I need to sell some Japanese-language manga!

December 29, 2008 10:56 PM

I need to sell about thirty volumes of various manga series. The catch: they're all in Japanese.

A friend of mine has asked for help disposing of a bunch of manga that an old roommate abandoned when moving back to China. Were the books in English, I'd list them on Amazon's used store. I'm not sure what my options are for Japanese-language text, though. Is there an American market for these sorts of things? Where would I find buyers? Ebay? If I'm not likely to sell them, what sort of charitable organization would want the manga? I can't imagine most libraries would be interested because of the language. We'd both rather see them go somewhere they could do some good, at least, rather than in the recycle bin or a box somewhere.

posted by Alterscape to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

any comic-con , or just go to the local comic book store and see if he knows of a buyer. japanese language manga is wildly popular in certain parts of the geek culture. amazon also has a section for japanese only stuff.
posted by nadawi at 11:02 PM on December 29, 2008

There is definitely a market for Japanese language manga in the United States. Ebay is good if they're particularly well-known (you can go ahead and do a search to see if they're already on ebay). If not, you could post a craigslist ad either on sale, trade, or free stuff.
posted by Night_owl at 11:11 PM on December 29, 2008

Some research universities have begun as a matter of course to add manga to their collections. When as a grad student I wanted to read an edgy and violent manga series I had my Ivy League library buy it in its entirety. So definitely, any number of public libraries/language centers/culture organizations would want your manga. If you want to donate, great, check out the above groups in your area. Or better yet, get in touch with young, innovative teachers and distribute judiciously. Thirty can go a long way.

This might be one of those cases, however, that you should follow one of the routes above and sell these manga for a profit. Hell, if they are yakuza or payday loan themed titles, I would buy them from you.

If you are near a Half Price Books, concentrated in Texas and a few other states, you might see what they'd offer you for the lot.
posted by vincele at 11:43 PM on December 29, 2008

Are you certain they're in Japanese if you say the person who left them was returning to China? They do Chinese-language versions of a lot of Japanese stuff and produce their own similar (often derivative) stuff. Ignore me if this is a cheeky reminder to someone who doesn't need it.
posted by Abiezer at 4:04 AM on December 30, 2008

I may be interested, depending on what kind of stuff it is. Do you know the titles?
posted by Redruin at 4:32 AM on December 30, 2008

Response by poster: Abiezer, thanks for the reminder. On second glance, it looks like they're actually a potpourri -- the complete X (Japanese), volumes 16-27 of Inu Yasha (Hong Kong Chinese), and volumes 6-14 of Peach Girl (Hong Kong Chinese). Don't ask me, I'm just the messenger.
posted by Alterscape at 11:34 AM on December 30, 2008

Book-Off buys Japanese books. For English books though, they often pay just pennies a book, but sometimes pay more. They will however, buy any non-textbook English book in decent shape that has an ISBN and Barcode. I've often sold them stuff here in New York that wasn't worth anything on Amazon and that the Strand wouldn't take.
posted by Jahaza at 2:28 PM on December 30, 2008