Renting a bookstore was once an extremely common existence in the streets and alleys of Taiwan. In that era when the comic ecology has not been destroyed by online piracy, it has left us many common memories.
For example, most boys would choose to read in the store at that time, while girls would often rent it home and read it slowly. But no matter what kind of consumption you have with renting a bookstore, you may find that you are a little late when you walk into the store excitedly and prepare to pick up the latest episode of a work in the new book area, which leads to the book being rented out or someone reading it in the store. Therefore, you have to suppress the expectation and wait for the time to come when it is your turn. The limited number of
The feeling of being able to see who can only see the quick and quick is sometimes regrettable, and it may also be that you want to rush to the previous customer to snatch the book away, but the strange thing is that the helpless waiting seems to make the comics or novels at that time look a little better, and even make people cherish it more.
is not just a reader, but also a better past for some publishers. Some popular new comics, or martial arts or romance novels written by popular writers, often purchase more than one book in the same store. In addition, the number of bookstores rented in Taiwan at that time also made publishers not need to worry too much about the number of readers buying - because just by bringing books to the basic base of bookstores, sales are already impressive enough compared to the current situation.
In contrast, in most people's impression, Japan, a major comic country, attaches more importance to the market that readers buy, and even fewer bookstores on the road, and was even described as an ancient industry that young people had never heard of in TV programs.
However, Rental Bookstore actually had a very glorious time in Japan, and its grand occasion even surpassed the past Taiwan. There are many master cartoonists, and it was in that context that they began their painting career.
According to the "Research on Modern Loan Honya" by Japanese scholar Chiyoji Researcher Nagato, the origin of Japan's book rental industry can be traced back to at least the 17th century. For the common people of , during the Edo period, it is a more common reading channel than buying books directly.
However, if we talk about the real prosperity of renting a bookstore, it still belongs to the period after World War II ended.
WWII just ended, most people's lives were poorer. Even paper with excellent quality became one of the items controlled by the government under the political and economic influence at that time. Therefore, cheap paper with low quality has become the first choice for many comics.
Before the war, books printed on this type of paper were mostly red, so they were called "Akabu" and were mainly used as a carrier of works such as some types of novels, comics and picture books. In 1947, after the war, the Japanese manga revolutionary work " Xinbaodao " of Tezuka Osamu was launched in the form of Akamoto and successfully achieved sales of more than 400,000 copies, which also caused the trend of Akamoto manga to swept across Japan.
At that time, most of the publishers that specialized in publishing Akamoto comics were located in Osaka , and the main sales locations were black market vendors and snack shops. Compared with ordinary books, Akamoto manga is more classified as a toy, under the political situation at that time, it had a more free creative environment and its content was closer to popular culture. Celebrities such as Mikami Skylark or Lidaoshan may become the material in the book.
The original Akamoto manga had only 32 pages. As the market competition became increasingly fierce, the number of pages began to increase one after another. In the end, due to the sharp increase in costs, the price of Akamoto manga finally reached more than 100 yen, and thus there was a significant stagnation in sales.The situation of
has made the industry of renting a bookstore prosperous. The publishing house that originally distributed Akamoto comics has also begun to shift its goals. After improving the quality of printing and binding, it has launched the "Daiben Comics" that cannot be bought in the bookstore, but is specially issued by renting the bookstore (if the person who wants to buy it can only buy it by mail ordering from the publishing house).
The main customer group of bookstores is the teenagers who have entered social work. Since it was not long before the end of the war, not every family had a way to provide their children with their children's studies, when living standards were poor, renting a bookstore that could read comics at a low price became the main source of entertainment for this vast ethnic group.
In the heyday of bookstore rental in the 1950s, the price of Yidaiben comics was about 100 to 150 yen, the amount of membership was 20 yuan, and the price of a comic for three days and two nights was 10 to 20 yuan.
