I had some great luck in finding out of print manga in July: my collection of the ultimate edition of the Battle Royale manga is finally complete; I’m now only missing one print volume of Shotaro Ishinomori’s Cyborg 009; and I came across an entire set of Kyoko Ariyoshi’s Swan (or at least the volumes that were released in English.) More importantly, I managed to get them all below cover price, which is saying something. Other July manga acquisitions included a near-complete collection of Ai Yazawa’s Nana for an incredible price. I had been borrowing Nana from my local library; I’ve been debating picking up a copy of my own because it’s so good. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and finally caved. But the manga I was most excited about in July was Suehiro Maruo’s The Strange Tale of Panorama Island. I have literally been waiting for this release for years. Expect a review soon!
Manga!
Animal Land, Volumes 1-4 by Makoto Raiku
Battle Royale: Ultimate Edition, Volumes 5 written by Koushun Takami, illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi
Black Jack, Volume 7 by Osamu Tezuka
Cyborg 009, Volume 8 and 10 by Shotaro Ishinomori
The Flowers of Evil, Volume 6 by Shuzo Oshimi
The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry Chan by Ai Morinaga
Hide and Seek, Volume 1 by Yaya Sakuragi
The Last of the Mochicans by Shigeru Sugiura
Limit, Volume 6 by Keiko Suenobu
Loveless, Omnibus 4 by Yun Kouga
Math Girls Manga, Volume 1 written by Hiroshi Yuki, illustrated by Mika Hisaka
Nana, Volumes 1-20 by Ai Yazawa
Ral Ω Grad, Volumes 1-4 written by Tsuneo Takano, illustrated by Takeshi Obata
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Legends, Volume 1 by Yak Haibara
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Suehiro Maruo
The Super-Cool Life of Strawberry Chan by Ai Morinaga
Swan, Volumes 1-15 by Kyoko Ariyoshi
Triton of the Sea, Omnibus 1 by Osamu Tezuaka
The Twin Knights by Osamu Tezuka
Velveteen & Mandala by Jiro Matsumoto
Wolfsmund, Volume 1 by Mitsuhisa Kuji
Manhwa!
Aron’s Absurd Armada, Omnibus 2 by MiSun Kim
Comics!
Demeter by Becky Cloonan
Every/Body: An Open Discussion of Gender and Body by Various
Meat Cake by Dame Darcey
NNN by Dan Kim
Samurai: A Digital Tribute to Men by Various
Light Novels!
Orochi no Kishi written by Itoshi, illustrated by Lehanan Aida
Novels!
The Crimson Labyrinth by Yusuke Kishi
The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Anthologies!
The Edogawa Rampo Reader by Edogawa Rampo
Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Rampo
Anime!
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood directed by Yasuhiro Irie
The Garden of Words directed by Makoto Shinkai
X: The Movie directed by Rintaro
Music!
Kodo vs. Yosuke Yamashita in Live
Did you happen to snag your set of Swan off of ebay? I remember seeing a full set on their in recent weeks but I forgot to bid. :P
Nana is really worth owning. I debated it too, but I snagged the bulk of the series when Borders was going out of business and it was worth every penny.
Ooooh, jealous of your Swan set now.
I in fact did snag Swan off of eBay. I’ve had very good luck there finding out of print manga for good prices—it just takes a lot of time and patience.
Nana really is worth owning. I was hoping that Viz would do a 3-in-1 omnibus, but I guess I don’t have to wait for that any more!