So I’m gonna do something a bit different this time. My shelf is full of multiple volumes of titles that for one reason or another I haven’t completed the collection of. I decided to pull a bunch of them down and use this post to talk about them. All of the manga you’re about to see here fall into one of three categories: A – Easily obtainable but no further interest; B – Difficult to obtain and no further interest; or C – Wanted but difficult to obtain. Anything I’m calling “difficult to obtain” is going to refer to any title or series that is over 5 years old and/or was released by a now defunct publisher.
For each title I will list the current total number of volumes, the number of volumes I own, and a brief explanation as to why I dropped the title. If it’s a series that wasn’t printed to completion in English, I will also list the number of volumes released in Japan. Without further ado, here are a few of the titles from my collection that have been dropped!
Series: Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei by Koji Kumeta
Total Number of Volumes (Japanese): 30
Total Number of Volumes (English): 14
Date of Last Published Volume: July 2013
Number of Volumes in my Collection: 5
Why did I drop it?: DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN + NO FURTHER INTEREST
I collected this series almost religiously back when Del-Ray first started publishing them back in 2009. I started collecting the volumes after coming across the anime back when one of the few ways to get access to a series was via fansubs on youtube in three-part chunks. I really loved the different characters and the art style because it was all really unique at the time. However around the time the fifth volume was released in English, I had started to get really into a few other series and Zetsubou-Sensei wound up falling by the way-side. When I was getting ready to get back into buying the volumes, the series was wrapping up in Japan and I went looking to see how it ended. And well, if you know the ending…you’ll probably understand.
Series: Happy Café by Kou Matsuzuki
Total Number of Volumes (Japanese): 15
Total Number of Volumes (English): 8
Date of Last Published Volume: May 2011
Number of Volumes in my Collection: 4
Why did I drop it?: WANTED + DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN
Happy Café was a series I had read scanlations for and started obtaining copies of because I really liked it. It wasn’t something I was in high demand for since I had been reading it online, so I really only got copies if there were new ones out by my birthday or by Christmas. However, Tokyopop went under after volume 8 came out and it became really hard to find anything they had published in my area – even the older volumes. I believe Rightstuf may have some of the other volumes for sale, if not all of them, but it doesn’t feel worthwhile to continue on with the series if it isn’t completed.
Series: Itsuwaribito by Yuuki Iinuma
Total Number of Volumes (Japanese): 23
Total Number of Volumes (English): 23
Date of Last Published Volume: April 2018
Number of Volumes in my Collection: 7
Why did I drop it?: EASILY OBTAINABLE (in theory) + NO FURTHER INTEREST
I grabbed the first five of these volumes in one go since the bookstore I was going to while in undergrad had only one copy of each on the shelf and the first volume seemed promising. The last two I barely managed to find at my home bookstore a year or so later and I haven’t seen it stocked since even though the final volume only came out a little over two years ago. It’s just been so long since I’ve even looked at this series, I don’t feel like suddenly picking up the remaining volumes would be worth it. I’m not really invested in the story like I used to be, and there’s likely something newer that’s got a similar feeling to it that I could read. It was a great series while I was reading it, and maybe one day I’ll eventually come back around to completing it, but for now it’s a drop.
Series: Gal Gohan by Marii Taiyou
Total Number of Volumes (Japanese): 10
Total Number of Volumes (English): 4 (Ongoing) [up to volume 7 announced]
Date of Last Published Volume: September 2020
Number of Volumes in my Collection: 1
Why did I drop it?: EASILY OBTAINABLE + NO FURTHER INTEREST
Honestly, I liked the premise of this series. Gyaru leading characters have resurged in popularity lately and this series seemed promising back when it was being handled by scanlation groups before being officially picked up by Sevenseas. Everything was fine, until the romance became too hard to stomach. I’ve been pretty vocal about my dislike of age-gap relationships in recent times, and though I do occasionally make exceptions (like if it’s not the prominent relationship/plot focus, or if they’re both adults with a difference in age) this was unfortunately not one of those exceptions. I think if the series had taken a different turn or a different setting entirely than it did, I could have continued on with it. It just delved a little too far into gross territory for me.
Series: My Neighbor Seki (Tonari no Seki-kun) by Takuma Morishige
Total Number of Volumes (Japanese): 10 (ongoing?)
Total Number of Volumes (English): 10 (Ongoing?)
Date of Last Published Volume: January 2018
Number of Volumes in my Collection: 2
Why did I drop it?: EASILY OBTAINABLE + NO FURTHER INTEREST
This one just kind of fell by the wayside. It’s cute and I enjoy it, but it didn’t really seem to be going anywhere. It was just the routine: Seki would be playing around, Yokoi would interfere in some way, and no one would be any wiser of what was really going on. I picked it up because I enjoyed the short-form anime series for the title but it’s not really something I could continue to buy and feel like it was a worthwhile thing. In my opinion, if you’ve seen the anime, you’ll probably be fine without reading the manga.
Series: A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Oima
Total Number of Volumes (Japanese): 7
Total Number of Volumes (English): 7
Date of Last Published Volume: May 2016
Number of Volumes in my Collection: 2
Why did I drop it?: EASILY OBTAINABLE + NO FURTHER INTEREST
It’s just so sad. I’m the type who gets really emotionally invested in stories and this series was just a little too heavy for me to bear. It’s a great series, but ooh boy is it heavy. Like if you’re looking for a story with a long road to redemption with several bumps along the way, this is for you. I just couldn’t handle it anymore and it’s why I also still haven’t watched the film adaptation. I just don’t have the emotional energy to handle this series. It’s still one I’ll recommend out if the person asking likes these kinds of stories even if I haven’t read it to completion myself.
There’s more manga on my shelf that is incomplete and dropped so if you’d like to see more posts like this, let me know! Or, alternatively, if you have suggestions on what you’d like to see more of on the blog feel free to leave a comment or submit those suggestions to me via my contact page!
Grimm Reads 