Have you ever thought about costs in terms of # of manga you could get?

[RailHeaven]

Tonight while ordering a $32 plate of lobster pasta (I'm on vacation ) I started thinking about manga and then realized that the pasta dish that I was going to eat cost about the same as 4 manga volumes. Damn. I ordered it anyways.

I know that was random but has anyone else had similar thoughts?

[DidCart]

Originally Posted by RailHeaven

I know that was random but has anyone else had similar thoughts?

Unfortunately, yes.
It's inevitable.
Not only with manga, but with comics, DVDs, Blu-Rays, Figurines, etc.

[yezhanquan]

Cost and storage space.

[C.A.]

I've always convinced myself that collecting manga and figures is much cheaper than collecting wine or cars.

I think I spend alot on figures, but when compared to clubbers, alcoholics, smokers and such, I think its not too bad.

[Vexx]

When my kids were young and game arcades weren't obsolete, the unit of exchange for visualizing value we used was "how many games in the arcade is this worth?" (most games were 25 U.S. cents then). When they were wanting some fad toy that was, say, $30... we'd do the math to discover it was worth 120 rounds of video games.

That often killed the "lust/want" stone dead.

The "kids" are 19 and 24 now... the unit of exchange is usually "video games" ($50) or $$/hr entertainment (e.g. a movie is $10... $5/hr).

My wife puts up with my manga/figure/anime collecting quite equitably.... mostly because yes, its a LOT cheaper than some hobbies.

But sometimes I'm in the store holding 3 or 4 volumes of manga and thinking... "hmmmm, this would buy a tank of gas".

[MidnightViper88]

I think of it the other way around; I think of all the shit I could have bought with the money I spent on manga...

My small collection currently consists of 9 volumes of Suzuka (Which I have no intention of expanding anymore), 6 volumes of Eureka Seven, all 14 volumes of Love Hina, all 6 volumes of Real Bout High School, and 22 current-to-date volumes of Negima...For simplicity's sake, let's round it off to $10 per book...That makes my manga collection a net worth of $570...

That's a drop in the bucket compared to other people's collections here, I would assume, but nearly $600 to me could buy me a Jericho 941 pistol, or a Nikon D60 DSLR camera, or a set of 5-star Pony wheels and tires for my Mustang, or a carbon steel daisho set; A whole bunch of stuff, really...

And that doesn't include my anime collection

Oh well...You live a short life; Spend crazy, support capitalism...Your money won't be good in the afterlife anyway...

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by RailHeaven

Tonight while ordering a $32 plate of lobster pasta (I'm on vacation ) I started thinking about manga and then realized that the pasta dish that I was going to eat cost about the same as 4 manga volumes. Damn. I ordered it anyways.

I know that was random but has anyone else had similar thoughts?

When I look at manga in America and think "wow with this price I could get two volumes in Korean" .

[TJR]

For me, it works both ways.

When I spend extra on food, I think about the games, anime, or manga I could have bought. However, when I stare at stuff I've read only once and don't care about at all, I wonder how the hell I got suckered into collecting it.

[MidnightViper88]

There are too many ways my money can be spliced...

A leader class Transformer could buy me a box set; Two leader class Transformers could get me a PVC figure; Instead of buying DVDs from this one series, I could've bought another series instead...

Oh well

[Megidolaon]

Well, I don't actually buy manga and never will (it's absurdly expensive, just imagine buying all Naruto volumes, for that money you could get a whole car).
But I'm frequently wondering about prices and what other things you could buy for the same amount.

Like on New Year's Eve I celebrated with some friends and the neighbors each had fireworks for 400+ euro.
I just thought that my 4 day trip to Venice cost that much and here they were churning it out so fast, they weren't even looking at the fireworks they just lit, just lighting one after the other after 5 seconds.

I think it's weird how prices are so arbitrary.
Sure, prices all have a base somewhere and then might go up or down due to economy factors, but when you consider what other things you could get for the money you just spent on something, you sometimes realize how much of a waste it is or just how overpriced it is.

Actually, when you look at prices for entertainment in Japan, they are insane. I thought in Germany anime is ridiculously expensive for 4 episodes costing like 30 euro ($42), but in Japan it's like 7,500 Yen (80$) for 2 episodes.

[Shinguji]

Originally Posted by TJR

However, when I stare at stuff I've read only once and don't care about at all, I wonder how the hell I got suckered into collecting it.

Same here. That kind of stuff tends to be things I've bought on a last minute decision, and it usually leaves me with a lot of guilt.

As a result, I try to think before I buy a manga, "is it worth owning?" or, "would I read this in the future?". So often times, the manga volumes I do buy and own are in a weird order, based on whether or not they have any chapters that I actually like.

[Zalis]

I distinctly remember getting a traffic ticket and thinking, "Man, that's three DVDs right there!"