My Waldenbooks is closing in 2 weeks. No more local manga buys for me.

GuilewasNK

GuilewasNK

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Man this is getting crazy...

The main reason I am going to miss Waldenbooks is because it is the only place I can buy manga locally. I purchased some manga at 25% off today. Black Lagoon 1-3, Rose Hip 1-2, and Hana-Kimi 2-3. They said they are closing for good in two weeks. THe next closest place to me is a B.Dalton 30 miles away.

Pretty soon my mall is going to be a ghost town. Goody's is closing, Kay-Bee's and FYE closed in the last year or so and there is talk around town that Sears and Belk might be closing.
 
I didn't even realize Goody's was headquartered here until they started talking about the closings. Never cared for the store anyway. This could be a good thing too though, helps kill off the weaker companies.
 
That sucks. My Waldens only ever went up to 40% when they went out of business least year. It sucks since Borders rewards (since they are part of the border empire) routinely emails 20-40% off coupons almost every week. We have no borders within like 30 miles now. There are 2 Barnes and Noble but paying full price is too much for me and I'll just take the inconvenience of buying them online at places like deep discount and having to wait for them to get to me shipped.
 
Wow, what a coincidence. I just got back home for Winter Break and found out the Waldenbooks at my mall is closing, too. Sucks because it's been there as long as I can remember. I bought so many books from that place...The next closest bookstore is Barnes and Noble, also about 30 minutes away.

At least there's a Borders down the street from my campus.
 
I grew up going to Waldenbooks... so it was strange when the only one (a non mall) location closed up years ago... of course we have two Books a Million stores and a Barnes and Noble store too, so we have always been set...
Our Second of the Local Goody's stores is closing up too which wont leave any familiy type clothes stores in that part of town (I never bought from them), the mall location being long gone... Kay Bee is about gone...

We have two malls... the second having to convert to more of a strip mall type area just to survive... luckily they have some good stores left, just not many of them... A lot of towns where there are two malls, I see a definite unbalance between the two... one will be thriving, and the other will be a ghost town... if the area has only one mall and it is a small area, THAT mall would also be a ghost town
 
The bookstore in the mall next to me is also closing down. Luckily I live next to two comic shops that carry manga.
 
That's fucking weak. Waldenbooks has the best manga selection of any regular chain bookstore, by far. Even the much larger parent, Borders, seems to have a worse selection. Unfortunately, the one near here is a great distance away, but back when I was in high school, I was there at least once a week because they tended to get manga releases the earliest. A couple of times they got manga in a month before what was supposed to be the release date! The customer service at the Waldenbooks where I grew up was phenomenal as well, much, much better than the Borders across the street.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']That's fucking weak. Waldenbooks has the best manga selection of any regular chain bookstore, by far. Even the much larger parent, Borders, seems to have a worse selection. Unfortunately, the one near here is a great distance away, but back when I was in high school, I was there at least once a week because they tended to get manga releases the earliest. A couple of times they got manga in a month before what was supposed to be the release date! The customer service at the Waldenbooks where I grew up was phenomenal as well, much, much better than the Borders across the street.[/QUOTE]
I've actually found it to be the opposite. The Waldenbooks near me never has the manga I'm looking for, whereas Borders has it more often. Barnes and Noble is usually my best bet though. They seem to have the largest selection. Which is fine with me since I have a 30% discount there!
 
[quote name='Rei no Otaku']I've actually found it to be the opposite. The Waldenbooks near me never has the manga I'm looking for, whereas Borders has it more often. Barnes and Noble is usually my best bet though. They seem to have the largest selection. Which is fine with me since I have a 30% discount there![/QUOTE]

Interesting considering we lived in the same state. :lol: I went to the North Attleboro, MA, locations since they were just a few minutes away from my house, how about you?

B&N has by far the worst manga selection I've encountered. Their shojo selection is almost nonexistent except for the really popular, highly overrated trash like Fruits Basket and Nana, and since the shojo section is really the only one I care about except for a select few manga like Parasyte....
 
