I have a confession to make: I’m a compulsive organizer. I’ve carefully arranged my CDs by genre, composer, and opus number; I’ve divided my library into fiction and non-fiction, separating the musicology books from the historical tomes; I’ve even alphabetized my spice rack. (No, I’m not taking any medication. Why do you ask?) So when long-time reader CJ began describing her manga collection to me, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit, someone who viewed her role not as a consumer, but as a librarian or curator. CJ has generously agreed to share pictures of her collection with us, as well as to tell us a little more about herself and her manga-reading habits. Take it away, CJ!
* * *
What's Butters?!
Hello, I’m CJ! I recently graduated from college with a Bachelor’s in Biology. Other nerdy things I’m in to include anime, RPGs, South Park and Doctor Who. I’m currently living with my roommate/sweetest cat ever Butters while job hunting! Please enjoy pictures of my manga collection, I take quite a bit of pride in it!
My first manga: Tokyo Mew Mew, which I no longer have because I no longer like it. I don’t tend to keep things I no longer like or have no plans of re-reading; I try to sell them to get money for more manga. As for the oldest series I have on my shelf (in terms of when I started collecting it and is still on my shelf), probably Maison Ikkoku.
My favorite manga-ka: Osamu Tezuka and Fumi Yoshinaga — they’re the only two mangaka whose work I actively collect everything of, and they both have mini-shrines dedicated to them. I think I have every Yoshinaga work published in English so far, but doing the same for Tezuka is proving to be much more of a challenge. However, they’re both the only two manga-ka whose work I will buy without even reading the back of the book. I already know I want it.
Ode to CJ's Tezuka Collection, Vol. 1.
Ode to CJ's Tezuka Collection, Vol. 2.
How long I’ve been collecting manga: 9 years or so.
My favorite series: Banana Fish, easily, though there are many worthy contenders in my top 5, which are Maison Ikkoku, Hikaru no Go, Firefighter Daigo, and Please Save My Earth.
More of CJ's awesome collection.
Behold: the full run of Monster and volumes of MBQ!
Clearly, this woman has good taste.
The size of my collection: If I counted correctly, about 670 manga, though this is not counting the few non-manga I have and some omnibuses are counted as three, some are counted as one, so it’s a bit fuzzy.
The rarest items in my collection: Some of those volumes for Tezuka’s Phoenix are extremely rare; volume 4 of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Flower of Life quickly became rare right after I got mine; the earlier volumes of What’s Michael? are a pain to find; and just random volumes of some of my favorite series have rare volumes, like Banana Fish, Maison Ikkoku, Firefighter Daigo, and Please Save My Earth. I’ve been extremely lucky in keeping all of my organs while getting some of these. Since I got Monster and Maison Ikkoku as they came out, I never ran into that problem with those two series. The most I’ve ever paid for a single volume of manga though? $60 for volume 20 of Firefighter Daigo.
Rarities from CJ's collection. Style points for owning Club 9!
The weirdest item in my collection: Joan is a full-color manga. I don’t think it’s particular good as a manga; it feels like a sequel to a more interesting prequel that never was, but it is gorgeous as a full-color manga. I was also fortunate to meet a friend online who was living in Japan for a while and she got me the two Please Save My Earth and the Banana Fish artbooks for dirt cheap. I can’t read Japanese in the least, but you don’t have to read artbooks! The only artbooks I want were never released over here, sadly. I’ve also been having trouble finding volume 1 of Tezuka’s Adolf in English at a good price so I bought it in German. I might have to do the same for volume 5. I’m not fluent in German, but I can still get the gist of the story.
More rarities from CJ's collection.
Series that I’m actively collecting right now: Kekkaishi, Maoh: Juvenile Remix, Blue Exorcist, Arisa, Twin Spica, Venus Versus Virus, Cirque du Freak, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bokurano: Ours, Saturn Apartments, House of Five Leaves, Bride’s Story, Wandering Son, and whatever Tezuka manga Vertical pushes out next is expected on my shelves very soon. I’m up to date on some series and a good bit behind on others.
