it is not in your area, we can send it whenever we have it available, not only to Barcelona but to the whole of Catalonia”, recalls Lluïsa Pardo from the Sant Andreu facilities, which do not close this month of August, between other things, due to the high demand for its comic and manga collection. “It is what is most requested.”
Another center that is also busy these days is Tecla Sala, in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, whose collection of comics and manga makes it another benchmark. “That we have such a rich collection is something that benefits us all”, applauds the deputy director Montserrat Arús, who explains that Japanese comics are also sweeping libraries that are not specialized in this subject. “In the set of libraries in l’Hospitalet, for example, the most borrowed books are Naruto and My Hero Academia.”
This reality has led more than one center to create manga reading clubs. Oriol Estrada, content advisor for the Manga Barcelona show, coordinates a few and celebrates that “in recent times, especially after the pandemic, more have emerged.” The expert also carries out manga training at the librarians’ college. “The centers are very aware of the rise of this phenomenon and more and more librarians are signing up. They know that they are the books that move the most and, in some cases, the ones that dominate the least. That is why it is important to know the subject, to offer a good service and the truth is that there has always been a very good predisposition”.
Which one to start with? “It depends on your tastes. All are a good gateway to reading. The best thing is to be recommended”, concludes Figueres.
