The Manga Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a thread)

Sarah said:
Sadly, I find that we're what you'll have seen me describe often as 'the poor relations' when it comes to getting manga when it comes out in the US. Because we have no publishers of our own, we seem to have to wait a month for VIZ (including SuBLime) titles after the US and digital release dates and who knows what's going on with Kodansha?! Yen Press are a little more reliable but Seven Seas are a lottery (e.g. I received a Seven Seas title today I'd pre-ordered many months ago through Amazon which was released in the US on May 30th. The publication dates for Seven Seas that I pre-order tend to come and go but eventually the titles turn up.) I used to use UP1 a lot but it's quite expensive, alas, these days (P&P).

I'm always very interested to see other manga readers' experiences around the UK. Certainly Waterstones has made a big effort these last 2-3 years or so compared to how it was in the noughties but, again, they're not competitive price-wise with Amazon. Our local comic shop gave up selling manga about ten years ago but is now starting to do so again but not in a significant way. (I'm envious of your comic store, @Demelza! ;) )

Even after the paper problems, European manga publishers are very much cheaper still on the whole; the books from Hana/IDP that I regularly buy cost 7.99 euros per volume and Ototo/Taifu have recently put up their prices to 8.35/9.35 euros (this is France - @Noemi10 might fill us in on the Italian manga scene which is similar to France in many ways.)
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I haven't bought manga in Italy in a while, but prices used to be €3,20 and they went up to around €5/6. In London, I'm grateful I have Forbidden Planet and Waterstones in Piccadilly, and I saw that Foyles in Charing Cross is also trying with its manga section
 
Why don't you tell us a bit about what you've read and enjoyed before? It's difficult to recommend stuff without a starting point, being open to all genres is great but if you read a lot already you're likely to get inundated with recommendations for 'the classics'. So, it would be helpful to filter it down a bit.

If you have a MyAnimeList or Anime-Planet account, you could link to that so people can see why you've already read. :)
 
Demelza said:
Why don't you tell us a bit about what you've read and enjoyed before? It's difficult to recommend stuff without a starting point, being open to all genres is great but if you read a lot already you're likely to get inundated with recommendations for 'the classics'. So, it would be helpful to filter it down a bit.

If you have a MyAnimeList or Anime-Planet account, you could link to that so people can see why you've already read. :)
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Well, I have read Mairimashita iruma kun, toilet bound hanako kun, one piece, jjk, d gray man, death note, fairy tail, inuyasha, naruto, bleach
 
Joygirl said:
Well, I have read Mairimashita iruma kun, toilet bound hanako kun, one piece, jjk, d gray man, death note, fairy tail, inuyasha, naruto, bleach
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Sounds like you like shounen series then. My recommendations would be:

  • Blue Lock
  • Call of the Night
  • Daemons of the Shadow Realm
  • Bungo Stray Dogs
  • Edens Zero (Since you mentioned Fairy Tail and this is the authors current work)
  • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
  • Kaiju no 8
  • Noragami
  • The Case Study of Vanitas


Tried to go for some variety in themes etc, see if there's anything you particularly like there and then we could fine tune it more. :)
 
Demelza said:
Sounds like you like shounen series then. My recommendations would be:

  • Blue Lock
  • Call of the Night
  • Daemons of the Shadow Realm
  • Bungo Stray Dogs
  • Edens Zero (Since you mentioned Fairy Tail and this is the authors current work)
  • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
  • Kaiju no 8
  • Noragami
  • The Case Study of Vanitas


Tried to go for some variety in themes etc, see if there's anything you particularly like there and then we could fine tune it more. :)
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Thanks a lot!! Just what was I looking for!
 
Just received this email today:
ISBN: 9798891601505 Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! (Manga) Vol. 5

Please accept our sincere apologies, this book was due to be published, however, we have now been advised by the UK distributor that unfortunately publication has been abandoned and they are unable to confirm if any other edition will become available.

I don't think I've ever heard of a manga volume publication being abandoned long after they started taking pre-orders, have you?
 
CommanderZx2 said:
Just received this email today:
ISBN: 9798891601505 Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! (Manga) Vol. 5

Please accept our sincere apologies, this book was due to be published, however, we have now been advised by the UK distributor that unfortunately publication has been abandoned and they are unable to confirm if any other edition will become available.

I don't think I've ever heard of a manga volume publication being abandoned long after they started taking pre-orders, have you?
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Sevenseas don't even have this volume on their website. Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! Everyday Misadventures! (Manga) | Seven Seas Entertainment
 
CommanderZx2 said:
In any case I see the regular manga volume 5 is also missing on seven seas.
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Having scraped the seven seas site on the 8th of August, I can tell you that volume 5 wasn't listed back then either. Not sure if it ever was listed, but when looking through an older scrape (April 2021) there actually was mention of a volume 5 of the manga, although under a different ISBN.

Not sure what is going on, but volume 5 is somehow cursed. It was listed as "Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! (Manga) Vol. 5" on April 2021, to be released on 06 Dec 2022, ISBN 9781645058007. Searching this gives some sites that list the details of the manga (180 pages, dimension, etc...) but with the cover art of the 5th LN volume, but that one has a different ISBN 9781642750034.

So it seems this is the second time Seven Seas tried to release and cancel the fifth manga volume?!
 
Demelza said:
Volume 5 didn't even come out until March 2024 in Japan, so there was nothing for them to release at that point. They just made advance listings and then had to bin them off.
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I got really confused as Amazon Japan has the release date of volume 1 listed as July 2022. But by that time Seven Seas had already released volumes 1 through 4. But it seems there are two manga adaptations of the light novels (wiki). And searching on Amazon Japan it does seem that the first adaptation only goes up till volume 4.

So I guess that explains it being dropped the first time around. Though that makes me wonder if Seven Seas actually planned on releasing volume 5 of the second adaptation and pretend (or hope) that it follows the first adaptation?
 
IdiomaticLynx said:
I got really confused as Amazon Japan has the release date of volume 1 listed as July 2022. But by that time Seven Seas had already released volumes 1 through 4. But it seems there are two manga adaptations of the light novels (wiki). And searching on Amazon Japan it does seem that the first adaptation only goes up till volume 4.

So I guess that explains it being dropped the first time around. Though that makes me wonder if Seven Seas actually planned on releasing volume 5 of the second adaptation and pretend (or hope) that it follows the first adaptation?
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Oh my bad, I didn't realise there were two either. I doubt they intended to go for vol 5 of the second one, they probably just automatically made listings thinking there would be more. Kodansha do that as well at times.
 
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