It’s a big shame that manga costs so much here. It’s easy to become jealous of our friends across the ocean. I mean, ￥560 per volume? Totally unfair compared to our normal price of $10 per volume. At least, that is the brick and mortar store price. On the Interweb, it’s much easier to get manga more appropriately priced.

Amazon.com

I’ll start with an obvious place. I know that I don’t have to waste time introducing this place, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 10 years. Amazon, of course, sells a whole lot more than anime and manga, but this feature, if you can call it that, will just focus on the manga side of this.

Pros: Amazon is really good at getting things stocked. Just about everything I search for is there. The new arrivals always seem to come on time as far as I can tell. Even “older” titles that are probably not ordered very much, like Disgaea, can be found in stock easily.

Cons: Unfortunately, almost all manga sold at Amazon is at MSRP. Sure, some rare gems can be found for 20% off, Shugo Chara! is one of them, but most will be around $10. At that price, you might as well go to a Borders and buy the books (given that your Borders has a decent selection of manga.) Of course, Amazon does have that super-slow free shipping for orders over $25, which avoids not only shipping fees, but state taxes, too. Still, I usually only use Amazon as a last resort. Only because it tends to have items in stock.

Website: Amazon.com

Discount Anime DVD

Personally, this is probably my favorite out of all of them. I usually go here first before looking at others stores (if I actually do look at other stores.) This place, as you can tell, only focuses on Japanese stuff (mainly anime and manga.) They also sell stuff like figurines, wallscrolls, and Japanese snacks.

Pros: This place is pretty cheap. The price that they list as “our price” is usually a dollar less than MSRP. It’s weird, I’ve never seen manga sell for that price before. Right under the price, they have a sales price which is usually another dollar off. I’m almost certain, since I’ve been shopping there for a while, that all items sell for a reduced ’sales price.’ It’s quite cheap.

Not only that, but their service is pretty good. On one of the many occasions on where an item in my order was backordered, I decided to e-mail them about switching that item with another item. In my case, since the order did not ship, they let me switch the items. Not only that, but since my item was about $.50 cheaper than my ordered item, they awarded me some store credit. I’m not sure if the credit is useful or anything, but it’s still a nice gesture.

Cons: This place seems to have trouble getting shipments in (or maybe it’s the publishers problem.) I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the “Arrival delayed, but you can still preorder” message. It is an excellent place to order in-stock items, but I’d stay away from preordering anything, though. You could be stuck in a position of waiting for weeks for your order to ship.

Website: Discount Anime DVD

The Right Stuf International

Here’s a store that I rarely go to, but others swear by. They’re known for having very good deals very often.

Pros: Their deals are often times very good. As the time of this writing, they’re running a 33% off of Del Rey manga (which sells for about $11 MSRP.) Their deals are usually very publisher specific, which I tend to ignore in favor of more general sales.

Cons: I hate their interface. So much. I found it one of the harder places to shop for something. I think they should adapt a system that puts all titles in a series on their own pages, like Discount Anime DVD. I do find it useful, however, that they’ve included some letters under their numbers so you have some general idea as to where the title you’re looking for is. And, although their deals are pretty good, things are still kind of expensive (Amazon like prices.) Not really a first resort when I’m “bargain shopping.”

Robert’s Anime Corner Store

I have to admit, I pretty much haven’t shopped here since I was in middle school, I suppose about 5 years. I stopped shopping there once I found DiscountAnimeDVD.com (I’m sure you can tell which retailer I favor by now.)

Pros: Their stock seems pretty solid, as far as I can tell. I believe that they pretty much have the best shopping interface out of the all the stores I’ve mentioned above (when it comes to just manga.) If you click on the selection of manga that starts with a certain letter, it will list all manga series that start with the letter on one page. Also, their titles seemed to be mark-downed a bit. Tokyopop titles sell for about a dollar less.

Cons: Their only bad point, really, is that they’re not the cheapest store, even though they’re not far off from that title.

Website: Robert’s Anime Corner Store

These are just mainly the websites that I go to. Feel free to add any stores that you buy manga from in your comments below.