I has them. At least I thought I did until I saw this forum thread. I’m way behind compared to some of these people. Maybe if I added in all my Shonen Jump and Shojo Beats… Anyway, that’s not to say my manga collection isn’t still growing. This month is going to be another tough Previews order. There are a lot of not just manga but comic books that are coming out that look good. A new Doctor Who (10th Doctor), a new Fathom series, and I new Voltron in addition to the titles I’ve already added over the last few months: Madame Xanadu, Indiana Jones, and Chuck.
Manga’s going to be tough too. Code Geass is finally coming out, a new Hellsing and Mushishi, and a long list of Viz I need just to keep up to date! There’s also a new Warriors series starting, and a new Pokemon Diamond and Pearl for the kids.
Tokyopop has their usually big solicitations, even though we know a lot of those are getting culled. But there is something I did notice about this month. The order of book listings has been changed. Before, all the Cine Manga was tucked back at the end of their listing with the mature/Blu line. This month, it’s at the front, right after their big promotions. Is this an indication of what books sell, and therefore will survive. There’re only two volumes I’ll order from them, Chibi Vampire and Tactics. There could be a third, but I’m not so sure right now. The second volume of the Disney Fairies is being solicited, but the first volume still hasn’t come out. I would like to know what is up with that. I also wonder, with Disney starting their own imprint, will Tokyopop be losing/giving up these licenses too?
Enough speculating. I found this site, Just Manga, a while ago. It’s actually pretty well known I’m sure, as they advertise on ANN. But, I found a feature they offer pretty interesting. It’s call My Virtual Manga Bookshelf. You have to sign up at the site to use it, but it’s free, and they don’t solicit or send you anything. After signing up, you can then go to the Virtual Manga Shelf, and start searching for the titles you own. You can add individual titles, or you can do a batch. Here’s mine: My Virtual Manga Bookshelf.
And here’s an excerpt of some of the information it gives you:
Total Manga Owned: 751 manga(s)
Total Value of My Manga Collection (in SRP): $7305.57
Genre I Seem to Like Most: Fantasy
Publisher I Bought Most:
Viz (334)
Tokyo Pop (269)
Del Rey (50)
ADV (23)
DrMaster (20)
It will also give you a graph, breaking down your list by genre, a full list of all your series’ and how many volumes in each, and who your favorite authors are.
There are a few problems I have with this. You can’t remove any titles. Once you put one in, it’s in for good, so make sure you click the right volume numbers, and don’t put in anything you don’t want to keep.
The other problem is that their selection isn’t complete. There are a few series’ I own complete, that they didn’t give me the option of adding, such as What’s Michael, and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.
For the most part though, it does give you a good idea of what you have, how much of it you have, and what you like best (if you didn’t know before). I don’t use this as a definitive list of my manga, but I do keep it up to date, just to see if my tastes change.
5 Comments
Neat website, I may check it out! It’d be great to have an online resource, especially an organized one, of what I own for referrance purposes. Though finding and adding almost 2500 manga titles seems a tad daunting for me!
I hope those Disney Fairies books come out, I had them pre-ordered but haven’t recieved any notice of them not coming out (though as you said the first still isn’t available). With DisneyPress having the rights and publication prep for a lot of the remaining Kingdom Hearts manga, it wouldn’t surprise me if they went about publishing most of their own stuff from here on out. Disney in the manga scene… bound to happen eventually I suppose.
I got all of my in in one evening. They make it pretty easy. Once you find the title, you just use the mulitple tool and just click away! You can also add full sets (when they have them), but they count as on unit and may not be an accurate book count.
I keep waiting to get a cancellation notice for Fairies. I’ve been wondering about that Disney Press too. What I really wonder about though, is that Disney is a US company with US properties that are licensed to Japan and then we are licensing back. Why doesn’t Disney just publish new titles here?
Eep and whoops! I meant 1500 books in my first comment! 😉 2500…I’d be sleeping on my books! I ended up giving it a go and an addictive couple of hours later I put most of my collection on there, save more for later and some titles I couldn’t find. It’s a great little resource for keeping track of things, especially when it comes to showing curious others.
As for DisneyPress, I’m not really sure what it’s doing right now in terms of licensing properties from overseas. I’m curious if they’re going to go all out, so to speak, and start publishing the cine-mangas they have rights to (along with future licensed manga) instead of Tokyopop. It would take a good sized chunk out of TP’s title list, possibly part of recent restructuring cutbacks?.
Also makes me curious about if Disney will print the manga they do have confirmed now (Disney Fairies, Kingdom Hearts) as original format or flipped.
You were really gonna make me jealous at 2500. Now I’m only a little jealous. 😉 You’ll have to post your link so others can check out your collection.
It would take a lot out from TP, but I don’t think its the books they want to lose. Doesn’t TP make a lot off their Cine-manga? I seem to remember seeing/hearing that somewhere… I’d think the import manga that doesn’t sell will be cut before the moneymakers.
If Disney’s smart, they won’t flip. Kids adapt so quickly to the right-to-left format. My kids only had a problem the first time, but picked it up fast. And flipping just annoys the fans and raises the price. But then again, Disney isn’t too smart…
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