Ummm...

And the added benifit of carrying your entire library on a single device as opposed to lugging around a dozen books has no appeal to you?

Just sayin'...

Yeah? That's kind of crazy, but I live in the US so I haven't seen prices like that for any manga, at least in my local comic shops. I've seen prices like that for comics but never for manga. Usually if I go looking for titles it usually find them ramging from $7 to $16 and some change. Only time they might get higher than that is if it involves those books that have more than one volume in it.

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I personally like the feel of reading off normal paper over a screen but if you want to carry a library around of course electronic copy is easier. Normal novels would be better to carry around in print for the time than manga which doesn't take too long to read.

~15CAD after taxes for a printed book. Actually around the same for some paperbacks but manga usually come in 5+ volumes so added together it's much more expensive. Selected average however, going by single book.

For me, "expensive" is relative to whatever income I'm pulling in at the time.

That said, I live in the U.S and manga prices can vary between $7~16 USD (not counting collections/omnibus/multipacks/etc) and thats not TOO expensive. Kinda.

The REAL problem is that some series drag on for sooooooooooooooo long that I flat-out refuse to buy/collect them (theres no way in hell I'm buying 50+ volumes of Bleach at $~10 USD each) or (in rare cases) they're simply dropped mid-series (the seven volumes of Keroro Gunsou I already bought got donated to the library; cause, guess what? I don't know Japanese and therefore can't finish reading the series! ).

Price? It really depends on the language. For some reason Taiwanese-printed chinese manga costs around SG$7 (about US$5.50). Locally printed chinese manga costs around SG$5 (US$4~) , but it uses recycled paper and has really poor bindings that tend to fall apart after a couple of years.

English translated mangas are the ones that typically costs a bomb to buy, it's around SG$11 (US$9~), give or take couple of dollars depending on the publisher. So I would usually stay away from those, despite the fact that I'm more comfortable reading manga in english :/

I've always bought chinese- translated manga to save my wallet... And I'll probably stick with that. Unless the eng-trans manga's price drops to a more reasonable level.

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That sad fact is that I was born in Oregon, USA, not Japan or South Korea. ;P I am a lowly factory worker, and waste all the money I should be saving for my retirement on manga, but used copies of some works can be gotten quite cheap on Amazon, for as much as a few dollars, plus 3.99 shipping. But the ones I really want usually aren't available. *breaks down and cries* (Publishers seem to have terrible taste and choose the worst books to print, but maybe that is what the public wants.) I am probably weird.

(Sometimes I am really excited to buy a manga I really want but it arrives and I discover it is printed in French or German. *blush* I need to read the descriptions more closely. Wish I was smart enough to learn a foreign language. I have a few original Japanese manga, but it's not very satisfying.)

I earn 11.45 an hour. Just for your info. A livable wage here, used with discretion and my work is often fun.

(Yay! Tin-tin!)

Last edited by nowyat at 2:55 pm, Dec 2 2012

it's just because our currency compared to USD, Rp 9,000= 1 USD

you can eat one filling meal for 10,000. 30,000+ for a meal in mall.while manga is already 20,000 to 30,000? it used to be only 9,000. and...you won't just bought one or two, but several other manga too, when combined I could spend over 200,000 just for 10 mangas O.o per month.

btw imported novel (english) cost around 150,000-200,000 usually (paperback), while local novel is around 50,000(?), while translated version is a bit more expensive.I don't follow them. english translated manga 80,000 to 100,000. I like the Imported novel,but yeah the price...i might save some money to buy one once in a while.

guess,you could say it's average when you compare the price to various things. I rarely buy them, because I don't see them worth it, since I only read once. I rarely ever bought any now, realization on how hard it is to work for money does make me feel really guilty to spend money to buy a one time read book. I always have small pocket money for my daily meal,and what I want to buy (manga,novel,dvd,etc) I started control how much I use them, they aren't much. If I spend to much I will go without meal at school...

in US money a normal pocket book would be around 7-15 US depending on the company
translated manga to my language would be around 8-10 depending on comapny
us/british versions would be around 13-15

if you compare it to other western comics here like Spiderman,X-Men,Star Wars comics,constant reprints of tintin, its extreamly cheap [they cozt like 10usd for around 60 pages each month and the belgium-french stuff can cost up to 25 if its "highbrow" popular shit like tintin]

Agree. Sometimes the illegal (no-official) one have better ink quality and better translation, for example FMA from Banzai Comic, I found it better than Elex Media version...

