During one of my frequent adventures in the interweb I stumbled upon an interesting Flickr image entitled Manga Hobos. The title had me confused but once I saw the image I knew exactly what they were talking about.

The image has gotten around quite a bit on the net, just do a search for manga hobos (or hoboes if you prefer that plural form) and you’ll come up with quite a few relevant links.

Apparently the Japanese have a term for these people, “tachiyomi” which means something along the lines of “stand while reading”. In Japan the practice of bumming around bookstores revolves around standing since sitting just isn’t allowed.

Of course people have been slumming around magazine racks and book shelves for ages, but no genre has more squatters than manga. Perhaps it’s a good sign for the popularity of manga? Or is it a bad sign since most of these hoboes don’t actually buy anything.

Popularity: 3% [?]