Silentfan6's Blog

Anime Relations: Tenshi na Konamaiki, Btooom!

I never gave a thought to what my manga collection means to me when growing up. All I thought about was reading cool series while picking up other titles to try. What that gave me, after years of collecting, was a hodgepodge of a collection that didn't resemble anything definitive. Over the last few years, however, I have been fortunate enough to start completing series that I already own, and by doing that I have started to form what my manga collection means to me, and how I decide what to add to it.

By focusing on completing series I already own I'm forcing myself to look for manga volumes that would fill up my "holes" in certain series. For instance, when I'm out shopping I'm now looking for five volumes of Btooom! (3, 10, 11, 13, 14) because that's all I need in order to have a full set. Limiting my focus on stray volumes has helped me shy away from impulse buys.

Over the last year, I have been able to complete numerous series and, with them conquered, I have started to be more mindful of what I want in my collection. Many of the more mainstream manga that everybody wants to read these days bore me. I'm not quite interested in yet another fighting manga, or young teens finding their place in the world anymore. I'm starting to pick up older titles that mean something to me, like Cheeky Angel because I had a huge connection to the anime long ago. But, this is also allowing me to open up to a wider range of manga that is being sold out there so that I can find the weird and obscure.

I love how manga collections can tell you about someone and now that I'm able to curate what I want in my collection, as well as letting go of some titles that I'm not interested in, I feel as if I can proudly display what kind of collector I am to the world. Or, you know, just smile at it privately with a goofy grin plastered across my face.