100 Manga Artists

I picked this book up a few months ago when I was away on a work trip. We’ve all bought these types of books before, “1000 films to see before you die”, “200 recipes to make without an oven” and other such books. They draw you in with their high quality hardbacks and immense heft. The promise of the wealth of taste that you will have achieved after watching/consuming every item listed within. Yes, my favourite film is Citizen Kane, how did you know?

More likely, you flip through the first 40 entries without seeing a single film/ game/author/director that you recognize and rapidly come to the realisation. You don’t actually care about Julius Wiedemann’s opinion on who the top 100 manga artists of all time are and even if you did, you’re wildly unqualified to judge that opinion.

The actual book has nice glossy pages, however the selection of panels seems fairly boring to me and the choice of using thin black text on a bright red background does not inspire me to read the entries. I think I liked the idea of this book, or perhaps the idea of being someone who would like this book, more than the actual book itself.

At least it looks nice on a shelf or coffee table.