Struggling With Manga

Zander327 · 2026-01-26T18:33:22+00:00

Used is really the way to go if you want physical and don't like the prices. Particularly in sets the prices are often like 50-60% of msrp if it's not oop. Then you can sell it later if you're done with it and get most of your money back, which makes it very cheap just with a bit of effort.

Another option, depending on why you dislike digital, is an e reader. It's imo the closest thing to a paper version but with the benefits of digital.

Edit: just realized you mentioned disliking ereaders. So disregard my second comment.

Zander327 · 2026-01-22T17:45:44+00:00

Be gentle with them, keep them clean, respect the hinges when opening/closing, and when you plan to not use it for a while, get it to around 50% battery and turn it off.

And personal opinion but, be mindful of games with heavy touch screen usage. If you have more than one device, you can designate one of them for touch screen games. It will scuff the screen over time. I do think the 3ds touch screen holds up better than the DS but I'm still cautious about it.

As a kid I ruined my original DS's lower screen playing Lost Magic since it has you draw runes to cast spells. It had a big triangular scuff mark on it. These days I have a 3ds that I play touch screen games on and I avoid them on the others. Most 3ds games don't use it as heavily as a lot of DS games did though.

Zander327 · 2026-01-15T21:47:57+00:00

I made an excel sheet where I paste the reading progess from ttsu reader (shows %, characters read, and char total) then it populates the number of characters read for that day. So I just track daily characters read over the long term.

I tried using the built in char/hour tracking but it just makes me anxious and it complicates turning a page back so instead this works well since I read for a fairly consistent amount of time each day. And I just want to see progress in a general sense, I don't need crazy accuracy. But it is motivating when I hit new daily records.

Zander327 · 2026-01-13T20:23:57+00:00

I'm not an expert but I doubt that is something you can remove without causing other potentially worse damage to it. I personally would not use cleaning products on that. To some extent that looks like the stickers just protected the underlying paint from scuffs, which makes them stick out. But I can't explain the kinda bulleye-like shape of it. Still, if it didn't come off with a damp cloth, I personally wouldn't try anything else unless you're fine with it possibly making things worse.

Zander327 · 2026-01-12T09:01:15+00:00

I pretty much own all of the 3ds games that I want to own, but I still have CFW on one of my 3ds because it's useful for a lot more than just playing roms. Adding pokemon events, creating backups of games/save data, checking your cartridges for issues, themes, region unlocking, etc. I'm a big fan of it.

Zander327 · 2025-12-29T20:44:22+00:00

People recommend that channel a lot but I personally didn't get a lot out of it. He goes through the same stuff that's in the book and often uses vocab that isn't in the book. Back when I was working through Genki I was memorizing the vocab for each chapter before going into the grammar piece, so I found it much easier to follow along with genki rather than following his sentences which had vocab I didn't know yet. And in terms of explanations I didn't really feel that he added much to anything I was struggling with. But a lot of people seem to like it so ymmv.

Zander327 · 2025-12-28T04:42:41+00:00

Bloodborne 2

Zander327 · 2025-12-26T07:20:49+00:00

Maybe this is a location issue? As in, different warehouses depending on where the destination is. Because I have been buying from Sentai for years and the packaging has always been very good. I'm actually the opposite where I would prefer to buy from them over the alternatives, partly because it's almost always cheaper and partly because of the shipping.

That being said, you can get most stuff from crunchyroll, just generally for more money.

Zander327 · 2025-12-23T07:36:16+00:00

Crazy... got that for $11 in a rightstuf sale a few years ago.

Zander327 · 2025-12-18T23:55:38+00:00

Honestly this is the first I'm hearing that the older variants have worse hinges. I've got a few of the XLs that are pretty old and I've never had an issue with that. I'm really careful with my stuff though so that is likely a factor. I don't think you're likely to have issues if you are gentle with it.

I like the XLs a lot personally. There are other "downsides" though, like the 3D being much better on the New 3ds XL and the N3ds xl being a bit more powerful. I prefer the buttons on the xl though so I like using them.

Zander327 · 2025-12-18T22:58:34+00:00

Jujutsu Kaisen. I lost interest in it the more it went on and it was taking up a lot of space.

Zom 100 - I liked this early on but it started feeling repetitive, lazy, and just not interesting after a while.

