The wonders of the internet! Without it…we wouldn’t be able find out what new anime is coming out, what merchandise is available, stream anime, etc. The BEST part though, I think, is finding anime merchandise that isn’t available or extremely hard to find in the United States. Such as the pictured items above– you can’t find those anywhere in stores. Ebay, third-party sellers on Amazon…they have all been wonderful with finding things that you love.Another great app is AliExpress. Now they may not have manga, but they do have a lot of anime-related things at great prices. In fact I purchased two of my cosplay outfits from there and they are AMAZING!!!

One day I decided to look around Amazon for some new manga books to read. I was curious to know if ReLIFE had manga somewhere in the world, because I have never been able to find it. Lo and behold!!!! I had found it…on Amazon of all places. Although…it’s not shipped from Amazon. Because Japamedia was the seller, the books were shipped from Japan itself.

The books are amazing! Most people would be like…”meh…they are only books.”  Yeah, they are manga books, but they are somewhat different than the ones we are used to in the United States.

Unless you have watched ReLIFE already, you may or may not want to get the books. Unless you know a translator or you want to try and translate it yourself. But they do make a nice addition to any manga collection, just to be honest.

It’s completely written in Japanese, so that may be a con to a lot of people. Since I’m a collector of anime books, figures, dvds, and random odds and ends, I decided to go ahead and buy them. I pretty much know what’s happening in the series anyway, due to the DVD binge, but I’m also trying to translate it…Kanji, however slows it down as those characters are a pain to translate.

Most manga I have seen in bookstores, at least in my area, have been all black and white. This series however…it’s in full color!! There is a page where it’s black and white but for the most part…COLOR! They are the size of a typical manga book, and nicely structured.

What you realize too, when you read/skim through the manga, you can tell right away the anime is pretty much THE manga. Some anime tend to branch away from the books a little bit, but ReLIFE doesn’t really do that.

Each chapter is titled as Report #, sort of like Yoake reporting on Arata in the anime series. Would I recommend this manga collection? YES. Even if you don’t read Japanese/fully understand it, you CAN actually follow along and understand the premise without too much trouble. The illustrations are just so lovely, and it’s actually nice to come across something that’s in color.

If there are other series that you are looking for that have hard to find merchandise, Ebay would be the best option (possibly the least expensive if comparing to Amazon), Amazon would be another option when it comes to books, poster scrolls, etc.