I do buy manga only if the series has a good impact on me, and are not too long, but if i do end up buying a series that is really long, than it's probably worth it haha Plus i live in australia where manga volumes are 17$ (AU dollars) each but in the US a volume would be around 13$ in AU dollars... its a sad cycle, that's why i go on ebay and buy the new volumes at US prices, but the Postage and handling always end up costing more then the volume themselves.. Good ol scanlations groups, where would i be without them, well ill still be here and i wouldnt be into manga as much, but hey, its all good

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There will be bloodshed

Whenever I encounter any. (._.)

So...how many manga volumes would that be? ;)

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My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show. [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] courtesy of FirstView.

Well, I started out buyin' 'em before I knew about downloading them online... And I lend 'em out. So, even if I did find all of the series I'm currently reading available online for downloading, my friends would probably threaten me until I actually bought the rest of the series. ^^;

As for numbers... ._. I'm not sure anymore. As I said earlier, I lend them out, so many have been lost. I attempted to create a list recently of how many I should have, and I think that was in the mid-500s. ><; I don't think that I have that many, though...

I've been collecting for a while so I have about 300.

Hey... Do I know you? You should make a topic in the introduction thread.

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I counted my manga the other day, just on a whim...and was shocked to find that there are almost 500 volumes in our house! (O_o) This is for three people, but still - !

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"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Well, for right now it's really not worth it, because all of my siblings love manga and my youngest sister especially has no concept of "This is mine, dammit." So anything I bought would pretty much get torn up within the first month.

When I move out, though, I do plan on buying a lot of manga. Scanlations are great, and I love being able to find out for free which manga I actually like before going out and buying them, but reading manga on paper is less of a hassle.

I refuse to buy the English translations because of the editing thing. Instead, if I find a manga I absolutely must have I go out and buy the tanks, and am happy.

I really want to build up my collection- I only have around 40 right now that I brought back with me from Japan.(I actually managed to find volumes 1 - 20 of Vagabond for 4000 yen!) But I am trying to buy only after the series is finished, so that I wont end up disappointed with something that fizzled out in the end. Scanlations help me figure out which ones I decide to buy- and really, if it weren't for scanlations I would never have thought to look at a manga in the first place.

i only get the ones i really like so i can always read them if i don't have a computer

That is so cool that you went to Japan. When you went to buy, did the vendor speak english or did you need to know some Japanese?

Awww, I hope your friends aren't bullying you. How come they don't go out and buy the manga themselves? And if it's being offered by via scanslation how come that isn't good enough for them? I suppose they are used to or spoiled by having the book version and don't want to pay for it themselves (in which case I'd call them "freeloaders", even if I could be labelled that too). ^^U


Personally, I'd be be irritated to no end (or at least for the next few days or longer...) if I lent something and then a person lost it (might be the end of the friendship/relationship). I know I'd be short tempered and fussy, but you're even saying "so many have been lost" so, how much money have you lost in the manga that disappeared? ^^;

My sister did borrow manga from a friend that bought manga in junior high and highschool. For a Sorcerer Hunters volume that had been read a lot and the book had fallen apart from the spine, she went to the trouble of taping the book back together when she borrowed it (it I think almost the entire book had fallen apart before she borrowed it though). I don't know if she used maybe enough tape to pay for a new book.

You have about 550 volumes and "don't think that" that is many? I've heard about people with collections of 1300 manga, and I think those are Japanese ones. Even then, I think those people should be the exception for how many manga to have (although there are no rules for this). Isn't 1300 enough to fill a good bookshelf or have the start of a small but well-stocked library? ;)

I don't know if the manga you bought are as cheap as Japanese ones used from Book-Off at about 100 yen, but at USA prices, didn't you spend $5500 on manga? ^^U Anyhow, correct me about anything that I may have misunderstood, like your very nice that people seem to take advantage of that (with them borrowing and losing books).


Just curious, how old is she? I guess she likes the (pretty) pictures so much that she takes the book apart? ^^U


True, paper tends to just feel better overeall when reading compared to a computer screen. Having it on paper makes an excuse for us computer addicts to turn off the computer. ;) (Although I might be just speaking for myself.)


It took me a while to realize by "editing" you meant censoring. xD Somehow I thought you didn't like how the companies have manga look when they do sound effects and such. Or maybe you do mean the latter?

So you buy raw manga volumes then? I guess you have to search online for them at shops unless the volumes are available locally (and you live in a big enough city to accommodate that market)? Do you buy them to support the mangaka or can you read the volumes too?


What do you mean by "if it weren't for scanlations I would never have thought to look at a manga in the first place"? Did you find out about manga by stumbling into a scanslation or a scanslation site/group?

How big do you think your collection would be once you've gathered more or all of the manga you want? And if it's a big number, I guess it will cost you a lot in shipping (like even more than the book is worth? ^^U) unless you pick up the manga when you stop by Japan or somewhere close to it. Maybe that will be quite a few trips back and forth. ^^U

Last edited by Takiko at 12:35 pm, May 15 2007

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My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show. [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] courtesy of FirstView.

Not directed to me, I know, oh well.

There are quite a few manga that I now buy - sometimes in both English and Japanese - that I probably wouldn't have even started to read if it weren't for scanlations. I'm much more likely to randomly download a volume of something out of curiosity than I am to spend ~$7-$10 per volume on something I'm not sure if I'll really enjoy. If I really like it, then I do definitely buy it, but with limited $$ to spend, I have to be picky about what I spend it on.

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"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Actually, she's nine *sigh* She's just that sort of a person. When she likes something, she really loves it - to death (Takes it outside with her, into the bathroom with her, sleeps with it...) Whereas I'm a total perfectionist, especially when it comes to the condition of my stuff. And like I said, she's a great advocate of sharing She has two volumes of Fruits Basket that my parents bought her for her eighth birthday, and while they're not actually torn, they're dog-eared, bent, smudged, and their spines are badly broken. I couldn't stand that.

But like I said, when I move out I'll be more than happy to buy. Curling up with a good manga is more satisfying than opening image files one at a time and squinting through the screen-glare to read them.

Ahh, Takiko, you mentioned "small well-stocked library".
That would be so awesome to have a room to devote to manga and all books and have a personal library. Catalogued too!
I guess that's one of my small dreams