Does anyone know of stores that specialise in manga and anime in the Brisbane area? If not Brisbane, are there many stores Australia-wide? Also, are there any clubs, groups (online or otherwise), forums etc that you could recommend where fans of Japanese culture (specifially anime, manga, toys, movies etc) get together?
I found a shop on the weekend in the Valley (next door to King of Kings) that specialises in Japanese toys and DVDs. Some pretty cool stuff although pretty expensive, but the guy who runs it reckons anything that comes direct from Japan, as opposed to being mass produced in China etc, is more expensive/worth more to collectors.

pedophile found

rofl

if you find a place veg, let me now as right now i just order my stuff online cept for manga which i pick up at borders bookstores. the 1 store i used to know closed down. was called godzillas on the gold coast and stocked a ton of stuff. i remember buying the teknoman model kits from there forl ike $30 each. ahhh great stuff.

cept for manga which i pick up at borders bookstores

Yeah the selection isn't too bad, they got a shelf packed full.

Found this site

But some of the info could be out of date. There's a bunch of contacts for shops etc so might be a good place to start.
I went to the Brisbane Writer's Festival on Friday night and they had two seminars which I caught; one discussion on the topic of "are comics literature?" and the other was on Tezuka, the father of manga and the creator of "Astro Boy" and "The Jungle Emperor" etc etc.
The manga one in particular was really interesting festival info
Philip Brophy talked about the origins of Tezuka's work and how the US bombing and subsequent occupation of Japan after WW2 had affected cultural production in Japan.
To be honest, I have been more interested in traditional Western comics but the whole manga movement is quite a complex phenomenon, and I am starting to appreciate it a lot more, especially after finding out about Tezuka and looking at some of the politics and social motivations behind it.

I drew a stick figure in my diary today, I'm now about to draw it raping the ass of a 13 year old girl with a tentacle. Reckon I could sell it as an idea? Probably already been done though :(

many many times over casa

Nice trolling casa, but for the record, there's a lot more to Manga than Hentai. It's like saying all American sitcoms are variations on Full House.

You mean they're not?

A friend from uni always goes on about some anime festival he goes to and he always comes back with some wicked anime merchandise. I'm more interested in finding cheap anime t-shirts of like Ultraman or Samurai Champloo or something.
And yeah any DVD from Japan is going to be damn expensive since they sell it in Japan itself for like $45. Pretty ridiculous prices for anime at JB if you've had a look.

id go to an anime convention in a heartbeat if there was 1 in brisbane. unfortunatly i cant find any up-to-date info on any

theres two that i know of, but they have already been and gone this year, theres supernova, which i think is in late march, and another one that i can't remember the name of, also i do know there is quite a strong anime club at qut which has screenings every second weekend, for like 2 bux entry. ive only been once but i keen to start going again. site here: http://www.brisbaneanime.com/info.html according to that, the next screening is this sunday at 11am at gardens point campus.

I watched the article on ABC yesterday about 11am/noon. Geez those anime doods are freaks. But I will give them an A+ for enthusiasm.

id go to an anime convention in a heartbeat if there was 1 in brisbane. unfortunatly i cant find any up-to-date info on any

keep watching http://supanova.com.au/ its been here like three or so times now (wait for next year).

last edited by scuzzy at 19:28:48 17/Sep/07

yeah after merky said supernova i searched and found it. me and my friend are gonna go next year and she is gonna cosplay as something

Move to Japan... ( I did for a year, sent 30 kilos of manga etc back in boxes).
I use Amazon.co.jp to get stuff now. The site has some english on it if you cant read japanese.
Also, they ship internationally and it works out better than buying in Aus if you get a few things. They also have the option to buy things second hand alongside alot of the products, you can save a bit of cash and from my experiences japanese people take freakishly good care of their stuff. I have bought heaps of ps2 games and none of them ever had a single scratch.
You can buy some cheap and good japanese textbooks there too, I suggest you get them and then you can buy manga for 4 bucks rather than 20-30 per volume. You would be amazed at the great mangas there are that dont get translated, car restoration comics, stock trading comics, genius!

Yeah would love to go to Japan. Did you teach Emglish aP or some other type of work? Facinating culture and Toyko looks awesome, if a little chaotic.

There's Supanova as others have mentioned, and also Animania - http://animania.net.au/

I went to tokyo for 2 semester on uni exchange, studying economics at a Japanese uni. was awesome.
Tokyo is a wicked place to stay/visit. The trains can get a bit hectic ie getting pushed into a packed train ala a rugby maul (it actually happens). But the nightlife and food etc is exceptional.


last edited by aP at 01:08:02 24/Sep/07

Anime and manga have gone downhill IMO.