It is often heard that young people do not read and that comics serve to hook them into reading. The available data point in a different direction: reading comics is already an established practice among young people in the United Kingdom, and in Spain, comic reading is growing. However, the studies I have located measure different magnitudes, in different countries and ages, and none answer how many Spanish adolescents read manga.
Spain: 14.3% and a breakdown that demands caution
The 2025 Reading Habits and Book Purchasing in Spain barometer, prepared by Conecta for the Federation of Publishers' Guilds in January 2026, interviewed 4,800 people aged 14 or over. It counts as a reader anyone who reads at least once a quarter.
According to its results note of 22 January 2026, 14.3% of the population reads comics, 38% more than in 2020.
The barometer includes a reading-by-age chart with a specific column for comics. The automatic extraction consulted does not allow each figure to be assigned to its bracket with certainty, so I do not reproduce values that I have not been able to read directly. The data exists in the source; the deficiency lies in its accessibility for this review, not in the study. Nor have I located a manga figure separate from that of comics.
To place youth reading in general: in the table "Readers of books in free time for leisure", on page 35, 76.9% of people aged 14 to 24 read books for leisure, 1.6 percentage points more than in 2024. It is another measure: it counts books, not comics, and does not allow one to deduce what part of that reading is comics.
United Kingdom: four out of ten read comics every month
The National Literacy Trust published on 18 March 2024 Children and young people’s engagement with comics in 2023, by Christina Clark, Lucy Starbuck Braidley, Aimee Cole and Elena Chamberlain. It analyses the Annual Literacy Survey, with data collected at the beginning of 2023 among 64,066 children and young people aged 8 to 18 in the United Kingdom. It counts reading on paper, on screen, or both.
The main result: 40.3% read comics or graphic novels at least once a month. An introductory PDF mentions 40.7% when describing another question; I retain the 40.3% from the institutional summary.
| Age | Reads comics or graphic novels at least once a month |
|---|---|
| 8 to 11 years of age | 49,7 % |
| 11 to 14 years of age | 40,5 % |
| 14 to 16 years of age | 31,4 % |
| 16 to 18 years of age | 32,1 % |
The percentage declines with age, yet among 16-18 year olds, nearly one third continues to read them monthly.
United States: manga in high school libraries
School Library Journal published its 2023 Graphic Novels Survey on 3 October 2023. It invited a random sample of libraries to participate via email and received 861 responses: 531 from school libraries and 330 from youth public libraries. Fieldwork was conducted from 1 to 17 May 2023; the data is unweighted, and the survey was sponsored by Kodansha, a manga publisher.
The result: manga accounted for 43% of graphic novel acquisitions in secondary schools. The baseline is significant: these are acquisitions reported by librarians, not student purchases or national sales figures. It indicates what libraries purchase, not what adolescents read.
Why they cannot be combined
| Study | Country | Target demographic | Frequency | Metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FGEE Barometer | Spain | Population aged 14 and over | At least once per quarter | Reported comic book readership |
| National Literacy Trust | United Kingdom | Young people aged 8 to 18 | At least once per month | Reported comic and graphic novel readership |
| School Library Journal | United States | Librarians | Not applicable | Library acquisitions |
Readers who engage once a month and those who engage once a quarter are not measured equally. Furthermore, surveying young people, the general population, or librarians yields distinct results, as does comparing disparate nations. Consequently, one cannot assert that young Spaniards read more or fewer comics than their British counterparts.
Limitations of the findings
It may be stated that comics are an established reading practice among young people in the United Kingdom, that manga constitutes a significant portion of secondary school library acquisitions in the United States, and that comic readership is increasing in Spain, reaching 14.3% of the population.
It cannot be stated how many Spanish adolescents read comics or manga: that age-specific data remains unavailable.
In my estimation, treating comics as a resource to encourage reading among young people presupposes that they do not read. The available data demonstrates that they read comics in other countries and that readership is growing in Spain. Accordingly, this website approaches manga and comics as a culture of reading and creation, rather than a mere incentive.
The supply-side perspective is available at The comic market in Spain. To clarify the terminology, see Manga, manhwa, webtoon and comic: definitions of each term.
An open conversation
This text distinguishes between verified figures, inconsistent figures, and interpretation. If you work in publishing, bookselling, libraries, or reading research and can clarify any data, you may write to me.
The author's relationship to the cases
There is no financial, professional, or collection-based relationship with the National Literacy Trust, School Library Journal, Kodansha, Conecta, the Federation of Publishers' Guilds, or the Ministry of Culture.
Sources
- Federation of Publishers' Guilds, Reading and Book Purchasing Habits in Spain 2025 (PDF).
- Ministry of Culture, 2025 reading habits barometer, 22 January 2026.
- National Literacy Trust, Children and young people’s engagement with comics in 2023.
- National Literacy Trust, full report (PDF).
- School Library Journal, "Graphic Novels, Manga Explode in Popularity Among Students: SLJ Survey", 3 October 2023.
- School Library Journal, 2023 Graphic Novels Survey (PDF).