Original Japanese article: https://www.kujoyugo.com/entry/2017/06/14/225331
Used with permission
from the writer, https://www.kujoyugo.com
Hello, I’m
Kujo.
I have
loved manga since I was a kid, and I have read a lot of different series in my
time.
My family
home is like a little manga café, with over 2,000 trade paperback volumes (and
over 200 light novels). Ah, shame it doesn't come with a drinks machine.
So, when you read
manga, do you read it in manga magazines or trade paperbacks?
From
elementary school to middle school I only read Weekly Shonen Jump, but in my third year of middle school I went
over to the paperback side.
Then once
I entered the world of work, I started buying Weekly Shonen Jump again, and even started buying Weekly Young Jump and Jump Square as well. And then quite
recently, I gave up on magazines and turned to the paperback side again.
I have
read various different magazines and trade paperbacks in my time, so I had a go at listing the advantages of
each type!
Advantages
of magazines
The
best thing about magazines is that they are cheap, so you can read a lot!
It
probably depends on the magazine, but I think they generally have about 20
titles printed in each. At the price of around ¥1,000 per month even for weekly
magazines, the more titles you read, the more cost-effective it is.
And since new
series are being released all the time, another big plus is that you constantly
get the chance to encounter new titles. You don’t know how good something is
until you try reading it, so it’s good to be able to do a trial read without
spending your money just on new titles.
Also, I'm happy that I can always read the latest
storylines. The fact that there is no danger of spoilers from people around
you and that you can keep up with your favourite series is a major plus.
Advantages
of trade paperbacks
Unlike
magazines, trade paperbacks are not
designed to be thrown away, so it’s easy to reread series.
Well, you
can hoard magazines too, but digging out a whole pile of magazines when you
feel like rereading one particular series just isn’t realistic, is it? 😅
If you buy
too many trade paperbacks, they take up a lot of space and you end up with a
manga café—like my room—but in this day and age we have digital books! Recently,
I’ve been buying my manga volumes on Kindle, so I don’t have to worry about
them taking up space, and I can immediately read them and treasure them.
There
are also things that get corrected and revised after their magazine print run,
and some series come with great bonus pages.
For
enjoying a single series, trade paperbacks are superior to magazines!
If there
are only a few series you want to read out of a magazine, it is more economical
to buy trade paperbacks. For up to five series, I think it works out
cheaper to buy them as trade paperbacks.
Summary
Advantages of
magazines:
-Cheaper
than trade paperbacks, so you can read a lot of different series
-You can
read new releases at essentially zero cost
-You can
constantly keep up with the latest storylines
Advantages of trade
paperbacks:
-It’s easy
to reread series
-Depending
on the series, they can have corrections, revisions and bonus pages
-If you’re
only reading a few series, it’s more economical than buying magazines
As to
which one is better, it probably comes down to personal preference! I feel like you should decide based on whether you want to read a lot
of manga, or you're happy with just a few series!
The reason
I decided to switch from magazines to comics recently was—as I said in a previous
article—because I ended up regretting the time I spent reading a lot of
series. What I’m saying is, the very fact that you can read a lot of manga has
its bad points too.
......However.
I actually decided to keep buying magazines for the time being, but only Weekly Shonen Jump.
And that’s because Hunter x Hunter
is getting serialized again!
When Hunter x Hunter goes on hiatus, the
trade paperback version of the previous part takes a really long time to come
out, so I want to keep up with it properly. (I’m just assuming it will go on
hiatus again. Sorry, Yoshihiro-sensei.)
Hmm, I’m
not going to read anything except the series I decide to buy as trade
paperbacks, though. But there are a few interesting new series
coming out at the moment~. Dr. Stone looks particularly good. I'm excited for it! I hope it
doesn’t get cancelled.
English translation by Eleanor Summers
