Kingyo Used Books


Kingyo Used Books is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Seimu Yoshizaki. It follows the happenings which revolve around a small used manga store, specializing in old and obscure manga. A first series, titled Kingyoya Koshoten Suitouchō, was published in Shōnen Gahōsha's Young King OURss special editions OURs Girl and OURs Lite from 2000 to 2002, with its chapters collected in two volumes. Kingyo Used Books was serialized in Shogakukan manga magazine Monthly Ikki from 2004 to 2014, when the magazine ceased its publication. It was then published via compiled volumes, with the final volume released in 2020. The series is collected into seventeen volumes. Kingyo Used Books was licensed in North America by Viz Media under their Viz Signature Ikki label.

Plot

The series takes place on a used manga shop, featuring vignette-style segments focused on various characters. It highlights the significance of manga in daily life and includes references to both popular and obscure titles, from the widely known Dr. Slump to the lesser-known Billy Puck.

Publication

Kingyo Used Books is written and illustrated by Seimu Yoshizaki. Yoshizaki first launched a series titled, which was published from 2000 to 2002 in Shōnen Gahōsha's Young King OURss special editions OURs Girl and OURs Lite. Two volumes were published on April 3 and June 26, 2003. Both volumes were re-released by Shogakukan on December 24, 2004. Kingyo Used Books was serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine Monthly Ikki from March 25, 2004, to September 25, 2014, when the magazine ceased publication. The series was then continued via compiled volumes. The chapters were collected in seventeen volumes, released from December 24, 2004, to July 30, 2020.
In North America, the series has been licensed by Viz Media for English language release and it debuted on Monthly Ikki's English website Sigikki on July 30, 2009. Only four volumes were released from April 20, 2010, to October 18, 2011.

Volumes

Reception

Kingyo Used Books was one of the Jury Recommended Works at the 16th Japan [Media Arts Festival] in 2012.
Carlo Santos in his Anime News Network column "Right Turn Only" gave the manga a grade of "B", saying that "if you want to get a non-manga fan into manga, this is probably not the manga to give them." The critic went on to say, "Kingyo is, if anything, too fixated on giving history lessons, trying to drown the reader in footnotes and details rather than letting the series speak for itself."