CJ's Shelves of Sorrow.
The Shelves of Sorrow Continued...
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber says
August 10, 2011 at 6:07 pmThis is excellent!
There’s not enough appreciation of manga shelves on blogs, I’ve noticed. I’d love to see this become a regular feature. :D
Katherine Dacey says
August 10, 2011 at 6:36 pmWanna volunteer your stuff? I’d be happy to feature it next month!
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber says
August 10, 2011 at 6:39 pmOh lord, I’ve have to actually organize it, but sure! I’ll even take pictures of my poor “left behind” collection at my mom’s place. :)
One day it will all be reunited!
Derek Bown says
August 10, 2011 at 6:36 pmI volunteer my bookshelves if this does become a regular feature. Though my shelves aren’t nearly as impressive. I only have around 200 volumes of manga. Though, I haven’t counted since the borders liquidation sale, so I’m probably up to 500 volumes or whatnot.
Speaking of which…to the borders mobile! There is more manga that needs to be liberated! Volumes 2 and 3 of Zombie Powder will be mine!
Katherine Dacey says
August 10, 2011 at 7:35 pmAnother volunteer! I smell a regular feature…
Justin says
August 10, 2011 at 7:00 pmErk. What a bookshelf. I have little space for my bookshelf, so I’ve had to stuff my manga in the back, so not only can I not see it, but I have to remove the front of books to get back to it-_- However, I think it would be fun to see other people’s bookshelves^^
CJ says
August 10, 2011 at 7:32 pm“I’ve had to stuff my manga in the back, so not only can I not see it, but I have to remove the front of books to get back to it”
I have to do this with my shelves too! I got a bit more shelf space recently so those aren’t yet double deep but most of my shelves are. I’ve made up some sticky notes so I can at least read the titles of the series that are back there even if I can’t see it. All I can do is take pics of what’s back there too (the Monster series is in a back row for example). Still, I’d rather it be on a shelf with a place of its own, even if it’s in the back, then in some box somewhere I hope I never get to that day!
I’m enjoying everyone’s comments on my shelves so far! Keep it up! And I hope this starts showing off bookshelves being a regular thing around here!
hamster428 says
August 10, 2011 at 8:09 pmI split mine into halves. So the first half stays in front and the latter half stays back. This way, all series get displayed :D
Katherine Dacey says
August 10, 2011 at 9:17 pmMy office is kind of a mess right now; I’m always about one bookcase shy of all the space I need for my manga (let alone the rest of my books), so I’ve also resorted to double-racking them.
JimYung says
August 11, 2011 at 11:38 amThat’s an awesome idea! Unfortunately, I’m also shelving two deep so sometimes I forget what is back there (and if the series has finished, I sometimes don’t look back there for months).
Myrah says
August 10, 2011 at 8:56 pmGood lord, and I thought I had a lot of manga! I think I’m somewhere around 350 volumes, but it gets hard to tell since I usually have at least 20 out on loan to friends and I’m continually selling volumes in order to buy new ones. (No job + collecting compulsion = broke all the time.) Still, I’d be happy to volunteer my manga if this does become a regular thing. (I hope it does, I love pictures bursting with books of any kind!) I have to confess that since I only have three bookshelves and two of those are for regular books, a good deal of my manga collection is stacked (neatly) on the floor.
I’m extremely envious of CJ’s complete runs of Hikaru no Go and Monster. I’ve only got half of the first and three of the second, and the missing spaces irk me so much!
Katherine Dacey says
August 10, 2011 at 9:15 pmThat would be awesome, Myrah — it would be great if you shared pictures of your collection!
Jade Harris says
August 10, 2011 at 9:30 pmImpressive.
Most impressive.
