Flea Market Manga

I’ll admit it: despite being an almost comically devoted anime fan, manga never stuck with me. I found those first Dragon Ball volumes at a flea market once and felt this weird happiness, then it just… evaporated.

The reasons are straightforward. Manga costs too much for what you’re getting—ten euros for thirty minutes of reading if you’re a fast reader. My attention span is also shot; five minutes of sustained reading and I’m twitching for my phone. And fundamentally, manga is just shapes on paper. No color, no music, no voices. Anime wins on every front.

Nick Gazin, who’s an actual artist and knows what he’s talking about, would probably hit me for saying any of this. He loves manga the way some people love oxygen. He put together a list of his five best: Akira, Dragon Ball, Lone Wolf & Cub, Nausicaä, Astro Boy.

The thing about that list is they’re foundational works. Akira and Nausicaä shaped how I think about animation—the entire visual language came from those pages. The fact that these images started as ink on paper, in one person’s head, before they became the anime I actually watch, means something. I might never read manga seriously. But I can’t dismiss work that essential.