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A little guide to buying German manga




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Tamaria



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 1512
Location: De Achterhoek
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 1:52 pm Reply with quote
Since multiple people showed interest in buying German editions of unfinished Tokyopop titles, I thought this might be helpful.

First of all, there are four major German manga publishers:
Tokyopop: www.tokyopop.de
Carlsen Manga: www.carlsen.de
Egmont Manga & Anime (EMA): www.manganet.de
Manga Planet/Panini: www.paninicomics.de

Tokyopop Germany is a very different from the American Tokyopop (in a good way). For instance, they also publish some series from Shounen Jump (Gintama!).

Carlsen Manga offers a nice mix of everything. Don't forget to check out the graphic novel subsection. That's where you can get your Tezuka or Taniguchi fix. I recommend their edition of Adolf.

EMA used to be one the big two, but Tokyopop took that spot from them. Imagine EMA as a mix of DMP and Kodansha/Del Rey. If you're a Bl fan, don't forget the 'romance' section as well. Some titles that we classify as BL can be found there instead of in the BL section.

Panini is a lot like Dark Horse. Lots of seinen manga and high standards.

Please note that some series might be titled differently in Germany. You can look up the German titles using the ANN database.

Most of these publishers have their own store, but shipping can be quite expensive if you don't live in Germany. Two of the best sites to get German manga from are:
www.amazon.de
www.bookdepository.com

You can find pretty much any manga ever released in German on Amazon. Shipping to the USA/Canada isn't cheap though.

Bookdepository is probably the most convenient place to order from. They're selection isn't as good as Amazon's, but their prices more than make up for it. Also, shipping is FREE! Don't forget to use 'advanced search' and choose 'German' when searching for German manga or you may have to wade through dozens of pages of English manga before you get to the stuff you want.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:06 pm Reply with quote
Awesome guide, Tamaria! I was unaware of anyone but Tokyopop and now I know of the other three too!

I've wanted to get Adolf for ages, but I'll admit that volume 1 in English is ridiculously expensive, so expensive that ordering it on amazon and having shipping over here would cost maybe 1/5th of what an English copy would cost (I've gotten to read the series at least! Thank you, University library!). I'd still probably get vol 2-5 in English since it is my primary language and they are pretty cheap.

I've looked up prices via converter, they don't look too significantly different than English prices, so it's the shipping that would kill me it seems.

*sigh* if only I could read French my collection would be in serious danger of overload (Roses of Versailles and more Tezuka?! Awesomeness!)

Only problem for me is that none of those publishers seem to have Future Diary or Demon Sacred Sad Oh well, Tokyopop does have Elfen Lied and Carlsen does have Adolf!
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Tamaria



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 1512
Location: De Achterhoek
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:10 pm Reply with quote
Quote:

I've looked up prices via converter, they don't look too significantly different than English prices, so it's the shipping that would kill me it seems.


Not if you order from Bookdepository Smile Free shipping worldwide!
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:26 pm Reply with quote
Tamaria wrote:
Quote:

I've looked up prices via converter, they don't look too significantly different than English prices, so it's the shipping that would kill me it seems.


Not if you order from Bookdepository Smile Free shipping worldwide!

Oho! I did not know that! Well doesn't that make me as happy as a clam!
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ReaKon



Joined: 30 Dec 2010
Posts: 127
Location: UK
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Tamaria wrote:
Quote:

I've looked up prices via converter, they don't look too significantly different than English prices, so it's the shipping that would kill me it seems.


Not if you order from Bookdepository Smile Free shipping worldwide!


One thing I have noticed with this though is that the book prices are more expensive outside of the UK. I work for a German company in the UK and so the internet servers there are German The book prices are still lower than RRP for outside of the UK, but are even lower inside. Not that I am complaining, being in the UK and all, but I have to order them while at home. I am assuming this reflects the higher postage costs but it doesn't matter to someone who shops around as it is all relative.
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LKK



Joined: 31 Oct 2007
Posts: 426
Location: Virginia, USA
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:07 pm Reply with quote
Thank you, Tamaria. I can't read a lick of German. But I suspect I'd do better trying to translate German to English than I would translating Japanese to English. Your information may become very useful in my future. Smile
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bahamut623



Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1463
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:22 pm Reply with quote
Also, there's a company in Singapore that does manga in English (in addition to Chinese):

http://www.chuangyi.com.sg/new2/listallone.php

I don't really know what their quality is like, but just thought I'd let people know they exist. And they have several titles that Tokyopop was releasing.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 5:12 pm Reply with quote
@bahamut623
Wow! I had no idea that Singapore published manga in English! Although, some country, I forget which, did dub K-ON into English, it didn't sound a bad attempt from what I listened to of it. Wikipedia does say that English is one of Singapore's official languages and the site checks out as legit. As you say, we've no idea the actual quality of translations, but it's a cool site to keep in mind.
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Moomintroll



Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 1600
Location: Nottingham (UK)
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 6:30 pm Reply with quote
For those who don't want to learn German, Madman publish various manga titles in Australia, some of which were Tokyopop properties in the US. Don't know what the shipping costs are like but they're probably no worse than from Singapore.

Their manga catalogue can be seen here.
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Elexin



Joined: 13 Jan 2010
Posts: 11
Location: England.
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 7:11 pm Reply with quote
I'm pretty sure that Madman don't really publish manga so much as distribute it Wink

They have deals with overseas publishers. US publishers, and Chuang Yi, the singaporean publisher people were just discussing.
(I'd love to know whether that ever causes hassle with the arrangements, when different publishers have the same properties :p)
But yes, people might find importing from Aus easier that importing from Singapore, so that's definitely a valid point.

So, on that note, as some of Chuang Yi's stuff is officially available in Australia, logic dictates that the English can't be that bad.
If anyone is really curious though, several of the series have previews available if you go through their english catalogue.

I haven't actually read many of the previews myself yet (I'd read Aphorism and Black Jack Neo before when I was trying to plan an order I'd hoped to place before. Skimmed After School Charisma, Arata, Bakegyammon, and Black Butler just now), but on the whole they seemed fine - although a little on the stiff side, maybe.
A couple of series also had noticeable tendency to use Japanese words instead of translating them into English ones, but hey, American companies do that too. Some people like that.

(On that note: Aphorism's Hen/Kawaru I'd consider passable, though I'd have preferred it personally if they'd done without it like the scans did. With Arata, I'm prepared to give the Shou/Hayagami/Shinshou stuff the benefit of the doubt if it was mentioned and explained in the first chapter so they're not just random words... but the mere presence of the phrase "Hime Queen" on that page, and every subsequent page where it appears, makes me want to strangle someone.)

Unfortunately, most of their previews don't "match" with other online previews. CY's Arata is chapter 2, and Viz doesn't have that chapter up anymore. Black Butler's preview is long, but isn't the first chapter, so isn't what SE has up, and so forth.

The only direct comparison I can suggest without access to the books is probably After School Charisma (Chuang Yi's preview starts on Viz chapter 1, page 28).

The Ice Blue Sin novel is worth checking too. I mean, it's a light novel - even without a comparison point or for someone without any knowledge of VK, that much text would have to be useful for something :p
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holangjai



Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Posts: 60
PostPosted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 12:30 am Reply with quote
btw, Chuang Yi doesn't ship to the US. So either go to Singapore to get manga or buy it online from some site not based in singapore that does sell their releases.
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