The world of Japanese manga and anime has a lot to offer to fans around the globe. That includes hundreds of anime series to stream and manga volumes to buy, either in print or digital, and sales are quite strong. There's a lot to love about Japanese manga, but there are some downsides, too.

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Any worthwhile hobby will have its harsh realities or downsides, and manga is no exception. Collecting Japanese manga is worth it for countless Western fans, but even they would admit that it can be rough at times.

10 Manga Isn't Available At All Bookstores

English-laguage manga volumes on bookstore shelves in America

This harsh reality is less and less of an issue as manga becomes more mainstream and profitable in the West, such as North America, but the problem persists. Major retailers like Barnes & Noble will have a manga section, but mom-and-pop bookstores probably won't have any manga at all.

Manga isn't quite mainstream enough for some small, independent bookstores to stock, so they'll have more conventional books instead, from romances and sci-fi, to cookbooks. A manga fan will be disappointed by the selection, or lack thereof, in those small bookstores.

9 It Takes Work To Pack Manga When Moving

English-language manga volumes lined up on shelves

When it's time to move to a new residence, a manga/anime fan will probably set aside some boxes for their anime DVDs, their collectible figurines, wall scrolls, and more. That is to be expected. But a passionate manga fan might have a huge collection that take serious work to pack up.

Some collectors might have, 1,000 volumes on their shelves or even twice that in some cases. All those volumes must be packed up, and it can be backbreaking work to pack up all those heavy books and keep them sorted when it's time to unpack them again. The biggest collections might need their own moving truck.

8 Some Manga Series Are Out Of Print, Or OOP

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Plenty of manga series are heavily printed today, from the mega-series One Piece and the hardback omnibuses of Berserk, to the rom-com series Komi Can't Communicate, among others. But other manga series, especially older ones, are out of print, and their volumes are like rare treasures by now.

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Fans of older, classic manga series are in for a rough time if they intend to buy the print volumes. Certain volumes or entire series are unusually difficult to track down, even with the help of sites like eBay or the Facebook marketplace. The volumes also might cost several times what they normally would.

7 Big Manga Collections Take Up Space

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Having just a short stack of popular light novels or a few omni bus manga volumes is one thing. But if a collector has hundreds of volumes in their overall collection, they're going to need room for it, and this can be a formidable logistical challenge. Especially in cramped apartments.

As a manga collection keeps expanding, the collector needs somewhere to put them all, and that means dedicating space to bookshelves, which eats up square footage and wall space. Some of the biggest manga collections might need an entire room to themselves, a room the collector might not even have.

6 Reorganizing A Collection Takes Work

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This is another harsh reality that mainly impacts larger collections, but if a collector doesn't have the time, energy or interest in this, reorganizing a collection of any size might feel like a hassle, so it might pay to have a friend help out. There's certainly more than one way to organize a collection.

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A well-organized collection is convenient to have, but organizing it could be difficult. There are a few options, sorting the manga volumes by genre, organizing them by author, sorting them by size, or the length of the series. It's not easy to decide which method is best and sort the collection accordingly.

5 Translated Manga Series Are Behind Japan's Publications

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This harsh reality is less of a concern now, but it still exists, and it may annoy some manga/anime fans in the West. Understandably, it takes time to translate Japanese manga into English and other languages before printing the volumes. But some fans might not like the lag.

Most, if not all translated manga series are a few volumes behind the Japanese release, and in the late 2000s or so, big titles like Naruto and One Piece were several years behind the original series in Japan. It's little wonder so many fans bent the rules by reading scanlations online instead back then.

4 Anime Hogs The Spotlight

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Manga and anime can often be lumped together into a single industry – Japanese pop culture. And live-action Japanese movies and games can be added, too. But these different fields of entertainment might also be competing, and for a Western fan, one option might be far more appealing than another.

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In general, anime seems more popular and tends to take center stage, since everyone loves watching TV and streaming things on a quiet evening at home. Reading is plenty popular, but manga fans still might feel bad knowing their hobby plays second fiddle to anime every year.

3 Manga Takes Its Time Telling A Story

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When compared to American comics, such as Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse titles, Japanese manga has a leisure pace with storytelling. There's some variance, but overall, manga features relatively few panels and speech bubbles on a page, so it takes longer to tell the same story as an American comic title.

Some manga fans might not mind, but newer collectors might be troubled that they must collect so many volumes to have a complete story on their hands. By contrast, a graphic novel collector can get a whole, satisfying story in a single omnibus volume of X-Men or Batman, for example.

2 Selling Old Manga Volumes Might Prove Tricky

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The good news is that manga collectors do have reliable channels for selling their unwanted volumes if they're downsizing their collections or urgently need some cash. But selling used manga volumes is far more niche than selling old Xbox game titles, regular novels or trading cards such as Magic: The Gathering cards.

The manga marker is bigger than ever, but it doesn't easily compare to more mainstream products, accessories, or pop culture items in the West. So, anyone who is selling their manga volumes is more likely to hear "what's manga?" than "I'll take those off your hands for a fair price."

1 Manga Rarely Has Color Pages

Bakugou from MHA manga page

Some manga artists, such as the late Kentaro Miura, do a fine job making astounding art with just black and white panels, but devoted comic book collectors might be disappointed if a manga fan shows them a typical manga volume. Manga is nearly always grayscale or black and white, and some graphic novel collectors simply won't like that.

This can make it difficult to convince a graphic novel collector to get into manga, or at least, readers who love color-rich X-Men or Superman omnibuses might feel underwhelmed. There are a few colored manga pages and the volumes will have colored illustrations, but that's it. Perhaps this is another reason why colorful anime such as My Hero Academia are more popular than the original manga.