Heads-up since these two volumes have been expensive and hard to find, I am starting to see them come back in stock at different shops, such as Blackwell's.
If you're missing these volumes be sure to grab them!
Hello, kind of a long shot probably but I'm really looking for Asumi-Chan volumes 2 & 4 to complete my set in progress. I'm probably willing to buy duplicates of what I already own if you are only selling as a set as well.
Must be in good collector condition thank you and I'm in Canada, so must be open to shipping here 🙏
Sharing this info in case it can help anyone else. I purchased a lot of an OOP series and one of the books had a manufacturing defect where the lower half of the spine had no glue the first half of pages were falling out and holding on by a few cm of glue. If you have an old book whose glue is just brittle and old, this repair will be even easier and you'll see why as we go through this.
Video showing the final result: https://imgur.com/a/Fl5Bmyx
Sorry in advance if the formatting of this post is weird, I'm not used to making guides or anything, don't hesitate to reply if you have questions.
Step 1. Evaluating the problem
First I wanted to evaluate what I was working with. The first two or three pages were completely loose and then it seemed like the rest of the first half of the book was hanging on for dear life only by the top of the spine.
I inspected the spine and it was obvious fast that there was simply NO GLUE on the first half of the spine, but not along the entire vertical length because there was glue across the entire top of the spine. This confirmed that it was a manufacturing defect and the book has always been like this, it's not due to age. This book should have never been accepted by whoever bought it, it's a pretty serious defect lol.
Step 2. Carefully removing all the affected pages
Next step was to remove every page that wasn't properly glued because I was gonna want to see the spine and see what's going on. This was a long process because the glue at the top of the spine was still perfectly flexible and strong, my goal was to hold each page as close as possible to the glue and flex it back and forth very slowly, working my way upward until the page was fully released, one at a time. What is important here is that you don't tear the paper, be patient and methodical, you want each page to come out as straight as possible so it gives a nice flat surface to glue back. Don't pull on the page, instead flex it lightly up and down to work the glue. If you are dealing with an old book with brittle glue, it should be super easy to separate since the glue won't flex and will just give up.
All the affected pages succesfully removed; the second half of the book got a perfect spread of glue so I left it intact:
Step 3. Dry-fitting the removed pages to see how they fit back in
Now we can see exactly what the defect is. The spine did not receive it's full spread of glue, and we can most of the spine is completely bare, which explains why the pages were only hanging by the top of the book. I knew that I ideally wanted a perfectly flat working surface, but at this point I was worried because the glue was still very strong and flexible, so I was ready to have to accept some kind of defect.
After a quick dry test-fit by pushing the removed pages back against the spine, the bottom of the book's pages aligned perfectly with the intact ones, while the top of the pages jutted out by a few mm due to the layer of glue and paper fibers that aren't present across the bottom part of the spine.
Top of the book (the glue causes a few mm of space to be added causing pages to be uneven)
Bottom of the book (perfection!!) I wanted to try to get the top to fit the same
Step 4. Compress the removed pages into a tight, aligned block
I aligned the removed pages perfectly, ensured they were in the proper order and clamped them overnight so remove as much as air possible and get the page block tight together.
This is the spine-facing edge and where I will apply glue to the whole spine-facing edge
Step 5. Attempt to remove the residual glue
This is the step that I consider a failure on my end because I was unable to remove the remaining glue from the spine safely since it was still so flexible and strongly bonded to the spine. Even though I was being extremely careful and trying to "cut" away at tiny bits at a time using a metal toothpick and tweezers, it was very obvious that I risked ripping through the spine. Although I did not rip through, if I run my fingers across the outer spine I could feel like bumps where it was obvious that paper fibers had shifted, so I decided to stop.
I considered a few alternate options, such as making diagonal cuts into the actual pages to compensate for the glue, but I felt that this was too risky and may compromise the flat gluing surface. I opted to accept the few mm of space offset at the top of the book, telling myself I've definitely seen some other intact manga books with comparable offset tolerances and it was better than a torn and destroyed spine.
Step 6. The final reassembly
Forgive me for not taking photos during this part but I needed both hands and full attention, it was the easiest but most stressful part. The only things you need is a good Ph Neutral book-binding glue (I used Lineco PH Neutral PVA) and a small brush.
- Grab clamped page block, fan a light amount of glue across the entire collective edge of the pages, and then do the same for the spine
- Remove all the clamps while maintaining a good grip to maintain alignment of the pages and push the block against the spine.
- Have a paper towel on hand to remove any excess glue that might jut out from the sides of the book or from unwanted places.
- Close the book and put some weight on it; leave for 24h
Sucks there is no English license but I'll take what I can get
Link to the survey, you can tell them which unlicensed series you would like to see licensed and printed, let's do it!
I'm really sad that it's not possible to get them all in English at this point. If we are lucky we could get an anime adaptation and seven seas continues to print them in an omnibus format or something 🙏
Seven Seas has a monthly survey where you can tell them what licenses from Japan you would like them to publish. With the recent announcement of the anime, it might be a good time to collectively push for Giant Ojou-Sama!
Other publishers also have similar google docs, I just have a feeling that this series is kind of a fit for what Seven Seas usually choose to publish
A little haul i picked up yesterday i paid 3.50usd each book, that's definitely the least I have paid for any manga so far lol so I'm really happy about that
Also I was surprised to see the size of these Seven Seas books, all my other Seven Seas series are quite small standard-sized stuff but uzaki-chan and mononoke are like viz sigs kinda size
I'm very especially looking forward to Rai Rai Rai, seems like a kind of lighter version Parasyte.
Kiruru was sort of on a whim but it looks like fun
I don't know why it didn't click until just now but I can't unsee it anymore. Such a smart and creative use of space.
I'm wondering if these volumes are supposed to be shrink-wrapped if I buy brand new, I ask because on ebay I see some of them seem shrink wrapped, but at the store I go to they are all un-wrapped (and in pretty terrible condition unfortunately)
I know the series will never be truly complete but I'll settle, I loved this show
Just missed out on a local deal for this series and I'm feeling bummed out about it, if you have a set or almost-complete set for sale please make my day, cheers 🥳
Located in Canada
Felt pretty lucky finding a cheap Cromartie volume, but now I have to find the other volumes which will probably be a bit of a nightmare. Looking forward to reading BR enforcers this weekend, I'll buy the rest if I enjoy the first 4 volumes.
Help me decide! If you had to pick between a copy with a dent on the front cover on the character's face and another copy with a bend in the front cover corner, which would you keep?
Personally I'm leaning towards keeping the corner bend because I'm going to be sleeving the book in a cdjapan protective plastic so it won't get any worse. The dent on the front I feel like i'll never be able to unsee.
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In many of the matches I played today, the players with the highest scores were people running with the hammer the whole time one-shotting people by surprise.
IMO the least fun thing in the game, I think they need to be a two-shot. Keep them strong against mechs but impractical against people.
EDIT: Devs appear to have acknowledged this and will make adjustments for the Early Acces launch 🚀
