The Origin of the Legend.

Before they became icons, they were ink on paper. A character no one knew, a story still waiting to find its audience. Then someone opened those pages. Perhaps it was you. Perhaps it was someone else. And something stayed: an emotion, an image, a different way of seeing the world.

For years we loved manga without giving their physical history the same attention. Yet this is an enormous world: in 2025, publishing sales in Japan alone reached ¥692.5 billion^*. Millions of readers, generations of fans. Their impact on collecting is still very limited.

Trading card games (TCGs), for example, developed a language the market learned to recognise: planned rarities, limited editions, certification by grading houses such as PSA, BGS and CGC. Manga, meanwhile, were printed in large quantities, bought and read. They seemed ordinary objects. But over time, something changed.

A tankōbon or a zasshi was made to pass from hand to hand, travel in a backpack and be read until it wore out. Many copies were forgotten, damaged or thrown away. And the first print runs endured more of this ordeal than any others. Looking for an intact copy today means looking for what time allowed to survive.

This is scarcity born from the life cycle of the object. And you feel it even more when you seek exceptional condition, a well-preserved dust jacket, the original obi with its coupon still where it belongs. Details someone protected, perhaps without knowing how much they would one day matter to you and other collectors.

Many characters and artworks you now find on cards and other collectibles were born in these pages. The zasshi may hold the debut; the tankōbon, the first collected edition. Holding them brings you closer to the moment that story began to exist for its readers.

Today, more people are learning to see manga this way too. With the launch of Beckett manga grading in 2024^**, this perspective found a new language: certified and carefully preserved copies, grades in white on black, examples that are easier to compare. A step that makes room for new collectors, new questions and new exchanges.

We believe this awareness and interest can continue to grow. That knowing more about what we collect can bring more people together, make transactions clearer and help the market mature.

First Printing Manga was created to give this passion a home. We want to build one of the most complete resources on the web: an archive to explore, sales to analyse, knowledge to share. Work that continues whenever a photograph clears up a doubt or a collector brings a new discovery. Because we can write the next chapter of this story ourselves, together.