Demand for stories focused on the elderly has grown alongside their audience: 27.7 per cent of Japanese are older than 65, up from 21.5 per cent just a decade ago. Readership cuts across society, the publishers say, from retirees looking for plots they identify with to younger Japanese watching their nation age, with growing concern about their later years. “Different social problems and concerns rise up as opposed to when society is centred around young people, and manga that show the reality of an ageing society are in demand from both readers and writers,” said Kaoru Endo, a sociology professor at Tokyo’s Gakushuin University.