Balancing my Anime & Manga

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Nemphtis

Hunter
I’m not really sure which category this topic should belong in since it’s equally about manga as it is anime. In fact, putting it in the anime forum may make responses a little one-sided but ah well.

Something has been bothering me a little recently and I’m having trouble coming up with a solution. I’ve been trying to organise my life a little and looking at which hobbies to cut down on. At the moment, when something catches my eye in anime or manga, I check to see which was the original source and watch/read that instead of going for the one that’s based on the other, as this tends to be full of fillers or just doesn’t convert well to the new medium.

Now anime I don’t have much trouble with since it’s readily available online and in brick and mortar stores pretty often. The fansubs are quite decent most of the time and I can comfortably download and transfer it to my HDTV or iPhone/iPad to watch whilst I travel to work and what not.

Manga is another matter entirely it seems. Most of the manga I’m reading aren’t finished yet as the volumes take a while to release, especially ones in the UK that I’m collecting physically. I’ve had some bad experiences with fan translated manga online, and I find it very annoying to read manga on a monitor, maybe because I have to scroll down to read the page. This solution is solved by using my iPad for reading, but again some translations feel extremely shoddy, and I have a harder time find older manga series’ to read online.

I currently use my local library, some book stores and the Internet to get my manga, but still it’s hard getting a hold of volumes fast enough and with that big manga site shut down recently my online options have narrowed down quite a bit.

So what I’m considering is staying away from manga and just sticking to anime. Pretty much any manga that’s popular gets an anime adaptation anyway, even though they tend to suck a little compared to the source. Either that, or I’m hoping people can suggest some alternatives for me. I’m reading a bunch of manga at the moment that I started reading through the library. Now the library has stopped ordering these books so I’m looking to buy the series’ I was reading online, and this has proved tricky as trying to acquire the previous 20 volumes of something for my collection is tough. Anyone got any solutions to my problems?
 
I've always preferred anime, mostly due to laziness. I have only 2 or 3 titles which are in manga format, partly because it's not easy to find the issues, as well.

Soo, I've given up chasing mangas, I suggest a gonzo anime as the manga versions are almost identical. I noticed that the Lodoss TV series never made a good jump to anime and the original manga was better, I suspect it was inspired by, rather than created by, Ryo Mizuno as opposed to the original series.
 
The list of manga I have read is as follows:

Two volumes of Aishiteruze Baby
Several volumes of Yotsuba&!

Matters of balance do not vex me.
 
Nemphtis said:
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Manga is another matter entirely it seems. Most of the manga I’m reading aren’t finished yet as the volumes take a while to release, especially ones in the UK that I’m collecting physically. I’ve had some bad experiences with fan translated manga online, and I find it very annoying to read manga on a monitor, maybe because I have to scroll down to read the page. This solution is solved by using my iPad for reading, but again some translations feel extremely shoddy, and I have a harder time find older manga series’ to read online.

I currently use my local library, some book stores and the Internet to get my manga, but still it’s hard getting a hold of volumes fast enough and with that big manga site shut down recently my online options have narrowed down quite a bit.
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You can buy manga in the UK?
All shop stock is mostly import from the US, excluding some Viz and Tokyopop releases, which are heavily delayed as a result. Best to shop online only unless you have a local comic shop or are prepared to ask your bookshop to special order everything.

Leech aggregator sites dieing is a good thing it means people like you will have to buy manga to continue reading it. More incentive to try to buy it.

stuart-says-yes said:
Also in regards to said manga hosting website, Openmanga, the manga equivalent of Crunchyroll is opening by the end of the year, which by the sound of it will have the big three on the site, so its all good.
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Possible as all the rights are held by Viz.
I'd rather have at least the top 10 available in print tho'
 
Reaper gI said:
Leech aggregator sites dieing is a good thing it means people like you will have to buy manga to continue reading it. More incentive to try to buy it.
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I disagree. As a gamer, I don't encourage video game piracy but when it comes to manga scans, I don't mind. The reason for my hypocrisy is simple, 98% of games are released in the west swiftly and are easily available to buy legally. Manga on the other hand is, as you put it yourself, delayed for official UK releases meaning you have to order online and finding all the volumes for an older series is near impossible sometimes. If I can't find a manga through online stores and at a reasonable price, I will pirate it and not feel at all guilty.

