Conveniently located on Toronto’s busy (and bound to keep you even busier) Bloor St W, my roommate and I entered what we thought was just your run of the mill used book store. Never know what you can find, right? Well what we found was BMV Books – a three-floor discount bookstore with an entire floor dedicated to comic books, manga and fantasy novels.
The manga sold here is mostly overstock material, meaning it’s likely product sold to them that couldn’t be sold by either the publisher or other companies. They also sell some used material brought in to them by customers. Their selection is vast – from titles over a decade old to titles much more recent, you’ll find a little of everything and all at about 50% off the CDN cover price or less. Typically the books ranged from $3.00-$6.00, depending on the company and format.
We found books as new as the third volume of Vertical’s 7 Billion Needles and Yen Press’s Maximum Ride, to editions as old as Mixx’s Sailor Moon and Magic Knight Rayearth volumes (in surprisingly good condition too). There was something of every genre released in English, including boys’ love and yuri. First edition volumes of Fushigi Yuugi were especially nostalgic to me (my first manga GN purchases!) while I loved the opportunity to fill in my collection with some long-since out of print OEL titles from Tokyopop, NetComics titles (which I have trouble finding anywhere but conventions) and a couple ADV Manga books. All for cheap!
If you’re a manga fan who lives in or around, or is simply visiting, Toronto, then along with their assortment of comic stores, I highly recommend putting Bloor St W’s BMV Books on your list of must-shop stops.
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