In most of the typical Japanese barbershops, manga is placed for customers who are waiting in line, so they won’t get bored. (This is a common sight in places of Japan where waiting time occurs, not only in barbershops, but also in restaurants and gas stations)
A certain Japanese TV program(*WEDNESDAY DOWNTOWN) investigated 300 barbershops in Japan that had manga and conducted a survey on which manga was the most popular.
The results showed that Golgo 13 overwhelmingly took first place, leaving the second place, One Piece, far behind.
(By the way, GOLGO13 is a one of long seller manga about a ruthless, hard-boiled killer)
Here are the results:
Rank Title Number of shops
1 Golgo13 81
2 One Piece 39
3 Salaryman Kintaro 38
4 Dragon Ball 33
5 KochiKame 26
6 Doraemon 24
7 Shima Kosaku series 19
8 Detective Conan 16
9 Black Jack 14
10 Hajime no Ippo 12
This may be surprising to people outside of Japan, but in fact, it is a result that Japanese people would expect without doubt.
It is quite common that barbershop place the manga “GOLGO13” in their shop from our(Japanese) daily experience.
But still it’s hard to understand why Golgo 13 has gained such a dominant position.
In the TV program, further investigation was conducted, and some reasons for this phenomenon became apparent. The author of this manga, Takao Saito, is originally a barber and is famous among barbers world.
It is analyzed that when manga began to be placed in barbershops, Golgo 13 was chosen, and other barbers also followed the same.
However, the truth of this is not certain.