I love shojo manga too in fact my issue of Shojo Beat came in today, and you're right, Fruits Basket and Nana are so overrated.

I go to the Borders in Cranston, and the Waldenbooks in Warwick Mall. The B&N on route 2 near Best Buy always has what I want.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']That's fucking weak. Waldenbooks has the best manga selection of any regular chain bookstore, by far. Even the much larger parent, Borders, seems to have a worse selection. Unfortunately, the one near here is a great distance away, but back when I was in high school, I was there at least once a week because they tended to get manga releases the earliest. A couple of times they got manga in a month before what was supposed to be the release date! The customer service at the Waldenbooks where I grew up was phenomenal as well, much, much better than the Borders across the street.[/quote]

My Waldenbooks was great for manga selections until about year ago when they cut the manga section in half. I should have known that was writing on the wall.

[quote name='Rei no Otaku']Wow, you guys are that far away from bookstores? There's like 5 within 15 minutes of me.[/quote]

I still have one locally owned bookstore where I live, but they don't sell manga.


I'm a college bookstore manager so I might look into ordering some manga myself. I think Tokyopop is a part of Harper Collins (we order books from Harper Collins a lot), so I guess I could at least try to order those and use my employee discount.
 
[quote name='Rei no Otaku']I've actually found it to be the opposite. The Waldenbooks near me never has the manga I'm looking for, whereas Borders has it more often. Barnes and Noble is usually my best bet though. They seem to have the largest selection. Which is fine with me since I have a 30% discount there![/QUOTE]

Well it can depend on store size. The waldens near me had a good size section based on the fact it was a small mall store, but it was certainly smaller than some of the generally massive sized b&n or borders stores I have been too before.
 
I switched to amazon or the private publishers a long time ago. Selection around here is terrible. When I do find something it's been manhandled to death by one of those kids who uses the manga section like a library. Kinokuniya is still pretty top notch, but it's a bit out of the way, and parking at the Japantown is often not worth it.
 
[quote name='GuilewasNK']My Waldenbooks was great for manga selections until about year ago when they cut the manga section in half. I should have known that was writing on the wall.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it could be different now at the location I was talking about. Here in Ohio, I noticed the manga selection at the Waldenbooks like 20 minutes away (and thus not conducive to going to except every once in a great while) has gotten pretty shoddy. Literally a whole shelf was dedicated just to Naruto, and the rest of the section was a lot sparser than I remember.

Shojo Beat has gotten crappier than it used to be. I only really like Sand Chronicles, Honey Hunt, and Honey and Clover anymore, but SC and HC are dragging on a bit too much for me. I lost interest in Crimson Hero and Vampire Knight ages ago, and never really read Haruka since I don't like fantasy manga.
 
Sand Chronicles, Honey Hunt, and H&C are the ones I care about. Vampire Knight has just gotten ridiculous, and I have no idea why it's so popular. Crimson Hero is ok.
 
[quote name='Rei no Otaku'] Vampire Knight has just gotten ridiculous, and I have no idea why it's so popular. [/QUOTE]

It's the Twilight thing.

"Hot" vampires + Innocent girl = Tween dream
 
I too find that the Waldenbooks at my local mall back at home has a better selection of manga compared to the larger Borders that's probably has 10 times the floor space. Of course, the Borders here next to my campus has a pretty good selection as well, possibly only because of the fact that its about 5 blocks off campus.

However, I too had moved onto Amazon for my manga purchased a while back. Of course, the nice 25-40% coupons will draw me back in if its timed with the series Im following. Otherwise, I too cant stand the fact that many kids often just take the whole manga section as their own personal library, often just lying around the aisle blocking off the section, and many times bringing in greasy fast food to snack on while reading. One of the many reasons I like it when manga is shrinkwrapped, but that doesnt deter some of them who often will open them up. I sometimes do wonder why the employees havent kicked them out yet, and I really doubt that they're making that many purchases since I often see them leave empty handed when their parents call them away.
 
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