Comments on: Manga Before Flowers -- Manga Collection Hell

By: James Prince

James Prince — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:34:15 +0000

Just remember that having an amazing manga collection comes with a price. In my case that price is much different than where to store it all. My Finance and I are planning our wedding and when she sees my manga collection she just sighs a little and says something like "All that money spent on manga and we still have two payments left on the reception hall....." or "you know if you e-bayed a few more of those series then we could easily add the ice sculptor to the buffet table". Of course in all fairness I have a collection that at this point is two and a half book shelves going two deep with manga and growing.

Ps if you do decide to cheat for more storage space then just store the books two deep and group by series, with other series stacked on their sides on top of them......and yea I have way to much manga.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:40:19 +0000

My God. Wow. I know I'm suppose to be sad for you to be so behind on your manga, to have to sell some precious manga away...ect. But I'm envious as hell. If only I have that many I'd die happy. XD But maybe it is sad if you're missing out on Banana Boat, Nana, Suppli, High School Debut and Fruits Basket. I mean, seriously! Doesn't it make you proud when you stand back and just ADMIRE your collection of manga? It just fills me with an overwhelming sense of pride for some reason. lol. I'm so proud of being an otaku.

By: jun

jun — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:21:55 +0000

My hubby built some custom shelves for his CDs using supplies from the hardware store. He found this wood that's just the right width for a CD and was able to put them a CD's height apart, too. He's talked about doing the same for my manga collection, but right now I'm okay with it as it is. If we actually did go through with it, all of the walls in the bedroom would be lined with manga.

By: Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » July 11, 2008: Forty

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:13:40 +0000

[...] Danielle Leigh discovers that there’s never enough shelf [...]

By: Doug Atkinson

Doug Atkinson — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:01:31 +0000

These photos demonstrate something I've felt for a while: Someone needs to make an inexpensive bookshelf that's scaled for paperbacks. Sauder bookshelves are fine for hardcovers, but there's a lot of wasted space unless you turn them sideways and stack them two deep; they don't always have enough holes to usefully add more shelves, either. I keep my manga on an old DVD storage shelf..and stacked in tiered shoeboxes on my bedstead...and stacked sideways and two deep on some old pressboard shelves from my college days...and just sort of piled wherever...

By: Andrew Collins

Andrew Collins — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:42:48 +0000

Ha ha! I feel your pain! I have the equivalent of SIX full size wooden bookcases full of just manga! I've sold off dozens of volumes to a local used bookstore as well, and put some complete runs up on eBay, but I still have sooooo much. And I just keep adding to it. Whenever I've looked at the shelves lately and thought about selling some, I start whimpering and crying too. At this point, it's going to take something drastic to make me pare my collection down to a more manageable level...

By: Mullon

Mullon — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:09:02 +0000

There better be a damn good reason I didn't see Excel Saga in any of those piles.

By: Danielle Leigh

Danielle Leigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:02:54 +0000

Grico -- thanks for the head's up on NANA 11, I thought it looked a little thicker than usual!

thanks to the library I'm caught up on Full Metal Alchemist (and man, Viz isn't releasing those volumes very promptly, are they?), but since I have so much shojo (my shonen collection is practically nonexistant) that is usually what remains unread.

Jim Yung -- sometimes I just want to hold the books in my hand. I wonder where the actually "reading" them as well went when comes to the whole process!

By: Grico

Grico — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:11:16 +0000

Wow behind on Nana? Watch out on Nana vol. 11. I decided to read it right before bed and found out that instead of the normal 180 ish pages it was like 230. Stayed up WAY too late. I've got a pretty big manga backlog myself, including 10 volumes of fullmetal alchemist and how ever many volumes of Trigun I actually have (they are scattered around). I never seem to get to my shounen series, although most of my shoujo gets read pretty quickly.

By: Jim Yung

Jim Yung — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:34:01 +0000

Oh boy, do I have a lot of manga unread. I'm in the same boat as you, with manga that I'm caught up with and others where I've fallen horribly behind. I still haven't touched the Astroboy collection in ages. I love books but just don't have the time to catch up on it all!

By: Danielle Leigh

Danielle Leigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:15:28 +0000

hi Greg -- the most amusing part is we aren't even planning a move in the next YEAR! (I think because we are grad students the boyfriend is always thinking about mobility in case we have to move for any reason). Still. It is quite amusing to hear him invoke "moving" when we just signed on for another year at our current rental.

Also, like your girlfriend, he understands the lure of books -- his father owned a bookstore -- but he's kind of anti-clutter because his kept so many of his books even after he sold his store.

By: Danielle Leigh

Danielle Leigh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:12:24 +0000

hi jun! Yeah, my sister and brother-in-law are huge record collectors (it would be hard to judge who spent more money on their collections...probably sis because she's been collecting for over a decade while I've been collecting for three years). Also I have such a hard time letting go of certain things...even if I *know* the re-read factor is low I'm always like...well what if I feel like reading Penguin Revolution again next fall? (I know. I'm just sad is what I am). And then I've made mistakes (getting rid of Cantarella for instance, when I wish now I hadn't.)

By: Greg Hatcher

Greg Hatcher — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:11:58 +0000

One of the major reasons I married Julie was because when she saw my apartment her response was not a horrified, "Have you READ all those books?" but rather a joyful, "Oh, look at all the books!" Of course, we've moved twice since then. And there's nothing like moving to motivate you to prune the collection. Still, though, we chose our current apartment so I could have a book room/office. And the books are threatening to crowd the office out.

By: jun

jun — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:41:31 +0000

Ha, that ain't nothin'! I have 6 FULL plastic under-the-bed bins of manga plus four or five towering stacks of manga to read. Luckily, my husband is also a collector (of records, in his case) and doesn't pressure me to get rid of any of it. Still, I do self-prune and if I finish something and don't think it has reread potential, I'll sell it or donate it to the local library.