This just in: Masi Oka reads manga! And loves Monster! And is going to appear on… The View? (Can you imagine Barbara Walters talking Tezuka with him? Now there’s a thought!) Thanks to a widely-circulated USA Today profile, bloggers now have incontrovertible proof that Heroes‘ Hiro is a card-carrying nerd who buys his manga at Kinokuniya, wears plaid shirts, and works a day job at Industrial Light and Magic.

There’s just one thing that’s been bothering Genshiken geeks everywhere: shouldn’t Hiro be reading, well, manga, and not an American comic (especially a series that screams indie-press)? As one Beat reader observed:

If Masi’s a manga fan, can he explain why he’s playing a Japanese guy living in Japan who only speaks Japanese, and yet apparently only reads American monthly comics? Can anyone in Japan quote individual issues of X-Men?

Translation: no one at NBC has heard of Vagabond?

Heroes airs Mondays at 9 PM on NBC (and is also available through iTunes). Aside from some tin-eared dialogue, it’s been a fun ride with unexpected plot twists and appealing performances from its sprawling cast. The first five volumes of Monster are available through Viz; volume 6 hits stores on December 19th. If the manga blogosphere’s near-universal praise for this addictive thriller hasn’t persuaded you to check it out, perhaps Hiro’s endorsement will.