American Shopping
I was given $75 for Barnes and Noble, so after buying a new phone and depositing some living expenses into my bank account, I decided to drop by the nearby B&N to scout out what’s good in the US.
Man, everything I wanted was expensive Viz Signature stuff. Well, that or series I have yet to complete (NHK, Karin, Hayate…) In addition to all that, I did consider buying the translated volumes of Zetsubou Sensei, as well as the Haruhi novels. They didn’t have the Haruhi novels at my local store, though. Just volume 3 of the manga. Hmm.
Also, why is Dark Horse translating Ikari Shinji Raising Project?
One thing I noticed about the manga section at this B&N was that it was a whole shelf smaller than it was before I left for Japan. Little did I know that was only the beginning of it!
Afterwords I went over to my local Best Buy with hopes of finding the first Hayate collection, only to find that the anime section had become far more depressed than it already was when I left for Dai Nippon! All of the DVDs were displayed cover forward, there was bunch of empty space, and a lot of the stuff was either sure-fire sellers or old unsold singles.
None of this felt strange, though. Neither the $10 dollar price tags on manga, or the minuscule anime DVD section. I guess I wasn’t in Japan long enough for that stuff to feel weird.
Hell, the only weird thing that happened was that I kept standing on the wrong side of the escalator.
Go pick up a copy of Faust or All You Need Is Kill. It’s what I’d do.
Honestly, as much as I like anime Zetsubou, and as much as I respect the effort, the manga really, really doesn’t translate all that well into English. I bought the first couple of volumes Del Rey put out, but I’m not feeling it. Not sure if I’ll even bother with the third at this point.
NHK is Kodansha, isn’t it? Be warned that it’s being reported they are not going to let Tokyopop renew any of their licenses, so it may well end up being the case that it becomes impossible to find if you don’t pick sharpish.
Surprised you hadn’t heard about the whole situation with Best Buy culling their anime stock even whilst you were in Japan – it was pretty big news. Heck, I don’t even live in the ‘States and I’d heard about it.
I actually work at Best Buy down in one of the southern states, but it seems like we’re one of the stores where they are starting to funnel anime stock. We even had a display right near the front door of new releases of which at least 40% were all the new anime DVDs that have come down the pipe this last week, like the NHK boxset and the Devil May Cry blu-ray/DVD complete series release.. just to name a few.
Last time I swung by the media department, I’m pretty sure I spied at least 5 copies of the first Hayate DVD as well, which I found fairly surprising, as it is a *bit* of a niche show. I confess though that I ordered Hayate through rightstuf, as the cover makes me feel slightly uncomfortable bringing it up to the registers, especially since I work there.
There are a few fellow anime lovers there, however! A few weeks ago I rung up one of the older employees who was buying a Slayers boxset. I usually have a few customers every week bringing up various Miyazaki films too; the Ponyo release seems to have sparked some interest in his work.
But I digress, because I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to locate Berserk volume 19 at any of the major bookstore chains here in town.. Borders is the only one that carries the series now, but they never seem to want to restock vol. 19! So I do feel the squeeze in that regard.
You can’t go American shopping without buying a hamburger, SUV, and big screen TV.
Actually, NHK is Kadokawa, so forget what I said about that. I will second what Omo said, though – Faust and All You Need Is Kill are both well worth picking up.
Turn toward the internet for your American-released Japanese entertainment, good sir. Amazon used and half.com are two of the better resources for finding books and DVDs very cheaply. I once found a brand new Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya vol. 3 Limited Edition on Amazon for only $15, including shipping, to name just one successful venture.
I don’t know if you’re in Boston yet but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the Haruhi novels at MYP.
You know, American bookstores have books that aren’t Japanese too.
>Amazon used and half.com are two of the better resources for finding books and DVDs very cheaply.
Amazon used has a big risk of bootlegs. Amazon doesn’t properly police it’s third party sellers. I’d suggest Rightstuf instead.
I think Zetsubou-sensei translated just fine into English, even if I did already know most of the jokes. Haven’t read all of it yet, though.
Del Rey wrote 20 pages of translation notes but didn’t notice the chapter where he goes to Comiket and Genshiken are on the other side of his table.
I buy all my shit on Amazon. Videogames, DVDs, CDs, books…all of the those things can usually be gotten for much cheaper there. I love Barnes and Noble, but I’m not paying $13.95 for one volume of the Hellsing manga when I can get it for $7 on Amazon, or $90 for a boxset at FYE when I can get it for easily half that online.
That’s cause Barnes and Noble BLOWS. Borders has a lot of manga, including everything you listed.
>Amazon used has a big risk of bootlegs.
It’s usually specified in the product information if it’s a legit American DVD. The bigger sellers wouldn’t dare to get caught peddling that kind of stuff. In any case, I have never had the problem of thinking I was getting a legit DVD and ending up with a bootleg.
However, RightStuf has many good deals as well. Their sales can bring new items down to great prices.