I could do this some time, but my collection is more insane. Not the good kind of insane, the chaos and disarray sort. Luckily, I just moved, so everything is organized by series now. I’m also trying to get rid 150 or so books which is only about a quarter of my collection…:P All of my floppy comics too, they’re just too much a hassle to store for what relatively little I have for a collector.
ZepysGirl says
August 11, 2011 at 1:44 amNot to pry, but… which series are you selling? :3
Jade Harris says
August 11, 2011 at 3:17 amIt’s mostly single volumes that didn’t really catch my attention enough to continue. The were some bigger runs of stuff like Ouran Host Club, Black God, Fruits Basket, Wild Ones, but they got sold. I’d have to look to see what’s left, I should prolly post a list at some point.
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 6:38 amNow that’s a collection I’d like to see! Would you be game to contribute?
Jade Harris says
August 11, 2011 at 6:48 pmYeah, I’d like to do this sometime too. I don’t think I have quite as many volumes as CJ here, but I have a sampling of a ton of different series plus a few relative unknowns like Dokkaida?! and Hoihoi-san.
Jade Harris says
August 11, 2011 at 7:03 pmAlso, as long as we’re allowed to open with a shameless pet drop, I’m living with six ferrets and a little dog now. We had a husky, but we had to get rid of him the other day because he started jumping the fence all the time and he was pretty wild in general. They’re planning on getting another at some point and my sister said I could get a dog of my own, plus the sixth ferret they officially made mine. :3
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 9:30 pmNow that sounds like the basis of a manga!
Shelby says
August 10, 2011 at 10:18 pmMy mother started collecting manga back when I was a small child, so she has lots of rare old manga. But she has rather specific tastes so not much outside of the shoujo demographic . She sold quite a bit back when the stock market crashed though, so I’m not sure what she has left. i only started actively collecting about a year ago, so my collecton is rather small and mostly easilly purchased titles. I have so many favorites that are either entirely out of print or have several volumes that are, so I doubt I’ll ever have all my favorites. I’d kill for your complete set of Kodocha, so example. You also have lots of other stuff that while not unfindable rings up at least $300 dollars for a complete set on ebay. I want a complete copy of Basara, but when I checked a few months ago I saw a copy of volume 20 going for over $200!
The only thing I have on my shelf that might be unusual is a complete set of St. Tail (from way back when Tokyopop was called Mixx).
hamster428 says
August 11, 2011 at 7:54 amTry your local used bookstores. One of the ones I go to has Kodocha 5-10 last I checked. As for Basara, I feel your pain. I have to order the Japanese edition for 19+20 just to have something. And yes, stalk Ebay. Although there are few cheap buy-it-now listings, there will be people auctioning off an entire set of something (you’ll just have to want it more than the next person). One bidder insisted on outbidding me on an Azumanga Daioh set last week @ $22. This week I won another set for $5 lol.
I’m on a constant book hunt myself, which is exhausting, but also fun :D
Shelby says
August 11, 2011 at 8:26 amThe problem is, there are no local used bookstores near me. The one decent bookstore we had was a Borders that closed last May. However, I did getan almost complete set of Nana for like $30 dollars during it’s closing sales. I’m still missing volumes 17-19 though.
ZepysGirl says
August 12, 2011 at 12:27 amGoHastings.com has Nana #19 new for $6.30 and #18 is available used for $4.57. The best part: standard shipping is free for books! :3 So it’s like having your own virtual used bookstore! The only downside is that their catalog is pretty hard to navigate—- but search with ISBNs and you should be fine.
I really love Hastings; it’s one of the main places I buy manga. Their products are always in great condition (even the used books look brand-new, most of the time!), and their customer service team is one of the best I’ve ever dealt with.
Shelby says
August 11, 2011 at 8:47 amI checked and my mother’s collection still has to be mostly boxed just so she can find a place for it, so most of it is still intact. She still hasn’t recovered her set of Full Moon o Sagoshite though.
