As of writing of this post, I’ve freshly discovered the Manga Maven, who participated in a tag of sorts, so let’s keep it going.

1. If I had to go back as far as I can remember, my journey begins with Cantonese-dubbed discs of the Pokemon anime. However, I don’t remember what age I was watching those, since there’ve been quite a few kids with Chinese- and Cantonese- speaking capabilities at my place and I could just be confusing my first experience with theirs. That’s why I count Sailor Moon, which I think I watched at about the age of 5, as the first.
2. The first anime I watched with awareness of the word “anime” was probably Detective Conan.
3. The first manga I read, according to digging really far back into my library records, is volume 4 of Detective Conan.
4. There was a period where I rewatched a whole bunch of anime from 2016, with the exceptions of Morose Mononokean and another summer 2016 show (think it might’ve been D Gray Man Hallow), to ensure my notes on them were complete. That’s why I haven’t rewatched any series in 2017 – 18, although I did rewatch Schubert-centric episodes of Classicaloid to get inspiration for Megane Day (no, I’m not writing about him, although I was thinking of doing that!) and I’ve rewatched one scene in that show’s finale to psych myself up to do stuff I was nervous about.
5. The first manga I bought with my own money was Noragami vol. 1.
6. The first anime I bought with my own money was one of those single discs with 4 or 5 episodes of one series on it. It was Blue Exorcist vol. 1.
7. I’ve probably read about an equal amount of shonen and shoujo manga, a lot of it being from libraries and most of it hailing from the late 90s – early 00s period because my library service is only just now trying to modernise its manga by adding different series like Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun and Kuroko no Basuke.
8. I’m interested in trying to purchase at least one volume of anime/manga from every possible legal publisher/distributor in my region (ones that do physical media and that can be accessed via brick-and-mortar stores) so that I can compare things like subtitling…that is, if I had the money and opportunities to. Some series libraries have got and yet I have no idea how they get them…
9. Despite my ramblings often being about anime, I’ve read a lot more manga than I have watched anime. It’s just that I read so fast, I sometimes forget what I’ve read after the book is finished!
10. I was surprised to find Trash Market by Tadao Tsuge counts as a manga, not to mention the fact it was actually on AniList under the name Uki (Rainy Season). It’s got a artstyle you wouldn’t normally associate with manga – it’s more reminiscent of newspaper cartoons.
11. Scanlations I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with, because I’ve dabbled around with doing it all myself – it gave me such a thrill but it was also extremely tiring.
12. These days, English publishers are getting better at picking out series that may have interest here and there, so if you believe a series may garner enough interest to be picked up someday, then don’t bother touching scanlations/fansubs. That’s the reason I’ve sworn off doing scanlations indefinitely.
13. By the way, I don’t recommend you try scanlating. It’ll just make you overly aware of how imperfect professional manga efforts are.
14. If I had to pick a favourite anime/manga, it would be my only current top-rated anime – Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu – although I’m still looking for when I can purchase the manga for that one…
15. It took me a little bit to figure out what the difference between anime and manga was. Don’t remember exactly how long it took, but I do remember reciting to myself something to the effect of “anime is the shows, manga is the comics” during the intermediate phase.
16. According to AniList stats, I like the thriller genre a lot, but I watch pretty much all genres…except yaoi. Still haven’t gotten around to that one yet, even though I said I would. (This would be a good time to admit I have watched an episode of a proper R18+ shoujo ai show, out of nothing but sheer morbid curiosity. I will not reveal which one it is though, because it’s set to private on my AniList for a reason…)
17. If I had to pick a favourite mangaka, it might be CLAMP. I’ve read a substantial fraction of their work (although not all of it) and liked a lot of it. Clover, for instance, is outstanding when it comes to more experimental types of manga (in a way that only gets matched by the Book of Eibon arc in the Soul Eater manga).
18. Due to the fact I really like series from the late 90s – early 00s, it’s kind of disappointing I can’t experience things like Twin Signal legally at all because those licences are US-exclusive, as far as I’ve seen…Alternatively, I can experience the manga but not the anime in this day and age, or vice versa. For instance, I read through the Figure 17 manga at the library I currently volunteer at (as of this post), but I’ve never seen the anime around at all, even though it was apparently licensed in my region way back in 2006.
19. Speaking of which, when I volunteer at libraries, I only ever volunteer at libraries with manga in them, regardless of whether that’s a coincidence or not. I did once do some work experience at a bookstore that sold manga from Kodansha USA, which is how I got the aforementioned Noragami volume.
20. The price of tickets is what always turns me away from attending cons. Or else I’d have more merch, more discs and more manga than I have right now.
21. It was only after I started watching simulcasts that I started wanting more adult protagonists in works. (Or maybe years of reading YA fiction was wearing off…)
22. High fantasy is fine and good, but low fantasy has always been a favourite of mine, which is just one reason why I think anime, manga and I get along so swimmingly. It was with this line of thinking that this blog is called the Spellbook – because that way you can combine the high fantasy of grimoires with the low fantasy of suburbia. Like Black Clover, but set outside your place…and with 100% less Asta screaming, “I’m going to be the Wizard King!”.
23. I think transformation manga is a lot broader than transformation anime. Not only because there are some genuinely interesting premises like Kigurumi Guardians, but possibly because there’s a lot more gender-bending and/or magical girl/boy manga out there than you might think there is…My favourite out of those (if you were to count the series I’ve read from scanlations as well) would be Kimi ni XOXO, which is both a romance with a plain guy and a brash girl and a magical boy manga. It was good stuff, although it was very short and didn’t have a proper conclusion, because clearly the premise wasn’t going to work for too long.
24. I love one-shots. Sure, they don’t give you enough time to flesh out a premise, but they give enough to the imagination as to where a hypothetical series could go. Not to mention, if the oneshot’s (or these days, Jump Start’s) in Shonen Jump, it might well get adapted into a full series eventually…
25. I will take on any recommendations you give me, so long as I know they are accessible via streaming (for anime) or some other outlet which is feasible for me. This is why my PTW is still so long, even though I’m only now starting to make a dent in it…

25 facts was more difficult than I expected, so I’m not going to force anyone to do this. So do you agree with any of these? Was there anything you found particularly interesting from them?