Mangas

Some people say mangas spoil children, however, my parents never believed this and let me read any books I like. I enjoyed reading a monthly girl’s comic book; it costs around two pounds and I could read about 10 different stories. Some of them were short stories, but many of them are continued in to the next month. So I bought it on the day it came on sale and wanted to read it earlier than my friends. There are several girl’s comic books and I enjoyed talking about some of the stories with friends who read the same one. This formed groups and we sometimes fought with other groups who read another comic book. Everybody believed “my comic book is the best one.”

After passing from childhood I stopped buying mangas, instead I enjoy reading them at a manga cafe. One manga costs around 2 pounds, staying at a manga cafe for an hour also costs around 2 pounds so if I can read more than two mangas an hour, it works out cheaper.

After coming to Manchester, I was surprised to find mangas at the Manchester public library. I borrowed “動物のお医者さん” which means “animal doctor” but the main story is about the life of students whose major is veterinary science. The author didn’t have any knowledge of animal doctors, but she researched it and interviewed some students so the story is interesting and at the same time has some reality to it. I also enjoyed reading “Death Note” which I bought second hand from a Japanese business man in Manchester.

Recently my friend told me there are translated Japanese mangas in the public library so I went to see. She told me there’s not any particular series or famous ones; she was right I found few familiar titles there. I picked up “RAVE MASTER” because there are volumes 1, 2 and 3 so I could start reading the story from the beginning. I was also into the characters they are beautifully drawing and the best thing is the English vocabulary used is just at my level; I understood the story without using a dictionary. I searched for the manga online and found the Japanese title is “RAVE”; it’s a popular series and finishes at volume 35! It’s a long adventure story but I could only find 7 or 8 books in the library. I can read the first 13 to 18 pages on a web site free of charge but every volume of the story stops at a dramatic scene and directs me to the shopping site. If I pay around 2 pounds, I can read a whole book, however, it’s 35 volumes in total and even though each one of them costs only 2 pounds, it would cost a lot in total. I hope extra “Rave Master” comics appear in the library soon!