Looking at my collection though, if artbooks count i might have a few. I have CLAMP’s MKR and CCS artbooks as well as Kazuya’s Minekura’s Sugarcoat. I also have an Inuyasha artbook. I also have a few so hard to find cheap BL books, I just had to unearth them and look hard enough.
@hamster428
I can’t tell you how much I want those Kodocha books . .
But I also really want a complete set of Please Save My Earth. I’m thinking of hunting down the rare volumes and then getting the rest at a Viz sale. Oh, and Pet Shop of Horrors. And Wild Act. And Tokyo Babylon. And the list goes on and on . . . My poor wallet!
hamster428 says
August 11, 2011 at 10:26 amGood luck with Please Save My Earth. I’ve seen the entire set offered for ~retail price on ebay, but not much less. My friend is still hunting down her sole missing volume (13).
I could check my used bookstore again for Kodocha if you want. They’re sold 1/2 price which would be $5 each.
ZepysGirl says
August 11, 2011 at 1:43 amI would definitely love to see this become a regular feature! I always like looking at other people’s collections, and the interview part was an awesome bonus. ^_^
I guess I could volunteer my collection as well, if you need more people. I have a decent amount of manga.
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 6:39 amExcellent—the more, the merrier!
ZepysGirl says
August 11, 2011 at 10:35 pmSo… how are we all supposed to go about this? XD A sign up list? Or should we just email you? Would you like to make this a monthly feature, a weekly feature, or a “whenever I get a new one” feature? Are there any guidelines you want us to follow?
Sorry for the 20 questions; I’m actually in a manga collecting guild, and I’d like to get the low down before pointing some of the other members over here. :)
Mason says
August 11, 2011 at 1:57 amThis is a really nice collection. I’m rather envious of that full set of Banana Fish. Gosh, I love looking at other people’s bookshelves!
I only have a couple hundred volumes myself, and since I’ve recently run out of shelf space a good chunk of my collection is in piles on the floor.
Shelby says
August 11, 2011 at 8:33 amI bought my set of Banana Fish during of Rightstuf’s bi-annual Viz sales. Then each volume is about a dollar cheaper than it usually is (which really adds up). Since their prices are already really low, it’s a pretty good bargain. They don’t keep most of their stuff in stock, so you may have to wait up to a month for it to be delivered though. Also check amazon. I hunt for individual volumes there and sometimes catch a lucky break.
Akaihane says
August 11, 2011 at 3:22 amI think you should definitely make it a regular column. I always love posts like this, being able to see what manga people loved and how they organise their collections (I have shelf OCD, so that’s really exiting to me #^^#). And if you need another collection, I’d certainly be up for it. I’ve been collecting for about 11/12 years and have almost 700 at the moment.
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 6:40 amThanks for the feedback! And yes, I’d love to have a long-time collector share his/her stuff — that would make for a very interesting column, indeed.
Travis says
August 11, 2011 at 4:15 amI don’t have much manga anymore (and what I have is only because no one has mooched it off BookMooch yet), because I either don’t save anything anymore, but I used to save everything, and at one point had about a thousand volumes. I wish I had some pictures of my bookshelves back then, but alas. (Anyway, they were hardly ever organised, since no matter how I tried to keep them neat and alpha by author, I was constantly getting new stuff and they quickly became an overflowing messy pile.)
Forest_fairy_801 says
August 11, 2011 at 10:02 amI love seeing other people’s manga shelves, so please consider making this a regular feature!
Also, organizing tips would be neat. My collection is more than 1200 now and having to keep it all on two bedroom shelves is getting a bit out of hand. I try to alphabetize, but I hate the way it looks double and triple-stacked and I’m starting to think that the living room might look great if every available inch of wall space was covered in shelves.
hamster428 says
August 11, 2011 at 10:34 am1200 and still on bedroom shelves? I’m barely managing at 500. I would love to get nice shelves and migrate them down to the family room but my parents would probably burn them for the offense (my junk needs to stay in my own bedroom) >_<
Forest_fairy_801 says
August 11, 2011 at 10:38 amOne of the shelves is a really big, sturdy, custom made piece.
