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General Manga Questions & References Thread

In my experience, it's actually pretty rare for manga to be put into box sets.

Unlike anime, which generally come in the (around) 13 or 26 or 52 episode lengths, and are easily broken into sets of 13 episodes each, many of the more popular manga that come out in the US don't have a pre-determined number of volumes. Or they're not as popular, and therefore not as likely to bring in enough money to support multiple printings.

Off the top of my head, there are only two companies that have done manga box sets. One is Tokyopop, who did sets for at least Magic Knight Rayearth (one for MKR and one for MKR2, each with a small character book packaged with it), and .hack//Legend of the Twilight (which didn't come with extras). I think they may have done sets for Cardcaptor Sakura as well, but I'm not certain. Regardless, they're now a defunct company, so it's a moot point.

The only other company I've noticed that has done a box set was Viz, who did a special-edition box for Naruto when they reached the time-skip in the series, which had all of the pre-skip volumes together (which was in the 20s or 30s, IIRC). However, Naruto had been in print for quite a number of years at that point, so it made sense to re-issue the earlier volumes, so people who may have missed them could get caught up easier, and Naruto's popular enough to justify a re-release.

What you'll find more commonly, with manga, are omnibus releases. Omnibuses are usually 2-3 volumes of the manga in one binding. Early omnibus releases were a bit notorious for bad binding, but now, at least for Yen Press's releases, that seems to be fixed.

Still, most omnibus editions are either the initial US release, or it's a re-release by a different company (such as the Clover and Cardcaptor Sakura omnibuses, where they were originally published by Tokyopop). Or, like with Naruto, they're just so stupidly popular that the company is guaranteed to make money by rereleasing them for a third time.

I don't know 20th Century Boys in particular, but I personally doubt that there's much demand for box sets (especially as it wouldn't evenly break down other than to 11 and 11, and both 11-book and 22-book sets are rare). Nor is it likely to get an omnibus release. Looking on TSRI, the books aren't being discounted further than their normal prices, so they're probably not low-sellers, but I still doubt it.

How many volumes of the series are there actually though? Because Rightstuff has 10 available but the Silent Mobius manga page here says there's 12 volumes.