I live about an hour and a half outside of New York City and so I visit often. Every time I go, I splurge on Japanese manga and Korean CD's. My two favorite stores are Koryo Books, a Korean bookstore with a large K-pop section, located on 32nd between Broadway and 5th; and Kinokuniya, a three story Japanese bookstore, located on the corner of 6th and 41st. Kinokuniya does have an online store as well if you are interested. I would also recommend getting a membership if you purchase a lot of manga like me! I could spend a solid four hours in both of these stores (mainly because Kino has a bomb caramel latte). Needless to say, I spent a lot of money on this trip. I'll share with you what I purchased in case you need some manga recommendations or new groups to stan!
I figured I should go to the Koryo first since I already knew what I wanted to purchase. I am a K-pop fan, however there are only two groups that I really follow. VIXX is my all time number one group and Day 6 is a close second in my heart. These are the only two groups that I listen to regularly. Not to mention my bedroom is plastered in posters of the two. I have been waiting to purchase the newest VIXX LR album, Whisper. VIXX LR is the sub-unit of VIXX featuring rapper Ravi and singer Leo (and what do you know, my two favorites in the group). In August of 2017 they released their 2nd album including four new songs and an instrumental. My personal favorite song on this album would probably be Chocolatier, but they're all great songs. The album came with a photo book, Leo and Ravi stickers, a transparent Leo photo card, and two transparent cards (one red, and one blue). The red and blue cards are to be used on a few of the photos in the book. I think this is a really neat and new feature to an albums photo book! Though It would've been cool if there were a few more red and blue photos. I kind of wish the photo card wasn't transparent as well because you can only really see it up against a solid background, but Leo looks adorable as always. If you're interested in getting a VIXX album or VIXX LR album, I would recommend VIXX LR's first album, Beautiful Liar, and VIXX's most recent album, Shangri-La.
The second album I bought was the newest Day 6 album, Moon Rise. Day 6 released a new song every month in 2017 and put each song onto two separate albums. Sun Rise was the first album released in June, and Moon Rise was the second half released in December. This album has eighteen songs, of which Hi Hello and All Alone are my favorites. Day 6 has four albums all together since their debut in 2015. I own three out of four albums and they're definitely some of my favorite CD's that I own. This specific album came with a poster of Young K, a photo book, two bookmark style cards of Jae and Dowoon, several transparent cards featuring each member, and a large fold out of all five members. I really love all of the effort that is put into Day 6 albums. The boys truly do work so hard for their fans and put out so much creative content. I was very happy to see all the goodies included with the album, though I wish I got a Sungjin poster! I always like the transparent cards of each individual member that come together to form one image when overlapped. They had similar cards in their Daydream album. You could buy any Day 6 album and you would not be disappointed at all I promise. Though my favorite of theirs might be this one! I hope this band grows an even stronger fan base as they deserve the world for all they do. I also heard they will be doing a lot more this year and releasing even more music! 
I have been reading a lot of manga lately (other than yaoi). I also recently got a membership at Kinokuniya which is $25 a year. This membership gets me 10% off most items (which isn't a lot but it lets me justify buying 10+ manga at a time) and a $10 gift card for every $300 you spend (which is essentially like a free manga). I purchased eight manga volumes for myself and decided it wasn't enough so I went back the next day and bought five more. I bought some sequels to series I have started collecting and also some new series that I've heard good things about or that looked interesting. This is my biggest manga haul ever, and I'm super excited to read them all!
My number one priority was to complete my collection of Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto. This manga is one of my favorites and I'm glad I own all four volumes now. I recommend this manga to literally everyone: young, old, male, female. I think this is a manga that anyone would enjoy. It is effortlessly hilarious. It is also a super quick read with only four volumes in the entire series (though I wish there was more). There is also an anime based on this series, If you're not a manga fan. If you are going to read any of the manga I mention here, please let it be this one because I know you will enjoy it!
I also purchased nichijou volumes 5 and 6. I need three more volumes to complete the series and I thought about purchasing them but I figured 13 manga volumes was enough for one trip. nichijou also has an anime which is how I found out about this series. The comedy in this manga is very different from Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto. It is very random humor and it often doesn't make sense to me. This isn't one of my favorites but I still enjoy reading it. I think the anime is more enjoyable as it makes it easier to understand some of the jokes. And so I would probably recommend the anime before I recommend the manga.
I have a few random volumes of Boku No Hero Academia in Japanese. I read this series online and so I haven't purchased any English volumes, however, I have purchased some in Japanese with my favorite scenes. I've been waiting for Volume 11 to come out in English but I couldn't wait any longer and just decided to purchase the Japanese version. This volume includes the scene when all the students are displaying their new dorm rooms. This is such a cute scene; I love it so much I wanted it on my shelf!
Now onto the new manga! I have heard a lot about Bungo Stray Dogs and so I decided to purchase volume one and see what all the hype was about. Supposedly, it is about an orphan who stops someone from committing suicide. Other than what is on the back of the book, I have no idea what this series is about but I am excited to give it a try. I also found A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School, which I thought might be good as it reminded me a bit of Hoozuki no Reitetsu. This manga is the first volume as it only just started being released in English in December. I am a big fan of comedy around hell and demons. I haven't heard anything about this manga but I have a feeling I will enjoy it!
Kiss Him, Not Me! is a manga that I've been wanting to read for a while now. As a serious fujoshi, I know I will enjoy this series. I have also just learned there is an anime following the manga! This series is about a girl who wishes the boys surrounding her would form relationships with each other instead of crushing on her. I bought the first two volumes because I knew I would enjoy it. I have read a few different yaoi manga's by the same author, Junko. Some of my favorites include Conveni-Kun, Kimi Note, Kasa no Shita, Futari, and Recipe no Ouji-sama. Junko's art style is very cute and unique as I remembered seeing it before. I have high hopes for this manga!
Now onto the yaoi! My favorite genre of manga! I have shamelessly purchased four different yaoi volumes. The English yaoi section at Kinokuniya is actually very small and disappointing as there is probably less than 20 different series within the genre. With not much to choose from I purchased three different series. I wanted to try something new so I went with Awkward Silence. The plot to this yaoi seems like it will be very cute so I bought volumes 1 and 2, I almost bought volume 3 as well but once again I figured 13 manga might be enough. If I enjoy this manga enough I could always read the rest online. A lot of the yaoi at Kinokuniya is somewhat older looking in terms of art, but this one looked like a more recent one so I decided to give it a shot. (I just looked this yaoi up on myanimelist.net and apparently I have read it before, so much for trying something new! However, I did rate it a 9 out of 10 so that's good at least).
I also purchased Jackass! which is a yaoi I have seen a lot of recently and have been meaning to read. I was excited to see it at the store but disappointed that they only had one volume. I have read this volume already and will definitely be reading the rest online. It follows two best friends who fall for eachother due to a secret kink for legs in black tights. It also features their friend and his relationship with the school nurse. I really enjoyed this volume! Plus, the art style is very clean and nice to read. I also purchased Hidoku Shinaide: Akira Takanashi's Story. This completes my set of currently published volumes of Hidoku Shinaide (my favorite yaoi on earth). This includes six volumes of the main story, and two volumes of bonus chapters and Akira's side story. I love this yaoi so much and I was so happy to see this one on the shelf. Akira is such a cute character and although I have already read every published chapter (currently up to Volume 7) I love having my favorite series in my collection!
Have you purchase/read any manga recently? Which would you recommend? What K-pop groups do you stan and what albums do you own?
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed and found a new K-pop group you'd like to listen to or found a new manga you're looking forward to reading!
Indiana Grace
(❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*
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