****ing kids and the ****ing Manga Section....

[Hon'ya-chan]

Ever since a little invention called Manga made it's debut in America, I am flabberghasted at what kids will do to these things.

While I do the section partially (along with a full-timer; I do the Graphic Novels, he does the Manga) I still have to cleanup the mess when he's off. And i've seen some real doozies.

The obvious ones:

• Coughing, sneezing, or even drooling into the manga.
• Lying on the ground, taking up the space of the aisleway (and our aisles are barely 2 feet over the ADA requirements).
• Leave books on the floor, in adjoining shelves, or piled ontop of the manga shelves.
• Taking out entire series and reading them.

It pisses me off to no end that these kids can come in, read likes it's the public library, and then leave the place like a mess. Oh, but whats this rant without a few doozies?

• We have "Adult" manga. Pretty much, they have themes that would cause a soccor mom to have fits of rage. Many are wrapped for the express purpose of making sure kids don't see stuff like gay sex or a 10 year old boy sneezing high-school girls school uniforms off (I kid you not!!) Others simply are wrapped because they have cards or other crap. While my co-worker has manged a way to prevent kids from ripping off the plastic, kids will do the darndest to read them. Which results in damaged merchendise, Which means we have to return it. Which means a lost sale. And no refill of the title for 2 months. Did I also mention that one title has uber extreme violence, like faeries having their wings chopped off in battle?
• While I haven't had the priviledge of encountering said Soccor mom, i've been heavy handed to kids to the point I overheard one calling me a Dominatrix (heh, they know such words already in Middle school?). Mostly it's for ripping off the plastic and reading the manga, where I kick them out for breeching a security device (the plastic wrap).
• I've seen pages torn out, mostly from books where "Questionable images" were. In one manga, Bathhouse scences with near full-frontal nudity can be seen. Without plastic wrap.

[uknz76]

In my bookstore, even though we don't stock the 'adult' titles, our shrinkage in MANGA is 480% higher than our stock holding ratio. We will probably not be stocking it much longer.

[draggar]

[*]While I haven't had the priviledge of encountering said Soccor mom, i've been heavy handed to kids to the point I overheard one calling me a Dominatrix (heh, they know such words already in Middle school?). Mostly it's for ripping off the plastic and reading the manga, where I kick them out for breeching a security device (the plastic wrap). [*]I've seen pages torn out, mostly from books where "Questionable images" were. In one manga, Bathhouse scences with near full-frontal nudity can be seen. Without plastic wrap. [/LIST]

Simple solution, if you catch them with it open (one that is sealed), they have to buy it or you call the police because they are damaging your inventory (vandalism).

Put a security camera right on top of them, too.

I'll admit, I'm just as guilty of reading books at a book store, but I usually end up buying the book if I like it and if I don't I try my hardest to put it back here I found it, but I do hate people who yell "shhh" while you're talking in the store.

Hey snot, it's a book STORE, not a library, if you want it to be quiet, go to a library!

[AnaKhouri]

I work at a bookstore that has a very large manga section. This is because I am in charge of all Fiction and I am an anime/manga fan. It drives me crazy when kids take manga, sprawl out on the floor and read it (of course leaving it there foe me to pick up). When you just read stuff without buying it you are not supporting the industry and eventually it will collapse because of little IDIOTS LIKE THEM.

OK, maybe not really, but it still bugs me. I know young teenagers may not have lots of extra money to spend so I try to be tolerant.

The worst part, I constantly find stacks of manga horizontal on the shelf right in front of where it should be shelved. So they read it, stacked it on the shelf right where it should be, they just couldn't take the precious 2 seconds to turn it vertical and put it back in place??

[Namrepus221]

I read manga... and even though I am not an employee I do admonish young kids for laying in the ailes and generally lounging in an area.

And yes I've purposely, on accident, tripped over kids that don't get the message that they are causing a hazard. Nothing serious, but just enough for them to get the message that they shouldn't be doing it. Believe me, nothing like telling some schmuck who just HAS to read Naruto that "You almost broke my arm you little ****" to get up, put the book back and go to his mommy about the mean gentlemen that dared to trip over their son because he was laying right in the middle of the store.

And believe it or not. The store has always sided with me when they complain to the management about it.

[Hraesvelg7]

Ah, the mangaloids. At the three stores I've worked in, all of them had regular throngs of these kids. Each store also had escalated shrink rates in that section, meaning it was all stolen daily.
With chain stores, there's no way around it. Corporations will always prefer losing thousands of dollars to theft rather than risk offending the guy stealing it by stopping him. If you have a shoplifter arrested, he might not come back again. As long as he's stealing it at your store, he's not buying it at the competition. At least, thats the explanation I got from the old district manager.

[Tigress]

The Books-A-Million here is almost kid-free because the staff started kicking out the free-loading kids. For a long while, parents were just dropping their kids off and using the store and mall as a free day care. But then the kids would go hog wild, destroy stuff in the stores and bring their little dramas from middle school with them.

First the arcade got rid of the DDR machine, then Books-A-Million got rid of the weekly Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, then different stores started banning shoplifters and miscreants. Eventually, all the troublemakers were gone. Now when I pop in to buy the new stuff that's come out, I only see one or two and they are just flipping through the manga. They also are considerate enough to take up only one side of the aisle.

