Manga Tag

After reading Ash Brown's post over at Experiments in Manga, I decided to join in on the fun. It gave me an excuse to look through my manga collection, which is now large enough to be worth writing about.

1. What was your first manga?
It was either the first volume of Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha or one of the Battle Angel Alita volumes, I can't remember which. I do know that the first volume of Inuyasha was the first volume of manga I ever owned. I was too new to manga to realize that I'd never be able to afford to keep buying the whole series.

2. What is your most expensive manga?
I don't own much in the way of expensive manga. If a series goes out of print, I either read it via the library or keep an eye out for cheap volumes at used bookstores or online. Yen Press's hardcover releases of A Bride's Story are probably the most expensive individual manga volumes I've ever purchased. If I answer this question on a series level, however, things get a little more interesting. I've probably spent more on Fruits Basket than I have on any other series in my collection. I own all the volumes and bought almost all of them brand new, as they were being released.

3. What was your least expensive manga?
I don't recall ever having been given manga as a gift, so that leaves the $1 clearance volumes I've picked up over the years. The only one I can remember at the moment is a random volume of DNAngel.

4. What is the most boring manga you own?
This one's tough to answer, since I try to avoid buying manga I think will be boring. Maybe Masayuki Takano's Blood Alone? The first omnibus volume is awfully dull for something starring a young vampire. I've kept it because I keep intending to read the next volume, but I still haven't gotten around to it. If I expand this question to include things I've read or tried to read, the answer would either be Japan, Inc. (a manga based on information from a Japanese economics textbook) or The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology.

5. What is your favorite manga series?
I have so many I love that this question is extremely hard. Maybe Kaoru Mori's Emma, even though parts of it are a bit melodramatic. Mori's artwork is gorgeous, and she can pack so much into her characters. I love Mori's A Bride's Story, too, although I'm behind on reading that one. Oh, and I also love Yoshiki Nakamura's Skip Beat!, which somehow still hasn't gotten old after so many volumes. I haven't bought any of it, because of the expense and the shelf space it'd take up, but I probably should.

6. What is the most relatable manga series you own?
Another hard question, mainly because “relatability” is not really something I look for when I'm manga shopping. I'm going to go with Tramps Like Us for this one. No, I'm not keeping a young man as a pet in my apartment, but I can relate to the need to find someone with whom you can just relax and be yourself.

7. What is one manga you own that is based off an anime?
I could be wrong about this, but I don't think I own a single manga based on an anime. Not one. I own manga based on visual novels and light novels, but nothing based on anime. I don't think I've even checked out very many from the library. In most cases, I look at them and decide I'd rather just re-watch the anime.

8. What is your rarest manga?
I own quite a few manga that are now out of print, but a few quick searches on Amazon tell me that none of them really qualify as rare.

9. What is the most reprinted manga you own?
I'm having trouble coming up with a good answer for this one, because I know that many of the series I own have had at least two different releases (either single volume vs. omnibus by the same publisher, or releases from two separate publishers due to a license rescue), but I'm not sure if any of them have had more releases than the rest. I suppose I'll list Alice in the Country of Hearts and Loveless. In both cases, I own at least some of both different releases. I have the entirety of both the Yen Press and Tokyopop releases of Alice in the Country of Hearts, although the Tokyopop release was incomplete. I have the Tokyopop volumes of Loveless up until the point when Tokyopop fell apart, after which I continued with the VIZ volumes.

10. What is the most popular manga you own?
Which is more popular, Naruto or Fruits Basket? I own all of Fruits Basket and a single volume of Naruto (volume 53, which I purchased entirely because both of Naruto's parents were on the cover).

11. What is the most damaged manga you own?
My copy of the first volume of Hikaru no Go has writing in it – I bought it used and didn't notice the writing until it was too late.

12. Which manga has the most amazing art?
Kaoru Mori's A Bride's Story. I like to flip through the volumes and just sigh over the artwork. The detail she puts into textiles and characters' outfits is amazing.

13. What is the oldest published manga that you own?
Maybe CLAMP's Tokyo Babylon, which Wikipedia tells me originally ran from 1990-1993. I only have one volume of it, though.

14. What is the newest published manga you own?
Volume 6 of A Bride's Story. It was originally released in Japan on January 14, 2014, and the English release date was October 28, 2014.

15. What are some of the most recent manga you have purchased?
I just bought some today. UDON Entertainment's The Scarlet Letter (not sure if it counts, though), volume 1 of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, volumes 1-3 of xxxHOLiC: Rei, and volumes 3-4 of Bride of the Water God (Korean manhwa).

I wouldn't know who to tag, so I'm just going to say that whoever wants to join in should do so. And let me know! I'd love to see your responses.