Where to Buy English Manga in Tokyo, Japan

October 16, 2008 by Jeff · 5 Comments

While I was in Japan one of my goals was to find some Manga or Anime. Obviously, I never had a problem finding any Manga or Anime as the great action comics are basically available almost anywhere. However, the one problem we did have was finding some English Manga. I thought for some reason that it would be readily available, albeit in small quantities. Unfortunately you have these massive Manga stores with zero English Manga. Anyway, I finally found two ok sources of Manga that I thought I'd share.

Manga Museum

If you're really into manga you can visit the first ever Manga Museum in Kyoto which we did one afternoon. It's a neat little place with a TON of manga that you can sit and read if you like with an English section. There's also a neat area upstairs which gives the background of how Manga came into exsitance and it's current state. It includes a ton of Manga from different years. Definitely the highlight of the museum for us!

However, you can't actually buy any English Manga from the Kyoto Manga Museum!

Akihabara

Akihabara is the Manga and Anime capital of Japan. You can find TONS and TONS of different Manga and Anime stores everywhere. The Comicatron (I think that's what it's called) store is actually 5 floors of Manga. Literally walls upon walls of Manga packed into the store, yet no English Managa.

For English Manga in Akihabara you can go to Yodobashi Akiba across the train station from Electric Town. On the 7th floor you'll find a large bookstore. At the back left end of the bookstore you'll find three book cases of english books. Here you should be able to find a small selection of Manga.

Shinjuku

The other place we found English Manga was in Shinjuku. When exiting the station look for the Takashimaya (Times Square) or the Tokyu Hands Deparment store (they're basically connected). Go to the 5th floor of Tokyu hands. You'll come to a gateway between a book store and it'll actually be floor 6 of the bookstore. This is the foreign languages section of the bookstore. Here you'll find a rather large (read: approximately 100 books) or English Manga.

Anyway, hopefully this helps someone find some English Manga while in Japan. Manga is such a great art and story that I'm glad I was able to find and buy some Manga (that I can understand) in Japan.

Of course if you're back in North America (or elsewhere) you can always find some Manga on Ebay! Good old ebay!