My plan of attack involves getting most of my Bakuman, Oresama Teacher
and Yotsuba&!? volumes from Anime Expo 2013. There are usually some pretty nice discounts for NEW books at Anime Expo to try and get you to buy the manga there. The first time I went there, it was 30% off your entire purchase, so I just snagged the rest of my Spiral collection from there ;D The used books booths usually have 50% off, which is nice, but it's hard to find newer series there. Most of the titles are obscure of have been out for a long time in America (ie. Naruto, Bleach, Skip Beat). I will buy Strobe
Edge, Pokemon Adventures DPP, Soul Eater Not! and Otomen as they come out (most likely
in Barnes&Nobles where I can get a discount on them). Anything
else, I'll probably just find cheap used copies online or at BookOff
^___^
This gets even better. So lots of the series I'm collecting at the moment are coming to an end in America! They include Bakuman, Otomen and also Chocolat (manhwa).
- Bakuman ends in 20 volumes.
I've got about 6 non-consecutive volumes at the moment.
VIZ's Shonen Jump is releasing every month until they hit the last two volumes. Then they'll wait a month for those two, I believe. That's fine with me. By the time Anime Expo hits, I think it might actually finish.
Sooo... that means, if I don't find anymore volumes in the next 10 months (I'm sure I will lol) At 30% off an entire purchase, it'll cost me $90.90, plus potential tax, so that sound round up to about $100 for 13 volumes. Not bad, but I could probably do better lol.
I should be finished with this series before the end of 2013
- Otomen seems like it's ending with 17 volumes in Japan.
Volume 13 is on the way for me, that means there's only 4 volumes left to buy if that's true.
American releases of Otomen are pretty much caught up, the 14th volume is already listed for New Years. That's about a 4 month delay, and I expect it to be the same for the rest of the volumes. Japan is releasing the 16th volume later THIS month.
This allll means that I should be done with this series by the start of 2014 =]
- Chocolat will be done by the end of 2012, I don't think I need to say much about this LOL
I hope that next year, I'll hear some nice new licensing agreements! I would love to hear if VIZ is planning to do the HGSS arc after they finish DPP and Platinum, because they're finally caught up in publishing the volumes in Japan. My other hopeful is a RE-license of Gakuen Alice because that's on it's last arc in Japan, and it's one of my favorite and most precious series! Oh yes, and with the coming of Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun's anime in October and success on the Oricon manga charts, I WISH that Kodansha USA would publish it in English! That would seriously be awesome.
If I hear some news about a licensing of new works from Natsuki Takaya, Aya Nakahara, Kawahara Kazune, Izumi Tsubaki and Sakisaka Io... I will be SOOOO excited!
My final hope is that Yen Press will be able to pick up a nice new manhwa title or two next year! It's tough getting a license for Korean comics because their industry isn't as stable as Japan's comic industry. Often, series get cut left and right, plus they're only starting to get a little popular. Manhwa (currently) has a certain taste to it that's a little different than Japanese manga that caters to a whole assortment of people.
So... there are my hopes! =]