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ꉂꉂ(ᵔᗜᵔ*)笑

In Canada, it costs around $10-$15 at Chapters, and I've spent a lot of money buying from them until I discovered Kijiji (a site where people post ads and you can meet up with them to buy stuff). So now I buy my manga that way for about $2 to $5.

I was actually gonna buy Yotsuba&! until I found someone on there selling it for $1.75. Another ad was of a comic book store that closed and was selling new manga for $2 each (they were still in their protective wrapping, too ^^).

And of course, there's always the library, which sells good condition to falling apart mangas at $0.50, or does deals like 3/$1 or even 10/$1 !

So yeah, I'm pretty lucky these days when it comes to buying manga. I only wish I was as lucky as when it comes to buying anime DVDs T_T ($15- $25 for a movie! I'm a jobless highschool student dammit!)

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My list:FMA, Death Note, DeadmanWonderland, Code geass, Detecive Conan, Pandora Hearts, Black Butler, Loveless, Kamui, Girlfriends, Murder Princess, PsychoPass, Steins; gate, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Ghost stories (English dub)...

There are cheaper pocket-sized novels in paperback at Kinokuniya which cost around Rp 80,000. Even the licensed/translated version is around the same price or more expensive. English-translated manga mostly published by Viz (US) and Chuang Yi (SG) are cost more than Rp 100,000 these days! I ordered Strobe Edge roughly 2 weeks ago and it cost me Rp 123,000 (12.80$ USD) which is pretty expensive. Imported Japanese tankoubons (reg) after taxes and customs cost around Rp 88,000 - 95,000 (9.80$ USD/813 Yen) and I'm following 3 titles Also, monthly magazines like Betsuma or Betsucomi are around the same price. Now I can conclude, imported manga cost more than novels here. If not, they're relatively the same depends on genres and sizes.

Whether they're worth it or not it differs from one person to another. But at least getting the Indonesian-licensed manga won't hurt your pocket as much as getting the English/Viz ones. I'm still amazed to those who gets their WSJ fix on print each week with price five times more than the original price while English scanlations are out relatively almost a week before its release in Japan. I understand if they're getting the tankoubons for the sake of collection but the magazines, really? Must be a hardcore fan? Still unreasonable to me though

Last edited by amused90 at 3:21 am, Dec 3 2012

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Sleep deprived wicked child

I'm from the Netherlands and English manga go for between 10 - 15 euros here in bookshops. Some a bit higher than that, some a bit cheeper. Dutch manga are cheaper, but the release is slow.
We have some online sellers that sell cheaply though. Archonia, for example, charges about €7-8 for a volume of One Piece. Now, I don't think that's very expensive.

I live in Singapore. Hence, I buy mangas for like $8? Some cheaper, some more expensive... Usually around $8... Is it called cheap or expensive? But I am still able to buy... so in my opinion, it is the same as buying a storybook but I havent buy mangas from websites before. I wonder why I didnt think of it before. Maybe it is more expensive?

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£7 from the regular Viz line - that's probably the minimum around here - which is roughly the same as a paperback. A bit overpriced I think, but at least you can get it online with discounts or during 3 for 2 offers. Omnibus editions are a good idea, but I seem to prefer chucking my money down the drain in favour of having matching spines on my bookshelf.

It costs like $10 average here in New York, maybe a bit more now. In South Korea however, it costs like ₩4200, which is more or less 4-5 USD. I usually buy my manga in Korea since it's a lot less expensive there.

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Retired K-translator