Les Gouttes de Dieu

The New York Times on Les Gouttes de Dieu (神の雫, Kami no Shizuku, Drops of God), Yuko & Shin Kibayashi's ongoing manga series about wine. The comics have proved to be a informative, reliable wine resource to populations across East Asia and is read extensively among the nouveau riche frequently found in budding Asian business circles.

The comic — which appears every Thursday in Japan in a magazine called the “Weekly Morning” and has been compiled in 17 books so far — rapidly became a hit in East Asia, where people are still learning to drink wine and may feel insecure about it. Even in Japan, the region’s oldest and biggest wine market, annual per capita consumption is around 2 liters, compared with nearly 9 liters in the United States or 56 liters in France, according to the California-based Wine Institute’s figures for 2005.

In Japan, wine sellers grab copies of the magazine as soon as it comes out on Thursdays, quickly showcasing a featured wine in their stores or on their Web sites. According to Enoteca, a large chain, men in their 30s to 50s tend to ask for wines from the magazine, especially those priced around $30.

The comic’s impact has been perhaps greatest in South Korea, where the Mont Perat and other wines like Emmanuel Rouget sold out after earning praise in its pages. On their first visit to South Korea last year, the Kibayashis were stunned to be greeted like stars. Television crews filmed their arrival at the Seoul airport and they were introduced to candidates during the presidential election.

I love the fact that manga has the strength to move people to the extent where it can visibly change the economic or social atmosphere on such a large scale. Other similar examples include Yumi Hotta/Takeshi Obata's Hikaru no Go and Tomoko Ninomiya's Nodame Cantabile , which respectively had hands in resurrecting an interest in learning the traditional board game Go and classical music, especially among younger generations. On the flip side, I suppose if a manga has the power to positively change a person, would this be solid evidence to also say that exposure to media containing high violence and sexual content has a true correlation to related deviant behavior? I wonder.

Anyways, every manga is going to have its critics, and the first in line to blaspheme Les Gouttes de Dieu would probably be my beer and brewing professor. He would go into conniptions if he ever saw this title. And so, what I'm actually trying to say is that someone should probably make a comic about beer. Soon. Please?