Books: Manga: The Complete Guide

When I looked at an early galley draft of Manga: The Complete Guide earlier this year, I wrote “It promises to be just the sort of buying and critical guide that English-language manga readers need now, more than ever.” Now that the book has finally been released, that promise has been more than fulfilled. What we have here is one of the few really indispensible and complete guidebooks to a subject that has become so sprawling and difficult to assess on one’s own that we need all the help we can get.

M:TCG serves two duties. First, it’s a buyer’s guide, akin to the Rolling Stone or Trouser Press record books, where you can look up a series you’re curious about and get a general feel for what it’s about and whether or not you’ll want to blow about $10 a book on it. Since the book itself is $20 list price and covers just about everything of significance released in English translations over quite a span of time, it’s almost certain to prove its worth in the long run, especially if you spend $20 a month or more on manga and are just now getting started building a serious collection.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.