Manga Madness: Otaku Camera Reaches 3 Million Downloads Worldwide

Manga camera app Otaku Camera has hit three million downloads as of May 2013 (see graph below). Launched in November last year, the app helps to turn regular pictures into manga style images or collages. Despite being made in Japan, Otaku Camera sees 90 percent of its users outside of Japan with the majority of them coming from the US, Taiwan, Mexico, and Thailand.

The creator of Otaku Camera is Tokyo Otaku Mode, a niche community site for manga and cosplay fans which is proving to be very popular with over 10 million Facebook likes so far. The Japanese startup recently concluded a financing round from YJ Capital, an investment subsidiary of Yahoo Japan, along with DG Incubation, and ITOCHU Technology Ventures.

We have reached out to founder Nao Kokada about Otaku Camera’s monthly active users and its future plans. We will update if we hear back. (Update: We’re told “we started to set up banner ads inside the app and might launch paid frames in the future”. But no word on active users).