It’s time to dig into the vault for an old post I wrote in November (the 17th) of 2006 on my old anime blog, NA.KI.ME. Originally called “The Waiting Game”, it’s about searching for recently released manga that was over its “recently released” title. That very same post is quoted below in its entirety:

This is a problem that I have been dealing with for a year and a half. Hunting for Manga as soon as it is released. Right now, I’m going to every book store in Chattanooga: Waldenbooks at Hamilton Place Mall and at the Northgate Mall, looking for Fullmetal Alchemist (Volume 10), Genshiken (Volume 7), Dr. Slump (Volume 10) and Death Note (Volume 8). This is getting really annoying, especially with the cover of FMA 10:

I understand a couple of things though about this: 1) It’s close to Christmas and the companies are waiting close to Thanksgiving to release everything. 2) All of these titles I mentioned are popular.

There’s no way to stop this. Everyone will just have to wait until they get what they want. I will go back tomorrow and hopefully it will be in stock.

Two years later, the post still stands. Although a couple of the series mention ended a long time ago, existing series would have to wait longer due to releases the coinciding with the releases in Japan.

Take Fullmetal Alchemist for example: Volume 17 was released in last month (November). Back in the summer, Volume 20 was released in Japan… In the United States, Volume 18 is slated for a May 19th, 2009 release.

That is a pretty long time until us Westerners get to see more of Fullmetal Alchemist (but a month-ish before that, there will be more animated installments).