I hope people pirate the **** out of manga so the publishers take their finger out of their arse and look into digital distribution more seriously instead of just half-arsing it. The OpenManga project which I've indeed read about is one I'm looking forward to, assuming they make the effort and don't just half-arse it just so they can say "See, you can't say we didn't try."

But yeah probably not a good idea for me to derail my own topic with a piracy debate, but I'm just saying there's a reason I used to use OneManga, and it's not out of being poor, it's more to do with getting access to the product I want much faster and being able to put it on my iPad to read on the bus or at work. Manga books easily start building up after a year and all those volumes take up needless space, I'd rather have my collection digital since I hardly have enough space left in my house for all the video games, anime DVDs and books I keep.

One last thing, the closure of OneManga hasn't encouraged me to start buying manga legally, even though I already buy most of my manga legally. It's basically the opposite. I made this topic because I'm seriously considering leaving manga all together and just sticking to anime, because acquiring one ****** volume is now too much hassle until OpenManga launches and fingers crossed it actually has the series' I'm reading. So yeah, this topic is to help me learn of any alternative methods of making my manga reading experience easier again, otherwise I don't think I can be bothered with it.
 
On a personal note I started collecting manga series seriously due to loseing access to an aggregator (through lack of internet) for a while. Started to pick volumes up after where I'd got to on the scans. Haven't realy used them since.
Still look at actual scanlations for the odd series I'm interested in, will buy the tanks if I realy like it or it gets picked up in English (don't need to like it so much if it's easy to get).
 
I've come to this conclusion a few times over now and granted I don't watch a huge amount of anime, I figured since I've always cared more about animation, I'll survive through the **** to get to the good. I've caught up with some manga before and I never feel the level of satisfaction I get from anime, its still like reading spoilers or reading it just to get the information.

That being said, I want to read Berserk at some point in my life.
 
I'm not quite sure what you're asking. I wouldn't advise "dropping" manga, since you'd be missing out on a lot of good stuff, but on the other hand I can see why it would be a bit of a pita if you were trying to buy manga in English. There is a lot of stuff out there now, though, so again I'm not quite sure what the "right" answer is, or even what the question really is.
 
ilmaestro said:
I'm not quite sure what you're asking. I wouldn't advise "dropping" manga, since you'd be missing out on a lot of good stuff, but on the other hand I can see why it would be a bit of a pita if you were trying to buy manga in English. There is a lot of stuff out there now, though, so again I'm not quite sure what the "right" answer is, or even what the question really is.
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The question is basically, after reading what options I've already tried to acquire manga, am I missing any I've not mentioned? Where the hell are you people getting your manga from, what do YOU do when you want to collect a series where the first volume was out two years ago and might be hard to find, what do you think of having to wait ages to read what the Japs have had for months, do you use fan translated manga or do you wait for the US/UK release to read your favourite series? I want to see how others go about collecting their manga so I can try and decide how I want to go about reading mine, if at all.
 
Nemphtis said:
Reaper gI said:
Leech aggregator sites dieing is a good thing it means people like you will have to buy manga to continue reading it. More incentive to try to buy it.
Click to expand...

I disagree. As a gamer, I don't encourage video game piracy but when it comes to manga scans, I don't mind. The reason for my hypocrisy is simple, 98% of games are released in the west swiftly and are easily available to buy legally. Manga on the other hand is, as you put it yourself, delayed for official UK releases meaning you have to order online and finding all the volumes for an older series is near impossible sometimes. If I can't find a manga through online stores and at a reasonable price, I will pirate it and not feel at all guilty.

