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Look at the picture. See all those books. Manga. Every single one of them. Then imagine the floor to be about the size of two large 7-11 outlets. That’s about how large a floor is. Now imagine a whole 3 floors that large. That’s pretty much how large a comic store is in over in Akiba. It is one of many.

Whoah. I was really overwhelmed when I first stepped in one of these shops. So many comics, So little time(and money).

Anyway, the store was divided by demographic sections. For those of you familiar with manga, Shounen（少年）, Shoujo（少女）, Josei（女性）, Seinen（青年）, and finally eroge　（エロゲ）.

Shounen = young boys
Shoujo = young girls
Josei = girls
Seinen = guys
eroge = ero manga. H-manga.

I brought a list with me, on it was written some manga I was looking for. It took me quite a while just to walk around the store all 3 floors of it, much more browse for the manga(s) I was looking for(All in Seinen section. Don’t get any ideas. -_-) I found it after a good hour’s search. Phew. 1 down 3 to go. While I was browsing I found some interesting stuff you can only seen over there. They have a whole rack of BL… what the? and the biggest surprise was, there were some boys browsing in that section. I just quickly walked away from the area.

Now then, when I couldn’t find the manga I was looking for, I gathered up my courage and asked the store clerk where to find “IRYUU” in clumsy, broken Japanese. “Iryuu manga doko desu ka?” and of course he answered me in moonspeak. Why couldn’t he just point? Ok. Plan failed. Seems like the store clerk couldn’t understand English either. luckily your friendly neighborhood otaku, saw me struggling with communication and helped me out by pointing out where to find it. Thank you my Densha otoko. I would’ve preferred a Densha Onna though.

Now I wonder, where do they get that much paper for that? Most of my friends read manga through the internet. There is already a good number of manga that can be read online, but that isn’t in anyway representative of the number mangas out there. Only if these manga could sell as electronic data, or some other format, wouldn’t it save a whole forest worth of trees? The Japanese sure love using paper.

The sheer number of manga amazes me, even today. Manga-ka. The poor man’s job.