Go to Kyoto and not see the Manga Museum?! NEVER!
This was a lot of fun. It shed a single crystal tear of regret for the fantasttic library I could not read and strutted off to explore the museum.
They had an enormous collection of bound graphic novels and the upper walls were shelved with issues of manga magazines from all sorts of decades.
You are encouraged to take titles off the shelf and read them as you please. The collection is impressively extensive.
The manga are seperated by Shojo, Shonen, Seinen and International. They are arranged by author.
On the ground floor, they keep a collection of foreign language manga. (Which is where I enscounced myself for a while with some Osama Tezuka.) The floors above are for strictly japanese language. (Engrish aside)
They break down, production, technique, character goods and (most importantly) where the money goes!
In short, the more you sell, the more money reaches the artist/writer after the publishers/editors/magazine etc have siphoned off their share.
I rather enjoyed the handy-dandy guide to target audiences above. It was interesting to see exactly who certain series are written for. (And yes, there are magazines for people over the age of 25.)
I wasn't actually meant to take pictures (Oops!) but in fairness they really should have posted clearly visible signs.
There are also casts from the hands of visiting manga-ka, a gallery of maiko illustrations and various other things.
Here, have some images of the illustrious Lord Canti
And Some Gurren Lagann.
In all seriousness, they were showing a Gainax film special there but seeing as I have no real japanese I couldn't go see it. Hence the specific statues shown here. (Not that epic is ever a bad thing.)
I do think they need to expand their shop but that is a thought for another day. I did get a few pieces of Studio Ghibli but most of that was gifts.
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