Kyoto International Manga Museum
So you’ve finally saved up and made your pilgrimage to Japan, and figured you’d go to Kyoto so that you’d at least have something about “culture” to talk to your friends and family at home about. After two straight days of visiting temples, cafes, and shrines, you start to realize that you need a break from all these old things. Well hoo boy, have I got a place for you!
Smack dab in the middle of Kyoto (about 1km west of city hall, North on Karasume and Oike) is the Kyoto International Manga Museum, some of the most fun you can have in Kyoto on just 500 yen, possibly excluding the pair of Idolm@ster machines in Teramachi. While it might be hard for some of you to think of the point of having an entire museum just about manga (to which my counter-argument would probably include something like this link), the place is full of things to do that anyone who is seriously interested in manga or cartooning would likely find interesting. There’s a huge number of manga (all pre-2005, I believe) available for you to read anywhere on the premises, including the huge lawn they have out in front, so if you want to treat it as a cheap manga cafe, then you are more than welcome to. The shelves are separated into shonen on the first floor, shojo on the second, and seinen on the third floor, but there are also machines you can use to figure out where what is. However, there’s also a good number of permanent and special exhibits on topics like manga history (check the giant case of 70s Shonen Jumps and kashibon behind a giant wall of glass!) and artist/series exhibits, like the Takemiya Keiko exhibit that just replaced the giant Anpanman exhibit. They’re into international cartooning as well, and they have a shelf of foreign-language manga near the entrance, as well as a special exhibit on French BDs, complete with Jiro Taniguchi appearance next week! There’s also a huge archive downstairs, but I believe you have to be a member of the research room on the third floor to get access to that stuff, so it doesn’t seem very economical to do if you’re only in the area for a short time. In terms of pictures of the place, this guy has (semi-legally!) posted a good number of them, though some of the exhibits aren’t around anymore. There’s also a fairly standard (food and drink-wise) Japanese cafe attached to the place that’ll give you 10% off with your ticket stub that has big portraits that famous manga-ka have done of their big-name characters, including a really stunning Joe done by Chiba Tetsuya.
Non-Japanese speakers might be a little confused by what to do at the place, since it’s full of those crazy runes, but there is a fair amount of English on the signs (some translated/checked by a native speaker!). Also, I’ve just recently started doing a small bit of volunteer work there, so if you happen to be thinking of going there on a Friday or Sunday afternoon, let me know (comment in the entry) and I can get a break from book preservation work to give you a tour! I bathe nearly daily, I promise! Free awesome guided tour or not, if you’re in the area, I really suggest you check the place out if you’re in any way interested in learning more about manga at an incredibly good price, which you really should be before you even consider calling yourself a true otaku!