Gawyn said:Most of the manga available in Waterstones is published in the UK by Tokyopop UK, Gollancz and Tanoshimi. I have seen very little manga published in the US in Waterstones. Places like Forbidden Planet and Travelling Man are the places where you would usually expect to find imported US manga. The reason why it is good to see manga on shelves in mainstream bookstores like WH Smiths and Waterstones is the increase in product visibility to an audience who may be unaware or only a passing awareness of the medium. This is ultimately where the growth of the industry is going to stem from and it is always encouraging to see the amount of acceptance increase in such places.Jayme said:Manga is cheaper online, about £4 -5, really is quite good, not as good as Japanese Raw prices but still alls fair, Why can't shops just start buying in the American ones more so, I only see Waterstones do that. All Manga distributer's need to do is print on a UK price as well as an American one and Canadian one.
Indeed, aside from comic shops and specialist shops where import Manga is, naturally, very common I've only really seen a significant import manga in Borders, which is hardly surprising really given that Borders are an American company. Whilst many Waterstones have a few American releases they're always been far outweighed by the UK published books.