On my quest to find Mushishi, I went to 5 different bookstores across Osaka. I did not find a single volume of it lmao. Instead, here’s my haul from the last 2 stores- a pop-up used bookstore and Mandarake Umeda. If you’re interested in the next pop-up, the name is えべっさん古本まつり. Various used bookstores band together to sell at the pop-up, so there’s quite the selection and even prints. There was an old rail map from the 50s I really wanted but at 2,500 yen it was too expensive. There really were a lot of great old books and print materials.
Along with these, in my search for Mushishi, I also grabbed all of Silver Spoon (for 2100 yen!) and later vols of とんがり帽子のアトリエ along with a smattering of other manga.
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What a nice batch. Takemiya Keiko’s art is so gorgeous, 羨ましい。
I’d love to buy and read 風と木の詩 some day.
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It was at both the pop-up and Mandarake Umeda. Mandarake does international shipping as well 
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I got a box set of Harry Potter delivered today and the box isn’t the most impressive but I do like the individualized cover arts for each of the books. 7 books got split into 20 volumes so they’re all smaller and more compact but every one has its own cover, showing some pretty specific moments from the story. This may take a while to read and I may eventually just not finish it because they’re just the Harry Potter books again, but I thought this was neat.
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Why are the two middle books of Order of the Phoenix missing their obi? And why are the obi almost, but not qutite, in spectrum order?
I… can’t remember if I even finished reading Philosopher’s Stone with the book club here…
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I noticed the color change in the picture, it’s never consistently one color of obi for each book/set of books, but I guess that is missing? I bought this through CDJapan and I think it was new so I’m not sure why those are gone. I can look when I get home and see if they’re in there somewhere or just absent.
Yeah the color choices are a bit of a mess I think. I’m not sure how much I like obis in general but these look weird.
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This made me sad. I’ve read the entire series six times through. It’s a nice set
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It’s a good series and I’ve probably read the first three books several times over as a kid but the later books I’ve only read once or twice. I don’t think I ever actually finished book 7 as it was coming out. I know I had to put half blood prince down for a little while for some reason but I did come back to it and I did the same with deathly hallows and didn’t finish it. I grew up with these books as they came out but I’m much more familiar with the earlier books. I want to say I’ve read goblet of fire and order of the phoenix twice each and then half blood prince once and halfway through deathly hallows. I haven’t read them since I was 10 though so it’s not something I remember super well. I do know mostly how it ends from word of mouth but I understand why that could be disappointing to hear as a fan.
I don’t really dislike the books but they’re kind of hard for a beginner/intermediate level reader in Japanese from what I’ve heard so it’s a question of how much I want to reread/finish Harry Potter or just read something else originally written in Japanese.
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Oh, so maybe when you’re really advanced and can breeze through them for fun. The later books do get a lot darker. My favourite will always be the first.
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Yep, those obi pieces are missing. It wasn’t something I noticed at first but the more I thought about it the more it bothered me, so I took off all the other obis and put them in a ziploc bag in a drawer. They’re not destroyed but they’re no longer taking up cover space.
I guess an obi is a nice compromise between the cover and the marketing. It looks better than just having a sticker on a book that says “now a major motion picture” or whatever they’re promoting and marketing. I just think I’m team no obi unless it’s something super unique. It’s a weird thing where it’s unwieldy when reading but they’re kind of a collectible item.
The cover arts are very cool though, I found a Reddit post with all the pictures and that seems easier than photographing them all.
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Wow. I’m loving those covers.
5-1 is unexpectedly graphic, though…
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Those covers are so pretty! My versions are just black and grey.
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Update: I just finished book 1-1 of these today. Book 1 is divided right after they encounter the three headed giant dog for the first time. I don’t think I’ll update for every book where the divisions are but I assume they pick dramatic points to do it while leaving chapters intact. I’m enjoying it so far.
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