Well, the bedroom is safer because no one else goes in there. People who come over would see the living room shelves. And though I’ve now exported my 5 volumes on Onmyoji there due to a lack of space in the bedroom, I feel a bit insecure. I’ve hardly told any of my friends about my manga addiction because I don’t think they would take it well.
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 9:31 pmDon’t be ashamed! I’m almost 40 and I own a lot of manga. It’s possible to live a life of the mind AND like comics without having to make apologies about your reading habits.
Aaron says
August 11, 2011 at 10:19 amWow 670 that’s alot and I thought I had a lot at 128 dang my Technological ineptness otherwise I would so be on this.
Benny B says
August 11, 2011 at 10:39 amthat is so awesome… Great collection CJ! im going to send in photos of my collection too.
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 9:32 pmLooking forward to it!
lovelyduckie says
August 11, 2011 at 11:30 amI’ll volunteer for this! Although my collection isn’t separated by anything but the size of the volumes, this way I can stack more consistently.
I actually don’t know which of my manga are rarer…I buy manga, read it, and don’t think to go back and see if it became difficult to track down. I THINK my rarest volumes are a few from Basara? Maybe a couple from Kindaichi too.
CJ says
August 11, 2011 at 2:07 pmMine’s organized by size of book too, just look at the oversized shelf! I kinda let size slide on the Tezuka shelf (which is mostly oversized) and the Yoshinaga shelf (also mostly oversized) because otherwise they’d totally flood the oversized shelf. I’m thinking I need to bleed the oversized shelf onto another one as is now, at least move the more uniformly sized series elsewhere. Dangit…
Still, it actually does annoy me that I can’t tell you how my manga are organized other than size. Sure, each of the main shelves has an important series in the front (Banana Fish, Maison Ikkoku, Hikaru no Go, and Firefighter Daigo), but after that it’s like a free for all of “whatever fits without going onto another shelf”. Closest I got was an all yellow shelf on the Banana Fish front shelf and an all white shelf for the Hikaru no Go shelf. Except for Parasyte, which I keep in rainbow-betical order cus I think it looks nicer. I’m really not sure what I’m going to do with Twin Spica since Peepo Choo told me that the standard Vertical size, being the same height as other books but slightly wider, is a bit of a massive pain to find a good storage place for. Still, too good to not collect!
At the very least, I’m trying to come up with ideas for themes for the shelves. Tezuka and Yoshinaga are the obvious themes, but Shelf of Sorrow is another one, it’s filled with publisher abandoned or creator abandoned manga that probably will never finish an English release (or it’s just too OOP for me to realistically finish). So I guess that’s one way to organize your shelves in an organization system known to no other human except you, always the best way to organize I say!
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 9:32 pmI would love to see what your collection looks like!
lovelyduckie says
August 12, 2011 at 1:58 pmI need to clean the room up a bit, but I should be done soon. Should I answer the same questions and just send you the pics and you can post it whenever you want? Also I warn you…recently I’ve had to fill two bins with older manga and store a lot on the top shelves of a few closets (running out of room right and left). So not all will be fully represented in pics lol.
safetygirl0 says
August 11, 2011 at 2:37 pmI want to volunteer! I just finished lovingly re-organizing the manga room (as that I can right now, I’m way over capacity), and I’ve been torn about where to send the pics – I don’t like ANN’s format, and CBR is more US-comics focused. I have 2000+ volumes and related collections that I want to show off. ^__^;;
And besides showing off my own stuff, I love features like this – the *joy* of owning manga!
