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Here’s what happens if an otaku holds on to 30 years of issues of Japan’s biggest manga magazine

Jul 12, 2019

This superfan will never be short of reading material.

Walk around any Japanese neighborhood on the morning of trash pick-up day, and you’ll see stacks of weekly manga anthologies sitting on the curb. The weeklies are printed on cheap paper with flimsy covers, and so they’re generally seen as disposable entertainment, with collectors instead opting for the collected single-series volumes that come out later.

@pekindaq, though, is not most collectors. A loyal reader of publisher Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, the most popular manga anthology in Japan, @pekindaq doesn’t dump his copies once he’s done reading them. Instead, he hangs on to them, and if you’re imagining a half-dozen back issues in a basket in his bathroom, think again.

@pekindaq, who’s particularly fond of science fiction martial arts epic Dragon Ball, has archived three decades’ worth of Weekly Shonen Jump issues in his home. Why? Because:

“With 30 years of Jump at home, even if something unpleasant happens during the day, I can think ‘When I get home, I can still read some Dragon Ball.’ If someone is acting like a jerk at work, I can think ‘Should you be talking like that? I’ve been reading the Frieza arc at home.’

In modern society, you need a power level of 530,000 to get by, and sharing your home with 30 years of Jump is an effective way to do that.”

@pekindaq’s dedication has earned him awe and respect from other Twitter users, who’ve left comments such as:

“This is the room of my dreams.”
“Amazing. Can the floor handle all that weight?”
“You’re basically Shueisha with this.”
“You could open your own manga cafe.”
“You’ve essentially got a museum.”
“We should register this as a World Heritage Site.”

It’s not just the size of @pekindaq’s collection that’s impressive either. His back issues look to be extremely well taken care of, with no apparent creasing, tearing, or stains. But don’t take that to mean he’s a stingy stickler who refuses to share his manga wealth, as he mentions that the empty slots on the shelves that can be seen in some of the photos are ordinarily occupied by volumes he’s loaned out to other people to read.

With Shueisha continuing to crank out a new edition of Weekly Shonen Jump every seven days, He’s even good-naturedly invited one Twitter admirer to come over and check out the collection in person, though considering how much reading material it encompasses, that might have to be a multi-day visit.

Source: Twitter/@pekindaq via Jin
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