Tsubasa, Ch. 11, Vol. 8

たとえば、明日全てが消えてなくなっても、隣りで笑っていてくれるなら他にはもう何もいらなかったんだ。。。
"For example, even if everything disappears tomorrow, because you laughed beside me, I wouldn't need anything else..."

Because of our quarantined explorations, the three of us discovered Book-Off, a haven for manga lovers on tight budgets (a.k.a. college students like us who eat ramen and discounted donuts from MaxValu and nervously await scholarship money in order to pay rent). The store offers boxed sets of both popular manga (Death Note, Hana Kimi, Inuyasha) and lesser-known ones that involve samurai or adorable detectives for less than $10. 

Let's do the math together: In America, the average manga volume is $9.95, and for your money all you get is a thicker, whiter paper stock and the occasional horrible translation. You can buy the entire set of 8+ volumes on the original off-white rice paper stock (which I prefer 10,000x to the American version) for about the same price. 

BINGO! Guess who wins this game? We do. For about $8, I now own the first 8 volumes - HARDBACK edition - of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. I also bought the first volume of Cardcaptor Sakura, for nostalgia's sake, and the first volume of Hana Kimi for 105 yen apiece (about $1). We rationalized our investment by reaffirming that reading manga in Japanese is a fantastic way to improve our language skills. 

Our second trip to the two-story warehouse of cheap books led me to the back wall, where I *drumroll* bought Tatsuya Fujiwara. (I wish.) Well, I bought the now out-of-stock official movie guides for DEATH NOTE 1 and 2 ($2.10 each!), which includes behind-the-scenes photos and individual interviews with the cast (Tatsuya, Kenichi Matsuyama, Erika Toda, etc.).

I squealed when I found these, and then I squealed again when, a few stacks of books away, I saw Miyazaki-related animation books for the same ridiculously low price. 

Japanese pop culture fandom at its best, I say. And that's not even including my magazine finds - that'll be another entry.