Is that Bleach and Naruto in your collection? You’re a braver soul than I 
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This shelf gives me life, I should get to obtaining these in Japanese for a reread 
Am I right in assuming you don’t have cats?
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I have that same edition of the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle series! Interesting to see that わたおし is the only yuri series in there
I absolutely do not have cats 
of I did, my bookcases would have doors. I love cats, but I also really don’t trust them
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I’m not really big on Yuri but also not not big on it if that makes sense? I love love love わたおし for its (somewhat( I mean it’s isekai fantasy but still)) realistic portrayal of LGBT issues.
I’m interested in Yuri if the story sounds good to me but not really interested in pure love stories. That’s also why I’m still contemplating buying マリア様がみてる or not since I’m not sure if it’s interesting to me. I love けんぷファー for example though and definitely want to buy the light novels. I’m always open to recommendations though
Bara on the other hand…. But that’s so niche, there are almost no print copies of any bara manga. As you can see there are only two bara manga in there unless you count the four volumes of 弟の夫
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Have I got the manga series for you then! It very much has the makings of a love story, but that’s not the primary focus. It’s about a girl named Kanon who is nearly deaf and has closed herself off from others and her classmate Saki who tries to force her out of her shell.
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This is a thing I appreciate about it as well
Definitely get that - and it’s something I want more of as well. Are you already familiar with Inori’s other series? 勇者になりたい少女と、勇者になるべき彼女 | L28
Also 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 | L32 , 『人斬り』少女、公爵令嬢の護衛になる | L28 , and 明日の世界で星は煌めく | L28 come to mind as having a main element that isn’t just romance
If it helps: It’s very relationship-focused, but I feel like there’s enough ongoing plot to keep it interesting too… Off the top of my head: Generally different things the student council needs to solve, or occasionally some scandal that’s arisen. The main drama in the first volume is about a school play for example. Off the top of my head, in other volumes there’s a character who struggles with disability while being interested in kendo, characters dealing with challenging family dynamics vs desired careers/life paths, plotlines about religious compatibility (ex: non-Christians attending this mission school) and Buddhism, class issues, etc.
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Noooooo, these sound all so good 
my backlog… Anyway I’ll add them to my wishlist and I think I’ll have to get マリみて too
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Pretty small order:
- https://learnnatively.com/book/a53de1055a/ - I’ve been doing a bunch of cleaning and reorganizing lately, and my friend mentioned they like her book in English… but I decided I wanted to skip all the more personal stuff, so I went for the manga
- https://learnnatively.com/book/af26e4d077/ - Yurihime Feb 2026. Will be some much needed stress relief later
- https://learnnatively.com/book/d08dad82e1/ - Manga Time KR 4-koma, and I enjoyed what I previewed, so taking a chance on it… well I did like the last MKR 4-koma I read too (大阪弁とセーラー服)
- https://learnnatively.com/book/9ee5ff3740/ - 1970s lesbians. It’s only book 1 of 2, cuz they didn’t have book 2, but I’m excited for this when I get to it
And 2 Frieren puzzles - the smaller one I’ll do on my own, the other with a friend . Puzzles were $25 tariff from DHL. No tariff on books
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Today there was an article in the German news about people receiving books as Christmas presents, and about stacks of unread books They even mentioned the word 積読. And I learned a new word, „shelfie“ which is a selfie in front of one’s bookshelf. Dunno why it made me think of this thread straight away 
(In case you are curious, this is the article)
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Is shipping from Suruyaga slower these days? Last year I placed an order and it shipped 4 days later. It’s now been 9 days since my order and there’s no word on when it’ll ship. Maybe it’s just slow because of the holidays?
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Could be US customs are doing more through checks than they used to? Or maybe just holidays.
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I don’t think it’s even shipped yet, so probably not customs.
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I’ve felt like it’s been slower the last few months as well… My last order (puzzles) was on the 24th and got here on the 29th… But my one before that (books) was the 21st, and also arrived in the 29th
Could very well just be holidays
It’s not customs. You can see that in DHL tracking, it’s the same speed as normal. They’ve just been taking longer to actually ship it out
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My collection isn’t that big yet (for now). But I’ve only been collecting books since May 2025. If I keep going at this rate I’ll need more bookshelves quickly.
