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Yes, yes, laugh if you will. Having bought Bleach up to vol 15 in translation I went down to Kikiwai and bought vols 16-19, all they had, in Japanese. The damage came to $13.68 per 400 yen volume. Kikiwai is still Highway Robbery North, but you can do this when you're the only game in town. I doubt Iwase is any cheaper, given that *they* charge me $20 per 550 yen magazine.

Clearly must win lottery and establish my agents in Tokyo. Alternatively, must embrace Buddhism and renounce the transient and illusory pleasures of the ~~flesh~~ mind.

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Dunno if the anime follows the manga closely but if it does, uhh, skip the first seven volumes or so. (Says the woman who's still not read volumes four through eight.) The hook sinks in some time after Ichigo and co. penetrate the Soul Society's sanctuary. Personalities and politics, basically, plus what I can never resist: back story and a murder mystery. I keep reading the chronic fights in order to find out what happened before to make the SS the way it is now.

Oh, and yay for coming to M's wedding. Look forward to seeing you.

I would prefer winning lottery and establishing self in Kanzeon-level life of ease, lotus pools, and lounging around.

Even with lotus pools one still needs one's manga. ASAP and preferably yesterday in some cases.

One therefore also needs factotums to run-and-get-it for you.

And to locate the factotums* in Tokyo so they can get run-and-get the day it comes out. Or, well, soonish, given how Tokyo lifestyles run.

*Alright, so why *isn't* it factota anyway?

Big factotums have little factotums upon their backs to bite them . . . you know, I honestly don't know about the factota thing. Interesting.

I still hold out hope that someday we'll be able to get our books electronically at cute kiosks that automatically bind the books, so that I won't end up paying half the cost for books just for shipping them.

Until then, there's always the yearly trips to Book-Off, if I don't mind getting scattered volumes out of order; the only game in this town is the university library with its small selection of Tezuka and Takahashi Rumiko.

Meanwhile, there is a 3-month waiting list for Naruto at the library and a 3-week waiting list for Bleach. Fortunately, at that rate, it'll take a long while to catch up to where the English translation leaves off.

Ohh yes- please can we combine the DL with the bound book? Pretty please with sugar on it?

The annual trip to Book-off, yes, I know it well. Scattered volumes out of order can be a fun game except when it's a promised Good Read and you want it all, now, beginning at the beginning going to the end and there stopping. Kohri no Mamono, I *am* looking at you, with large puppy eyes to boot.

I could always send you my copies of Bleach if you don't want the wait. Shipping within continent is better than across the Pacific.

*twitches* Ohhh, Kikiwai's prices traumatize me. (And yet I still miss them. Halifax has *no* game in town.)

I've had several friends traveling to Japan this year, so I've managed to get a bunch of manga brought back at Japanese prices. ^^ But from here on out, I'm on my own again.

I'm not convinced Kikiwai's shipping plus markup is actually less than the online bookstores' shipping prices. What deters me from those is the 'we ship by Fedex from the States' part. Fedex and UPS charge $20-30 to fill out the paperwork if Customs decides to look at the package. Is why one needs State-side friends who'll ship your orders to you by mail.

That said, I once had- what? a dozen large boxes of manga?- sent by UPS from the States with never a sniff of customs or sales tax. This has also given me a lot of manga I'll probably never read. Is there anything you're specially looking for?

Yeah, I'm not sure there's much difference, either. I've ordered from one of the US stores a few times without any trouble, which is nice.

Right now I'm not really looking for anything--one of my friends completed my Japanese set of Fruits Basket in the spring, which was awesome (although the next book is due out soon ^^), and another person just picked up Saiyuki Reload 7 . . . so I think I'm set for the moment. (Thankfully. ^^) I can't actually read Japanese beyond sounding out chunks of hiragana, so mostly I stick to the English versions.

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