Saudi Arabia is no longer just a licensing territory; it is becoming a low-cost, high-culture-content studio.
The Cultural Caf© in Tabuk, literary arm of the Literature, Publishing & Translation Commission, has piloted a manga-writing workshop that turns Saudi settings, costumes and dialect into serialised visual narratives.
Mixed-gender teams aged 16-25 were guided through storyboarding, panel pacing and character design, then invited to submit final chapters for print and digital distribution.
The goal: replace imported Japanese titles with home-grown IP that can travel.
Why it matters to the book trade
Co-funder Manga Productions (backed by the Misk Foundation) has already trained 4,000 creatives and shipped 12 million downloads of its bilingual magazines “Manga Arabia for Youth” and “Manga Arabia for Kids”.
Riyadh is negotiating co-production treaties with Japanese, French and U.S. studios, guaranteeing overseas editorial input and built-in translation budgets – ready-made rights packages for foreign publishers.
Government scholarships now send 20-30 Saudi scriptwriters and illustrators to Tokyo’s Kadokawa Contents Academy each year; graduates return with industry-standard layouts and market data.
Content gap publishers can fill
Workshop briefs specified contemporary teen life, folklore re-tellings and futuristic Gulf cities – genres still under-served in Anglophone manga lists.
First-edition print runs (Arabic + English) are capped at 5k, leaving export editions, merchandise and audio-visual spin-offs on the table.
The View From The Beach
Saudi Arabia is no longer just a licensing territory; it is becoming a low-cost, high-culture-content studio. Acquire early, before agents start auctioning at Frankfurt.
This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsfeed,