I feel a bit of a rush to buy more books because there are significant import costs on the horizon when buying from non-EU countries. The exact import costs aren’t even clear yet.
I haven’t read most of these yet and when I do I probably read them digitally anyway. I just really love having them in my book case and looking at them. I’ll probably mainly buy novels and light novels in the future and leave manga to a minimum.
I got a few duplicate books of the この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! | L26 manga series because I bought a few while visiting Japan, and then bought a complete second-hand set online later. Not sure what to do with the duplicates yet. If anyone wants them I’m happy to just ship them to you (volume 9 and 11).
I enjoyed the first book of サイレント・ウィッチ | L30 enough to just buy the rest of the series. It helps that I think the covers of the books are really nice. I’ll get the 11th volume in the next bulk I buy. I read 4.5 of the green books and 2 of the Frieren novelizations physically (they all have furigana which made looking up words doable)
とある科学の超電磁砲 | L30 doesn’t have furigana so I haven’t dared to tackle it yet. I bought all those manga in Japan just days after deciding I wanted to study Japanese. So when I finally can read them it’s going to feel amazing.
I buy books directly from amazon.jp, does anyone else in the EU know cheaper options? I always end up buying like 15 books at once to manage the shipping costs a little and it’d be nice to be able to buy books in smaller numbers.
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Cheapest way to buy (used) physical books is still suruga-ya; standard prize is 650 yen with some exception. Important: shipping is usually free (sa-th), you‘ll usually only have to pay import VAT of your country.
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Much appreciated. I’ll be sure to check what they have from time to time
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I usually buy from CD Japan, though the shipping costs can sometimes be high. I live in the UK.
Combining the book price and shipping, it often works out cheaper than buying from Amazon UK (as it seems I can’t order from Amazon.jp). Usually, per Manga/ light novel, it works out around £5-£13 per book including the shipping and any taxes. E.g. Ruri dragon manga volume 4 was about £5, HonZuki light novels were about £12 each.
I do try to buy in sets though whenever possible and now I usually only order around £100-£130 per lot to avoid additional import fees (for UK they kick in around £135 though usually they are waived since books should be tax free in the UK).
I have also used Suruga-Ya when they have their free shipping which is always a good deal. Books work out at usually around £5-£8 per book from Suruga-Ya, though I’ve no idea how much their shipping would be. Every order regardless of the cost, I always have to pay a 900 yen commission fee for but even with that it’s still been cheaper for me over all.
Edit: I’ve purchased both new and used books from CD Japan and Suruga-Ya with all books coming in pristine or near pristine condition.
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For just a few books (new) sometimes Verasia is competitive.
I haven’t generally found what I’m looking for on surugaya, but for used I have bought through the Mercari market on the proxy Neokyo. Generally if I buy 4 books at 200 yen each then by the time fees, shipping and import is all together, the total cost is 8 - 10 € per book so whether this is worth it is going to depend on what other options you have
Absolute cheapest option is the medimops platform for used books shipping within Europe. Their search and discover fictions are terrible, so you need to have the exact title. Searching by isbn generally works. Author does not usually work. Searching by some publishers will yield enough results for a bit of browsing. For example, here’s a search for 文春文庫 that currently brings up 230 books, most for less than 2 €
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Yes, I’m also in the UK and I have found cdjapan to be cheaper overall than Amazon JP for new books. The book prices are the same (since Japan always sells new books at the publisher fixed price as far as I know) but the shipping works out cheaper, and I consider it OK when you get to six or so books. There is one thing to be careful of which is that cdjapan have an option for them to charge you for the import taxes or to let the courier do it – for the UK you don’t want cdjapan to take the taxes because they will do it at the UK standard VAT rate of 20% rather than the 0% for books. I’ve never had a cdjapan package have any import fees assessed (I have also never tried buying anything over the GBP135 threshold, though).
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I’ve just checked my last several orders and realized I always choose the option to pay Vat up front but if the order is books only, there is no vat on the order (I’ve only paid this when ordering games and DVDs, never for books).
The import tax I had to pay separately was on an order that was around £300 but contained a few games as well as books
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