After finishing Fullmetal Alchemist, which is an anime that was adapted from a manga, a few years back I had promised myself that when I got enough money that FMA would be the first manga series that I would buy for myself.
I watched it during freshmen year of high school, and still have the same opinions about the show now. It is one of the greatest shows that I’ve ever watched. I wanted to start my manga collection with this series as a memento, I guess.
That ended up not being true. I sadly got into Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure around the time of me getting my first job.
When I finally got my first paycheck, I made a beeline to Barnes and Nobles and purchased JJBA, from part 1 to 2. These weren’t the single volumes, rather the big bible length books that mashed the span of each arc to at least 2 or 5 books.
For the first few days, I couldn’t hold the books with my bare hands because I feared damaging the pages, so I wore gloves. Looking back on that now makes me laugh. They were extremely expensive. Even though I was tremendously happy about my purchase and witnessing the start of the growth of my collection, I don’t think I’ll ever allow myself to spend that much money on books again.
I’m still planning to expand my Jojo collection to part 5. From part 6 to Araki’s recent releases, the series’ mangaka, I plan on getting them raw, meaning that they won’t be translated to any language. It will just be in its original form.
My most recent purchase was the 1st edition of Vagabond. A friend recommended it to me, and I’m just now getting around to reading it.
I am hopeful that one day I’ll get the chance to add FMA to my collection.
I enjoyed the way you described how each manga set made you feel after purchasing them, such as needing to wear gloves out of the fear of damaging the pages. I also liked how you mentioned that you wouldn’t be spending more money on manga series like this again to put into perspective how expensive they are. One question I’d have to you is if you plan on buying another set for a series of manga that means a lot to you like JJBA and FMA?
I liked how you mixed your memoir around your manga collection and sprinkling some anime in the beginning, along with that how your perspective changed based on collecting over the course of time. The only thing I would tinker is perhaps fix a bit of the first paragraph and describe your tastes for manga overall leading into your collection itself.