Katherine Dacey says
August 11, 2011 at 9:34 pmWow — 2000 volumes? You’re giving the Boston Public Library a run for the money! I’d be very interested to see what a collection of that size looks like. I’m also curious how you organize so many books: Dewey Decimal? series title? author? trim size? Inquiring minds want to know!
Safetygirl says
August 12, 2011 at 12:12 am2000ish is where I am after culling down to the things I really, really want to keep. I really have a space problem at this point.
They’re organized alphabetically, but I have four “breakout” sections. I also break alphabetical order a little to keep series together that I’m finishing up in another language – for example Ultimate Venus is Big Bang Venus in France, but I prefer to have them next to each other anyway.
ZepysGirl says
August 11, 2011 at 11:56 pmYou have an entire manga room?! That’s always been my dream! ^_^
What type of manga do you collect?
Safetygirl says
August 12, 2011 at 12:20 amIt’s my office/”otaku room”, as my friends call it. It was at the top of my wish list back when I was condo-shopping, to have a room perfect for a library.
My collection runs about 2/3rds shojo, but I’ll give about anything a try. :)
llj says
August 11, 2011 at 4:02 pmI should show pics like these to my parents, who think I have too many books. My collection is a drop in the bucket compared to other fans. It doesn’t help that most of my books are in boxes most of the time because I’m frequently on the move these past few years, and I guess getting my family to help move my stuff when I do elicits the usual whining and stuff.
Oliver says
August 11, 2011 at 10:37 pmI SO have a collection worth sharing and one of a large amount of Yaoi as well (although I know some people own every Yaoi title ever published in English. I don’t, but it’s still impressive :) I LOVE the way CJ organized her Parasyte collection by the colours of the rainbow; makes me smile :) I also noticed the Maison Ikkoku shelf is double stacked-I’ve also reached this point-so it’s unfortunate we can’t see the titles underneath :(
Oliver says
August 11, 2011 at 10:39 pmI wish to see a Yaoi collection that can beat mine as I own all 25 books that Be Beautiful ever published (all OOP of course) ;)
CJ says
August 11, 2011 at 10:54 pmYAY! Thank you for noticing what I like to call “rainbow-betical order” on Parasyte! Sometimes I’ll start with red, but really I can start with any color since it somehow looks good no matter what. I don’t think I have any other series on my shelf that really lends itself to being organized that way I kinda wish I had at least one other.
Actually the Monster and MBQ shelf (just fyi, Kate, I got vol 1 of MBQ in the mail today!) is behind the Banana Fish shelf so I always do take pictures of that hidden set of manga. There’s another set of books behind the Hikaru no Go shelf too. I can only fit so many bookshelves around here, I’d rather they at least have a spot on a shelf then be lying on the floor somewhere or buried in boxes.
My Yoshinaga shelf was used as the preview pic, that is what every Yoshinaga series published in English (including the elusive Flower of Life 4, which I got before it became uber rare so I only paid list price for the book + shipping) looks like. Her yaoi series are literally the only ones that I own, I’m not big into yaoi, but I’m big into Fumi Yoshinaga!
Sebastian says
August 12, 2011 at 3:18 amThat reminds me that I really need to reorganize my own collection some time soon (and update my lists… I was lazy in the past year). Need more shelvespace first, though. I must’ve passed the 4000 mark some time ago, but the last time I made pics was in 2008 when I had less than 3000: http://home.wtal.de/caerdroia/mangacoll_2008-04.html
ZepysGirl says
August 14, 2011 at 2:22 amWow, you have a lot of series that look like they’re in English, but I don’t remember them being published here. Or you’ve got series like +Anima that I swear don’t look like that in the English Tokyopop editions. o.o Where are you importing from?
Sebastian says
August 14, 2011 at 3:24 amI’m from Germany, where there’s also a branch of Tokyopop (which, BTW, is still open and will remain so). But I also have a lot of French releases (about 1/3 to a half now, I guess). They have many interesting licenses.
