Manga

Manga has now become an almost universal word with the spread of popular Japanese culture. It is written with the Chinese characters .

As usual, hiragana () and katakana () versions can also be found. Specialist retailers of manga as well as manga coffee shops, etc. are reasonably common in Tokyo. In their signage hiragana appears to be relatively common. For instance:

Manga kissa 24 hours Comic coffee shop 24 hours
	Manga & Intaanetto Comics and Internet

In this case, the familiarity of the word manga seems to have facilitated the practice of using only the phonetic hiragana. In addition, the tendency towards a juvenile orientation (although certainly read by adults, manga-consumption starts from childhood) may have assisted in the shift towards a simpler representation.

A Google search in August 2003 found the following distribution of forms on the Internet.

Form	No. of occurrences
	1,020,000
	739,000
	308,000