On Monday the 19th of November thanks to all the nice people at Viz I had the once-in-a-lifetime chance to watch Takehiko Inoue, author of Vagabond and Slam Dunk paint a mural on the wall of the brand-spanking-new Kinokuniya which overlooks Bryant Park, here in New York City.

At the event Viz announced several Inoue-related releases:
- Inoue’s gritty wheelchair basketball manga Real
- An omnibus edition of Vagabond
- The reprinting of Slam Dunk, including a one chapter preview in December’s Shonen Jump magazine
- Two very lovely Inoue artbooks, called SUMI and WATER

At the cocktail reception the press was treated to wine, cookies, and a sampling of Cafe Zaiya’s delicious foods. You can read interviews and coverage of the event at ANN, Comics 212, about.com, the MangaCast, Sporadic Sequential, and Publisher’s Weekly.

As excited as I am about an omnibus of version of Vagabond (I can catch up at half the price!) I spent the weekend focused on the new Kinokuniya location, and how it changed my manga shopping map of NYC. Out-of-towners flying in for NYAF this week might want to take a look at my updated manga map:

Download a printable pdf here. I have also put it on google maps here. If you want to send a smaller link to your friends, use this: http://tinyurl.com/yw9gtu.

The greater Bryant Park area was already a great manga destination in the city. One could, on one’s lunch break, hit both Book Off and neighboring Cafe Zaiya on 41st street, rounding off an afternoon with $1 manga (in Japanese) and cream puffs from Beard Papas and then eat in the park next to the library. Given more time, the manga shopping circuit would not be complete without a trip to Asahiya on 45th and then hiking up to (the old) Kinokuniya on 49th street near Rockefeller Center.

The new Kinokuniya places itself firmly between Book Off and Midtown Comics, and it has a Cafe Zaiya right inside the store as if to tell you that you don’t need those cream puffs! Just stay right here and read while you watch the ice skaters in the park!

The weekend before the big Takehiko Inoue event, I hung out with Ed Chavez of the MangaCast and Kai-Ming Cha of Publisher’s Weekly. We went to Book Off, where I was surprised to find the English used manga moved upstairs along the back wall in a very expanded section! Previously Book Off’s used English manga selection was fairly weak, but now it is a formidable collection, unrivaled even at the Strand! It might be the best place to shop for used English manga anywhere… possibly in the entire country.

We also went to the Atom Manga Cafe, New York’s only manga kissa. I had not previously been to the cafe, deterred by rumors that the manga collection is mostly in Japanese. This didn’t bother me, as I was able to flip through Atom’s impressive collection of classic titles like Ashita No Joe, Aim for the Ace, and a large selection of Tezuka’s works. I didn’t even get to the selection of current manga magazines (which are shrink wrapped at Kinokuniya), or fashion magazines. The Atom Manga Cafe offers a small menu of food, although they claimed to be out of ramen at 8 PM on a Saturday, and when Ed ordered an onigiri they had to cook the rice, which took a while.

Getting back to the new Kinokuniya, Cafe Zaiya’s onigiri are excellent. I recommend the 4-kinds [sic] sandwiches, which feature one fourth of a ham sandwich, a tuna sandwich, a potato salad sandwich, and a tomato sandwich packaged together. According to Ed, the 4-kinds sandwich competes with the 3-kind sandwich available from Lawson’s convenience stores in Japan. It is the lunch of choice for indecisive people!

In the interest of full disclosure, popcultureshock.com has a relationship with Midtown Comics. I’m not clear on the nature of that relationship, but I do know my friends at Midtown are concerned about the new Kinokuniya. Midtown has an excellent selection of translated manga, but it might have a hard time competing with Kinokuniya. Kinokuniya carries a nice selection of samurai movies on DVD and Japanese import CDs (at Japanese prices). However, Kinokuniya shrink-wraps all of it’s books. Midtown allows customers to browse indefinitely, but lacks any kind of seating like you might find at a Barnes and Noble. To Midtown’s credit, they have sales, and usually have a better selection than most Barnes and Noble stores. One could buy one’s comics at Midtown Comics at a competitive price, then read them at the Cafe Zaiya in the Kinokuniya two blocks away while eating 4-kinds sandwiches.