Forest_fairy_801 says
August 18, 2011 at 9:04 amThank you so much for posting these pictures! I see a lot of potentially interesting French titles, like the ones by Sumeragi Natsuki. I’ll just have to add them to my next order.
Sebastian says
August 19, 2011 at 6:16 amAh, yes. Natsuki Sumeragi. I like her quasi-chinese style and it goes well with her adaptations of chinese and korean traditional stories and myths. 8 volumes were published from 2007-2009 by Akata, the manga label of Delcourt (originally published 1991-2000). Mostly single-volume story collections. I don’t think they sold that well, though. I always had problems finding them in shops and she’s written a couple more volumes that haven’t been licensed yet. Many of those newer ones are said to deal with different subjects than her earlier works, though (modern settings, co-writers like Kazuo Koike, etc.).
Here’s the Franch publisher’s list of her works: http://www.akata.fr/auteur.php?id=42
Rij says
August 12, 2011 at 3:43 amI love posts like this and would volunteer if my measly 200 volumes wouldn’t look pityful compared to some. But I guess with the amount of volunteers you have already I’d have loads more to show off by the time it got around to my turn in the spotlight.
I’m planning on getting new shelves soon and will be able to actually organize my collection. This is giving me ideas!
Tayrin_Roo says
August 13, 2011 at 10:58 pmThis is great! I just love looking at others collections and it sounds like people have a few sizable ones. Actually I’m surprized (and somewhat greatfull) that there are a few collections larger then mine (about 1100+ volumes). People where I work can’t believe I have that many books of any kind, let alone what they think of as ‘comics’. It’s nice to see that I’m not alone in my collecting.
I would be interested in seeing how others deal with the storage/display issue. I have a nice set of shelves, one of which is still partly open (gasp!), but the problem I have is keeping my ‘have read’ and ‘to read’ selections apart. Binge reading is my thing. I start a series to make sure I like it, but them get destracted from it waiting until the new volumes come out. I still collect the series, but don’t read them until I have several new volumes built up before reading a huge section of a series. This can take awhile as I tend to start at the begining of the series, re-reading the previous books before starting on the new one in the series. The last volume I read in Naruto was #27, but I’m current in the series at I think about #50+ something. I’m almost afraid to start reading this as it will takes weeks (months?) to get current on it.
Also a large section of my collection is yaoi. I don’t own everything that has come out in English, but I’m giving it a pretty good try. Still being yaoi I’m not comfortable desplaying it in the main shelves and have had to find accesable, but not highly visiable places to store them. Currenly most are in, of all places a dresser. What other solutions have people come up with?
And to thoses of you who have smaller collections, I would be interesting in seeing your collections just as much as the larger ones. There really is nothing as beautiful as a full shelf (or nice stack) of books. So show it off!
Forest_fairy_801 says
August 18, 2011 at 9:11 amI have a fair amount of yaoi, all of it shelved together with other manga. I don’t see how anyone would know what they are, unless they pulled the books out and flipped through. Most of the titles are ambiguous and the Japanese books are totally safe – their titles are just scribbles to most folks. I used to keep yaoi behind other manga in the beginning, but there are just so many now it messes up my (mostly) alphabetic shelf organization.
themooninautumn says
August 14, 2011 at 12:32 amThis is a lot of fun. I get a warm fuzzy feeling looking at other people’s shelves full of books I recognize and love. :) I’m looking forward to the ongoing feature!
Toni says
August 18, 2011 at 2:26 amI’d volunteer my collection for showing off. :) It’s only 1,137 volumes at this point… mainly because I have no more room for bookcases in a 1 bedroom apartment… but I still think it’s quite pretty.
Katherine Dacey says
August 18, 2011 at 9:13 pmHi, Toni! If you’d like to be featured in an upcoming column, send me an email through my Contact Page, and we’ll pick a date.
Naruto says
November 28, 2011 at 12:24 pmThis is a nice article admin =P