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I know Fruits Basket in English is 9.99. In Japanese it is about 5.50.

In Japan, just about all the books I ran into were a lot cheaper~ It could cost anywhere from 100yen / under 1$ (used, but minty-fresh condition) to...mmm, 10$ or so - for a new, thick, juicy collection of wonderfully drawn doujinshi...art books are more expensive...= =;; ^_^;;

like 6 dollars..but interestingly almost all dvds and anime cost much more in Japan

Depends. If you get them at regular bookstores, it'll be about 4-7 dollars. If you ever come here, try to find discount book places (Harman and Book Off are by far the best I've seen). If the series is popular/still going strong, at a discount books store, you'll pay usually half the regular price for the series. But, if it's a older series or "classic", you'll pay anywhere from 105 yen (about a dollar) to 3 dollars. Book off is by far the best for deals in older series though. It's newish/new manga prices are about the same as Harman's for the same type, but Harman has a scale saying that if a full price for a manga costs a certain amount, then it's now another amount. Even for older series.

So in essence, book off you should look for if you ever come here, and manga ranges from 1 to 7 dollars here. Shonen Jump is around 3-4 dollars here as most big serials are here. Yaoi (as said about before), hentai, and doujinshi can push the 7-10 dollar range, even if it is an older series, though.

I assume you mean conventions. You know, I don't know. When I was in Japan I only went to the Tokyo Game Show, I didn't go to Comiket. I would assume based on such that they would be the same price as normal. The reason why is that publishers and stores have a set price due to a law in Japan that states that stores that sell books and such cannot reduce the price of the material below the set value from the publisher without approval by the publisher (which more than often, does not happen). However, stores like Harman and Bookoff have found a loop hole by selling used books.

The caculations for yen is about 86 yen is equal to a American dollar the last time I checked (I'm constantly studying the Japanese Culture and other things related).


To solve this just multiply 86 to the price in american dollars...

Average manga of 15 American dollars costs at the average of 1290 Yen!

So there's your lesson of the day!