I actually asked one of the managers that I'm on good terms with if he was worried about the Barnes & Noble going up soon. Since a lot of the kids that were effectively banned may go there and take their parents with them.

His response: "Nope. They can have our shoplifters!"

[Gabrielle Proctor]

sneezed clothes off?

Ahhh, yes Negima. From the author of Love Hina. The two manga have so much in common, one guy and 30 females who all have a crush on him. And every single page has a new, creative way of removing one of said girl's clothing. I'm not fond of his works for obvious reasons, but I knew a guy who was. He was a real pig, and not just for reading that manga.

[Amethyst Hunter]

As a manga/anime fan (mm, GetBackers!) this irritates me. Little 'tards are ruining it for those of us who genuinely enjoy such material and are respectful of the merchandise.

I agree - charge the little pervs for attempting to bust open the sealed books.

[Sliceanddice]

and i now know why my comic book store of choice moved their anima/manga section.... ok.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Hey, there, Hon'ya-chan - I know exactly how you feel! I used to be in charge of Fiction/Mystery/Romance/SciFi sections and Manga was the bane of my existence! I didn't even have the consolation of being a fan...no offense to anyone here, but I just don't get it! The store I worked in had really tall shelves in most of the Fiction/Genres (7 shelves high), but the Manga and graphic novels were on the back wall which is only 4 shelves tall - perfect for all the kiddies! (Though I guess that's preferable to having them climbing on shelves to reach; there are enough bent-beyond-fixable shelves as it is in that area.) In the six months or so that I did Fiction, I had to expand the Manga section twice, and there still was not enough room. Last time I expanded it to 5 bays, 4 feet wide, 4 shelves each - that's 80 linear feet of graphic novels, 80% of it Manga. Plus a mini-mission table, an endcap, and a TokyoPop spinner display. There was always a ton of backstock. When I shelved stuff I tried to make sure there was at least one copy of each title, so I'd be taking stuff off the shelf that had been there for a while just because there was multiple copies and I had too much new stuff to fit it all. I used to alphabetize it on the cart so we'd be able to find it when someone asked for it (at least until it started piling up in boxes in front of the cart ). And when people did want it, often times it wasn't anywhere to be found. I could never get rid of stuff, either...they start a new returns cycle every 6 weeks or so, and there's always very little in the graphic novels coded for return. And usually half the stuff on the list isn't there because it's walked out of the store. I'd try to return stuff to what what we were modeled for and they'd just send more crap!

Luckily, at least it was all the way in the back and right near the comfy chairs so there was some room for the kids to hang out without tripping over them too much. My other big issue was that there are actually 2 Manga sections in B&N, some titles are with the teen fiction series, and the "older" stuff is in SciFi. I was always finding teen stuff in with my stuff. (Though, granted, a lot of times it was booksellers who saw "Manga" and automatically put it in SciFi without checking...despite the fact that there would be no other books from that series on the shelf, but that didn't tip people off I guess.)

The worst part, I constantly find stacks of manga horizontal on the shelf right in front of where it should be shelved. So they read it, stacked it on the shelf right where it should be, they just couldn't take the precious 2 seconds to turn it vertical and put it back in place??

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. They do this all the time. And it really bugs me when the title is faced out and staring right at them! People do this on tables and in the bargain section (where everything is faced out or stacked), too...they'll pick up a book from a stack, look at it, and put it down on the stack right next to where they picked it up from. Makes me want to beat them over the head with the book!

[Andara Bledin]

*GRRRR* Andara smash!

I can't stand the little manga-tots who just have to mangle the manga that they won't ever buy while sitting/sprawling in the way of those of us who actually plan to spend money.

I can't even remotely understand why any store puts up with them. Don't the higher ups understand that they're chasing actually paying customers away?

^-.-^

[BookstoreEscapee]

*GRRRR* Andara smash!

Is that patented?

I can't even remotely understand why any store puts up with them. Don't the higher ups understand that they're chasing actually paying customers away?

^-.-^

Yeah, but they want to cultivate an "atmosphere"

[Velfarre2001]

HEY HEY HEY!! DON'T YOU GO HATING ON NEGIMA OR ITS READERS! It happens to be in my top 5 favorite manga. I also like Love Hina.

Yes it has harem manga running gags, but it also happens to be very funny and has some exceptional fights and a decent storyline if you actually bother to get beyond that one gag. A gag which, BTW is NOT that often, and BTW, both Negima and LH are PARODIES of the harem manga genre with far more then "lots of naked women attracted to one guy".

We are not all in it for the cheap thrill of a cartoon girls censored hohoh thank you very much.

[KamenRiderOsaka]

[*]I've seen pages torn out, mostly from books where "Questionable images" were. In one manga, Bathhouse scences with near full-frontal nudity can be seen. Without plastic wrap. [/LIST]

This MUST be Suzuka. Hubby LOVES this manga, and he doesn't even care for manga.

I know how you feel though. While it's rough for workers, for us manga fans, seeing a title that should be shrink wrapped not wrapped is bothersome. I fear what kids see in some of these books. I've always wondered why Sorcerer Hunters wasn't wrapped since Tira loves to get naked for Carrot. But Suzuka...hell, three pages into it and Saotome is naked. Then there is Megumi, who is drunk, showing off her boobs, then slapping the main character for looking.

Some of this stuff should be in a back room, that is dimly lit and blocked off by a curtain.