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Originally Posted by Umihito
Just out of curiosity, which part of the UK do you live in? If you were a Londoner or there abouts then I'd understand because there's a ton of Japanese shops etc there so the culture could easily rub off on lots of people. Here in Wales (I don't mean to go against other Welsh people when I say this) people are more interested in buying beer and cigarettes than indulging in any type of culture. And there's not really much Japanese culture in Wales anyway apart from a few Japanese restaurants near Cardiff.  |
I'm actually in the middle of nowhere, but I studied in a medium-sized commuter town between Birmingham and Coventry. So that actually may explain it, we had people in our college from not only within the town, but from neighbouring towns and cities, and with everyone in the cities everyday (in the case of workers) or every weekend (in the case of students) I suppose it's easy to pick up different things from various cultures in the cities. I do envy the life in London! It must be a amazing to be surrounded by so many people, cultures, languages. . . and I can fully empathaise with your comments on Wales. Lol, I love the country so much, but certain parts seem rather dead. My friend is in a university in a city there, and despite being a city he lacks even the most basic amenities he has back home here, so I can imagine how hard and annoying it must be not to have the Japanese cuture so close to hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Umihito
I know this may sound way too analytical of me, but I always think that if the racks are always full, then it's not really a good thing because it means no one's buying them. XD
And the anime rack in Cardiff HMV isn't the biggest thing in the world... its only like... one block of shelves! XD So there's not really many people browsing it.
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Damn you, I didn't think of it that way until you mentioned it, lol
Yeah, I suppose that's one way to look at it. I can't say the HMV here sounds that much bigger, it's certainly nothing like the one in the cities, but there is a decent selection (albeit, just the mainstream popular stuff), to be fair they might have quite a lot more than I remember, but the prices keep me well away! I only shop for anime online now - it's literally half the price!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Umihito
And Waterstones annoys me! I have one that's in a city closer to me than Cardiff, but it's a city none the less. Yet, all they have for their manga is two spinner things! I think Waterstones in Cardiff has more, but still only one block of shelves. |
I can fully empathise with that. Our Waterstones has a large-ish section to it, but in Coventry there's two or three Waterstones all within walking distance of each other, and they only have one or two spinny things as well! What drives me mad is say - take Yu-Gi-Oh for example - you collect a whole series and get to volume 19, and you're all excited as you want to see what happens to Marik in his past and his motives, and you get there and it's "sorry, we only stock up to volume three. . ." It drives me mad! It's like 'what's the point in stocking at all if you're not willing to stock the entire series?' I feel so bad for people who can't shop online, they must never get to see how anything ends XD
Quote:
Originally Posted by Umihito
But then there's got to be a reason why more places don't stock anime and manga. As big as it's gotten, I believe companies here still consider it a niche market so they're scared to take the risk.
Yeah! When I went to America last year I was literally gobsmacked when Bleach was playing on TV!
Oh! I admit I forgot about Pokemon, so that's the only exception. XD
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see how well (or not) the companies would do if more of them stocked anime and manga. We can't forget how easy it is to get things illegally on the internet these days though, so I guess we'd have to factor that in too. XD
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I totally agree. It would be really great if companies took notice and made things more readily avaliable! I don't know what it is. . . like you said the USA has a huge anime market, I mean just compare their TV stations to ours or their Amazon to ours, but for some reason the companies just assume no one else wants it. I don't condone it, but I understand why people go online and get it illegally. It's not even a matter of price, it's the fact that it's often downright impossible to even get anime/manga here :P
XD I think I've ranted enough, but thanks for replying, it's fascinating to compare the Welsh culture with the English, we're probably within driving distance and yet it's both so foriegn and so familiar! I just wish the UK as a whole would get more manga/anime avaliable to it.