Manga Hive: Not Enough Manga

My manga journey...

About 3 years ago now I discovered manga. Before that I read 'comic's well, what I thought were comics. They were from Image and Marvel - although I always lent towards Image as my favoured comic choice. At the time I started reading Ranma 1/2, and that manga really opened up my eyes. A boy who changed into a girl ? what on earth? yet so interesting! and so manga.

Brings back memories...

Then I started watching Naruto.
Jumping back further; I live in Perth, West Australia. A large yet isolated city - even from it's own country - hence the title of this post.
They took Naruto off TV. Most likely due to broadcasters realizing it is not a kids cartoon. Too much for our poor little kids to digest there(Too much Sexy Jutsus lo).
And I should know it wasn't for kids because my 9 year old became very disinterested. In fact he hardly understands it as it progressed.

Perhaps scenes like this (about the time they took it off air)

mmm, well this reminds me of Ranma. Naruto transforming into a (e'hm, naked) girl... aah. I see.

After some time I missed Naruto from the kids cartoon slot and on some random netsurfing discovered that I could watch Naruto online and even better I could read it!! and buy it!!
long story short - I read 315 chapters in a week. A scary image for anyone who has read through Naruto. I was hooked - and still am.

Now the title --- Perth does not sell any manga. Well, that's not entirely true. There is a gaming shop near me, but they have token manga books (only about 3 popular series) which they don't seem to restock once sold. Anyway.... Manga is so underrated here it's ridiculous, and is a great disappointment that it is not accessible to more readers. People do not understand Manga or even respect it. That people actually think Manga is comics for children - that it is a lesser form of storytelling. It is not valued or admired. But I believe there are people out there who would enjoy it but they don't know it.

So I must read manga online and buy manga volumes from overseas to sate myself.

And so I'm going to use this space in the cyber universe to spew out my thoughts on the manga stories I follow - lest my mind explode from my mental diatribe.