This week's poll is a repeat, suggested by Erratic-Hopper. We haven't done this in a decade, but I'm assuming the results will be pretty similar

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Where do you enjoy shopping the most?
Choices:
Malls - votes: 246 (12.3%)
Department stores - votes: 76 (3.8%)
Regular brick and mortar stores - votes: 125 (6.3%)
Flea Markets or garage sales - votes: 103 (5.2%)
Online shopping - votes: 625 (31.3%)
Niche or hobby Shops - votes: 245 (12.3%)
Farmers' markets - votes: 51 (2.6%)
Custom, made-to-order goods - votes: 15 (0.8%)
I don't like shopping - votes: 511 (25.6%)
There were 1997 total votes.
The poll ended: September 16th, 2023 2:47pm PDT

The convenience of online shopping is too great for us introverts

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

10 to 14 years BUT it is 10 and below for anime and US/EU comics. I turned 10 in December of 1998 and reading manga began right after the turn of the millennium for me. The early stages of widely available scans and scanlations were also around then. Pirating with a 56k modem was quite the challenge. The broadband revolution is how scans and rips could finally spread and that was in the mid-00s. I was poor when I was in elementary school, so my money was tight and going towards DC comics. Big shocker there. If not for that then I would have started earlier as I knew what manga was.

I had been reading Naruto for a full year as a tween before the anime even began in Japan (in the fall of 2002) so I jumped on board the manga trend at the very end of its "niche" stage in Germany. A regular manga reader in 2001 at the latest. The full-on explosion happened during the mid-00s but I was watching anime (in Russia) since the early 90s. Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (1988) aired in September of 1993 in Russia and was one of my first anime at age 5. This fact still puts me in the western Oldtaku camp despite being in my mid-30s rn. The OGs all watched anime in the 80s as the first concerted efforts began then. Robotech, Voltron, etc. with 1979´s Star Blazers really "blazing" a US trend. It took another 2 decades of course. Manga being published as actual tankoubon is lastly a product of the late 90s, outside of like France. They struggled way less to just import shows and manga as they were due to their own comics being recognized as art early on.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 4:19 pm, Sep 16 2023

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

I was the ripe young age of 10. It was 1998 and I picked up my first issues of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I was immediately obsessed. I also got issues of Pokemon and Sailor Moon. In these days, manga was released like American comics. Each chapter was released as single issue and then turned into a volume. I still have my old collection from the mid to late 90s and I love looking at them to this day. From there, I got into my first shoujo manga in the early 00s starting with Marmalade Boy and Kodocha. These were truly the best times to be an anime/manga/game fan.

Lol, 40 and above does not mean "getting old".🤣 What do you classify as "old"? A shame that people nowadays think of people as old when they're above 35 or so. Though for starting to read manga, it's pretty late, so it could be seen as "a bit old for starting with manga". Regardless, isn't it great when people discover manga even when they're not that young anymore? It only shows that manga have the potential to be liked by practically everyone.
I started around 18 or so. Manga weren't well known or readily available where I live until then.

I was 6 years old I think, when I became capable of reading manga on my own. Before that it was read to me aloud by family. Started with Dragon Ball and Fly (Dai no Daibouken).

Last edited by ebisu at 2:41 pm, Sep 17 2023

I was 10. I started with physical manga in a library - first series was Fruits Basket which I still like. I didn't use the internet much then and didn't know about manga sites but I discovered those within a year and naturally used them quite a lot. Manga is not affordable on a 10-year-old's income - at this time I received about £2 per week in pocket money and was also (and remain) very miserly.
I started watching anime in the same year induced by a friend. Hetalia might have actually been the first LOL.
The first time I read manga I spent about an hour figuring out how to read it left-to-right - very confusing! Within a few weeks I was opening ordinary books from the back cover.

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...Hop!

I remember when i was around 21-22 i watched berserk anime and it seemed weird to me how incoherent it was in a few places, so i looked up original, and now several years later I read overa thousand mangas and manhwas

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I am envoy from nowhere in nowhere. Nobody and nothing have sent me. And though it is impossible I exist. © Trimutius

The first manga that I read was volume 8 of Doraemon that I found in a drawer when I was 4-5 years old mmm...
It still has one of the funniest panel in manga ever for me where Doraemon got smacked on the head by flying toilet mmm...

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I will change this world mmm...
So the world can change me mmm...

10 years old and before? I remember I read Detective Conan and Doraemon as my first manga. I also read Kocchi Muitte! Mikko at that time. My brother and I shared our pocket money to collect the tankobon volumes.

But I realized there are people here who just started reading manga at 40-ish or somethung. I wonder, what did you read as your first manga? And how did you find the community?

Started reading manga around the age 10 years ( so in 5th grade) and I was reading Cardcaptor Sakura series (release by Tokyopop back in the day).

where my peers were reading the first few Harry Potter books that came out at that time... yeah still have never read Harry Potter. Oh well.

My childhood was awesome with Manga and Anime 🙂 . Thank God for them.

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Ooh, there is thunder in our hearts. ~Kate Bush

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
Echo and the Bunnymen by~The Killing Moon

fav manga sites:
*mymangaonline
*mangahere
-mangakoi
-shoujohearts
-mangapark.me
-freemanga.me
*bato.to & mangahasu.se (Mondoumuyou! Manga by Ayane Ukyou~Side Story Vacation (Part 1)
*mangamark.com
-Kissanime/kissmanga
-mangable.com
*umbalamanga.com
*mangacollection.net
-readmanga.today
-tenmanga.com
-mangayou.com/

10 to 14 years old (middle school years) for me. In particular, I believe I was 12 when I started reading my first manga Love Hina.

I started picking up many more from there, including my favorite, One Piece, at age 13... before the 4kids dub of the anime had even started airing.

Like most people here, I had seen some anime before I started reading manga. I was 7 when Pokemon started airing and I don't remember if Dragon Ball Z was on toonami starting before or after that.

Last edited by HikaruYami at 11:18 pm, Sep 19 2023

10, couple months from turning 11. Discovered Naruto and Shaman King weren’t just cartoons—and set to reading them (I think SK first, to reflect the watch order on Jetix xD).

Yikes I think I remember doing this poll last time.

I was 16 and that's also when I joined here.