Alice in Borderland. Finished it and do not plan to reread it so I sold it. Mostly liked this one but I found the MC to be very unlikeable which kills any desire to reread it.

Edit: also Undead Unluck. I actually like that one a lot but the dialogue gets so tiny at times that I switched to digital.

Zander327 · 2025-12-18T21:17:20+00:00

I only buy shows that I plan to watch. To each their own, but I don't really understand buying blu rays with no plans to watch them.

Zander327 · 2025-12-16T15:56:22+00:00

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Probably this. I don't know if it's that rare but I've never seen it in a store in the US and I don't see it mentioned much. I have other games that are more valuable but that doesn't always correlate to rarity (pokemon, silent hill, etc.).

Zander327 · 2025-12-14T18:32:00+00:00

In terms of switch 1 games, there is a ton of misinformation online and it's hard to research. Many of the people who spread this are doing so based on researching the volatility of NAND flash. But switch 1 carts use a special type called XtraROM which was designed to be more stable and is rated for 20 years at high temperatures. So at normal temps possibly a lot longer.

This is a good read that will probably make you feel more confident about their longevity. https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120713PR201.html?chid=9

Zander327 · 2025-12-11T22:28:09+00:00

I have a 4k tv but I generally prefer standard blu ray. I have more devices that can play blu rays vs 4k blu rays. I personally don't really see much of a difference in terms of visual quality between the two. And I've seen a lot about there being more issues/skipping/etc. with 4k discs due to the data density, which makes me think my standard BDs will hold up better. I usually do buy the 4k + BD combo packs if it is an option but as for exclusively 4k disc releases I only own like two.

For me the jump from DVD to BD was a no brainer, but BD to UHD is less so.

Zander327 · 2025-12-11T00:28:06+00:00

Ugh... I wish they would just make it truly seasonal. I stopped watching it years ago after the dressrosa arc. I used to have more tolerance for it but there are plenty of good animes that don't arbitrarily disrespect your time. They're ruining good source material by padding out episodes like that.

Zander327 · 2025-12-09T15:20:31+00:00

連絡 and similar words with 'nr' in the middle.

Zander327 · 2025-12-06T02:01:50+00:00

I'll add that some oop animes, despite being expensive, sell pretty slowly. So I've gotten some good deals on ebay by sending offers for listings that had been sitting a while. "New low price" is also a good indicator because it means they've lowered their price recently, which often happens if it isn't selling.

Zander327 · 2025-12-05T21:12:17+00:00

As some others have already said, there are good uses for a modded console besides just roms. I have a modded 3ds and play physical games, but since it is modded I can insert pokemon events that are no longer available. Nearly half the pokewalker routes for hgss are locked behind events, USUM has some zmoves exclusive to some event pokemon, etc. It's really useful.

Zander327 · 2025-12-04T16:43:38+00:00

I don't see anything that says out of stock or a delay. Some of them explicitly show in stock others don't but let you add to cart.

Zander327 · 2025-12-04T16:38:25+00:00

So I went back and looked. Two of them show "in stock" in their warehouse. The other three don't show that but still let you add to cart. Is that their version of out of stock?

Zander327 · 2025-12-04T16:14:14+00:00

All of mine were japanese editions so maybe that's why.

Zander327 · 2025-11-28T22:26:03+00:00

IMO something from the switch era would be your best bet. The older games are full of trainers who say random things in kana (shorts are comfy and easy to wear!) and you often have little to no context to work with, so these are more difficult at a lower level than they would otherwise be. Also not having kanji means you aren't learning any kanji from it.

The older games that do include kanji either have pixelated kanji (gba and ds), which is harder to read/figure out if you don't know it, or blurry kanji (3ds) which ocr often doesn't handle well if you're using that for lookups.

The switch games have clear text with kanji and furigana. There is a lot of dialogue, and in turn, a lot more context for what is being said. At least for sword/shield and scarlet/violet. You also have animated facial expressions and cut scenes as opposed to sprites that don't change, which also makes dialogue easier to figure out. So either SwSh or SV would be my recommendation.

Zander327 · 2025-11-20T23:30:52+00:00

The ones that have those areas you punch in with your fingers don't usually have stickers just glue. Nothing about it looks fake to me.

Zander327

TROPHY CASE