According to a survey in 1955, there were about 30,000 bookstores in Japan at that time. If you find it difficult to determine the amount of this number, then another number is also provided for your reference. According to statistics in 2020, there are nearly 15,000 stores in Taiwan's five major supermarkets, including 7-11 and the whole family. In other words, the number of bookstores in Japan at that time was about twice the number of supermarkets in Taiwan today.
In addition, the same survey also showed that at that time, the number of members in the bookstore with a number of members between 1,000 and 1,500 people had about 150 to 200 visitors per day, and each book would be rented about 50 times on average. So, from a simple calculation, it is probably the extent to which each comic can earn about 4 times after deducting the cost of purchasing a book.
Due to the prosperity of bookstores, the demand for bookstores has also increased rapidly in the short term. As for the style of works, compared with the mainstream trend of Tokyo that focuses on the children's market, the bookstore customers are relatively mature, and thus develop a type called "drama".
In addition to the more realistic style of the painting, it also has more cinematic characteristics in the use of style and perspective. Even the story theme is more adult-oriented. Judging from the current classification, it feels closer to youth comics.
. At that time, he entered the industry and later shone out and was regarded as a master-level cartoonist. They included Mizuki Shigeru (Mizuki しげる) in "Kitaro" (ゲゲゲゲゲの天), Hikaru Ikegami (Kitaro) in "Kitaro" (ゲゲゲゲゲゲゲ), Hikaru Ikegami (Kitaro) in "Kitaro" (ゲゲゲゲゲゲゲ), Hikaru Ikegami in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Iron Man 28", and Fujio Akatsuka in "Komatsu Jun" (おそ Matsukuku) and others.
However, even though it was so prosperous at one time, the boom of bookstores back then finally became a flash in the pan era when technology was rapidly advancing and lifestyles changed rapidly.
When time came to the 1960s, with the takeoff of Japan's economy, television also quickly became popular in the homes of ordinary people, and was promoted to become the main source of entertainment for young people.
As for the perspective of reading, the Japanese government has gradually built more and more public libraries. In addition, the mainstream comic magazine has changed from monthly to weekly form. Many comic bookmakers have also moved to the battlefield to weekly serialization. This has caused the prosperity of renting a bookstore to decline in a short period of time, and has also changed the consumption form of the Japanese comic market to be mainly purchase-oriented, making many publishers that specialize in publishing a bookstore almost disappear with the rented a bookstore by 1969.
For a long time, many comics were almost forgotten. Until 1995, Tatsumi Kazuyuki (Takimi Yushi) began to serialize the autobiography "Drafting Drift", and the morning drama "The Wife of Kitaro" (ゲゲゲゲゲゲの女) adapted from the autobiography of Shigeru Mizuki's wife Takerakuto in 2010. This awakened the memories related to the grand occasion of renting a bookstore, and then made many comics reprinted one after another, adding the almost lost important chapter in the history of Japanese comics for today's readers.
Nowadays, although the specialized bookstores have almost completely disappeared in Japan, some video rental stores have introduced comic rental services. In addition, comics tea shops mainly based on internal reading, and e-book rental forms, etc., are all equivalent to another new type of book rental culture.
As for in Taiwan, bookstores were first hit with the arrival of the Internet era. Now that smart phones, tablets and e-book readers are popular, it has been reduced a lot. Even video rental stores have been replaced by online rental and streaming platforms, causing the same type of comic platforms to rise, and Taiwan's current bookstore rental ecosystem, just like Japan decades ago, is probably only one step away from being almost extinct.
Many times, the changes of the times come so quickly, but at the same time, silently, making us unconsciously change the way of cultural transmission, but also making these ways push us forward, which is simply difficult to resist.
Fortunately, we always have memories. If you are more lucky, maybe you are near your home, and there is still a bookstore that is still working hard.
Occasionally, even if you just read a comic. In an environment surrounded by comics and novels, it may not have any specific purpose, just searching between bookshelfs is not interesting, isn’t it also interesting?
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