I hope people pirate the **** out of manga so the publishers take their finger out of their arse and look into digital distribution more seriously instead of just half-arsing it. The OpenManga project which I've indeed read about is one I'm looking forward to, assuming they make the effort and don't just half-arse it just so they can say "See, you can't say we didn't try."
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I'm with you on this - I mean, I COULD read FMP sigma (or at least, the first few ones) in english on my PC, but I like having books in my hands when I read them. However, I'm not really sure how to answer your OP. Manga takes up more space than anime, but sometimes that whole shelf full of manga can contain some moments of absolute genius. Frankly, being more selective is a good thing, but i wouldn't rule out buying manga/anime altogether. Usually, if I really like an anime, I'll at least consider buying the manga... it's what I did with Love Actually, and am now in the process of doing with FMP. I will probably end up doing it with others too, such as FMA - that said, I'm quite selective about what I watch. :)
 
Nemphtis said:
The question is basically, after reading what options I've already tried to acquire manga, am I missing any I've not mentioned? Where the hell are you people getting your manga from, what do YOU do when you want to collect a series where the first volume was out two years ago and might be hard to find, what do you think of having to wait ages to read what the Japs have had for months, do you use fan translated manga or do you wait for the US/UK release to read your favourite series? I want to see how others go about collecting their manga so I can try and decide how I want to go about reading mine, if at all.
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You must only read realy famous stuff, I'd kill for delays between English and Japanese in months. Being 2 years behind on the English release isn't normaly that bad, most series are released every 4-6 months. Only major exceptions have been the bigger Viz titles where they just did catchup to Japan, Onepiece got 6 volumes a month. To have problems finding older volumes normaly means it's been OOP for years or you're looking in the wrong place e.g. on Amazon.co.uk not .com for Negima! NB. getting a UK release may make it harder to get online here, as it may stop import of the US ones.


For long series that are readily available in print (ones you can find multiple volumes of at a normal bookshop) I pick up a random volume from a bookshop (first volumes are a bad choice for sampling for longer series), if I like it I buy more.
If it's a series that's just getting released in English I pickup Vol 1*, possibly from a shop, so I can see if I despise the art or not. If good pre order the next one.
For rarer stuff (normal reaction should be OMG this was actualy available in English), buy volume instantly on site then check Amazon if it was good. Hope it's in print or sane prices secondhand.

As regards scans**:
if exceptionaly good, import,
if v.good, stick onto other order if making one,
if good(i.e botherd to read all), buy English pre-order if it gets a release
If worse than that, I'll drop it, frees time to read/watch all the things I've brought


*NB you only want to get first print runs if the series has a colour insert, Tokyopop and Delray don't have them in reprint runs.
** as said this isn't from aggregators so mostly sequels etc. to anime and manga I liked.
 
Reaper gI said:
I pick up a random volume from a bookshop (first volumes are a bad choice for sampling for longer series)
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Whilst I kind of agree with what you're saying here, I don't think any other volumes are any better tbh. There are lots of resources online for researching a series, from people's opinions on forums or articles written about what the content actually is like.
 
Being told it starts weak but does get much better isn't as effective as actualy checking yourself that it did. Lots of shounen or shoujo tend to introduce characters and setting slowly at the start; a volume of intros is a prety bad read. Looking at the meat of the story gives a much better idea what you're in for.
 
Yeah but how much do you need to read to see the meat of the story? Do you need to read the start and something from the middle? Does the stuff in the middle have as much impact if you haven't read the rest of the build up? etc etc There's no ideal way to do it imo.
 
Oh and another thing. When buying manga, at which point does a single volume cost too much? Would you pay £8 for the average tankobon or less? As for Amazon US, isn't there going to be an int'l postage fee when ordering from them? I assume you would buy in big bulks to save on some postage.
 
£7 for 200 pages is the point where I start to back away. I paid about that much for each volume of Suzuka (except the ones I grabbed on ebay for pennies) but would be loath to go any higher.

That's a good point: keep an eye on ebay. Many a series, part or full, goes for surprisingly little on there.
 
Yeah I picked up the first 3 volumes of Vagabond on EBay last week for just a quid which made me real happy. I didn't know that most UK manga was from the US, so now I can stop being paranoid about buying imports seeing as that's pretty much necessary it would seem.
 
I got into manga through anime, and since 80% of the **** I read was through a teen librarian who loved manga and stocked a ****-ton of it in my local branch, I never had to think much about where it was coming from. So where do you guys buy your manga from? I've only used Book Depository, Amazon and Ebay. Any other exceptionally good stores every manga enthusiast should know about?
 
Forbidden Planet and even Waterstones do carry manga - it varies in amount and availability, but they'll at least cover the basics.
 
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