FAQ file - Read before contacting me

You can find my mail address on the homepage of this site.

Concerning the following, often asked questions:
1) I can NOT bring you in contact with a manga artist.
2) I can NOT tell you much about things that are NOT in the guide (the textversion) I don't hide anything, everything is online.
3) I can NOT SELL you any manga.
4) I MOST CERTAINLY AM NO MANGA ARTIST.
5) I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT THAT MANGA ARTIST WHOSE PAGE YOU VISITED JUST NOW. It's mind boggling how many people think I might be mangaka A or B or whatever. People, my name is below every page.
6) I can NOT find manga for you.
7) Whether it's for school, for your work, for your academic studies, or for a book you're writing, I can not help you in retrieving information that isn't online in the guide. I repeat, I don't have a secret bag of information in my house, everything is entered in the guide (the textversion, the webversion can lag behind).

Had to make that clear. Sorry about it, but it's in the best interest of us both that you don't write mails I can't or won't answer and that I don't have to waste my time with a "sorry, no luck"-reply to all those mails.

Certainly you can, in fact it is almost a moral obligation ^^. The Guide has been made for the fans and by the fans, and will only continue to grow with your support. So get in your pen, write up that summary for the manga series you know but I apparently did not (otherwise it would be referenced). After all, there are tens of thousands of manga series and I only know a couple of hundreds of them.

Anything can be used, but there are some kinds of information I search more than others. Amongst those: synopses of manga, small descriptions of series, any information regarding old (older than 1987) manga, biographical information for the artists.

NO! This is the MANGA guide, NOT an ANIME guide. Due to understandable reasons, some people have a problem understanding the difference. While I possess a certain knowledge about MANGA (= japanese comics), I don't have enough knowledge regarding ANIME (= japanese animation). I won't reply to questions regarding anime.

I hope you have read the answer to the previous questions. So by now you know, that I only know something about Japanese comics. My knowledge can be found in the guide. So, if you didn't find it in the guide, I won't be able to answer it.

NO, NO and NO again. I do not sell manga or any other stuff. I do not have a business, comic shop or anything else, I am a buyer myself, just like you are. Go to the Anipike (Anime Web Turnpike) where you'll find a large list of commercial companies. You won't get any reply from me.

Unless you live in the same country as me (unlikely, because I live somewhere in a little country in Europe) I can offer very little help. I can only advise you to browse through all the links at the anipike.

I am not picky. Simply send it by email as a text file. Or you can attach the textfile to the mail. If you want to contribute some pictures, you can too by sending them by email. But I urge you to think twice before attaching large pictures to the mail. If the pictures exceed 100KB, than I'd appreciate it if you put them somewhere on the web and give me the URL instead.

All information is digested by a program which needs a certain ASCII textformat. But I will also use your information, even if it hasn't been formatted correctly. If you want to make my life easier, then you could put the info already into the correct format. Instead of giving you an extensive explanation about the formatting rules, I will merely refer to the TEXTGUIDE. This file, which you can download on the homepage, contains the entries and author information in the correct format. Look at it carefully and try to imitate the same formatting and I'll do the rest. After all, I am the editor, so formatting is my job.

As the editor, I have the task of putting the information into a suitable form and integrating it in the Guide. Some editing may as well be necessary. Try not to make your info "time-dependent". Using phrases like: "up until now, the author has...", "this is his most recent work..." is not good practice. It makes it hard to maintain the guide as this time-dependent information will get outdated. While it may make sense now, it won't next year.
I'm not fluent in English, but I try to make some editorial language corrections too.
From time to time, I also edit to make the guide more generally acceptable. That may include altering words so that the guide is guaranteed to pass content filters. I highly deplore the use of such filters on the net, but we have to live with them and I try to circumvent them.

As stated on the homepage, the goal is to contain descriptions of all commercially available manga (no doujinshi and only collected manga). This includes manga for all possible audiences. So also manga for adults are treated. Many manga for adults are really innocent (for instance salary man manga or manga for housewives). Of course, amongst the manga for adults, a fair percentage contain graphic depictions or really mature themes. Some of them are erotic manga. I won't censor any of this genre by omitting a series from the guide and thus denying it's existence. If I did this, this wouldn't be the ULTIMATE manga guide. But, rest assured, you won't find objectionable material on this site. Adult manga will be treated as all other manga. You will find a synopsis, and sometimes an image of the cover of the manga. These covers will not contain objectionable material. I.e. they will be treated if necessary.

That's your good right! "Les gouts et les couleurs ne se discutent pas", tastes differ. Anyway, the descriptions and recommendations have been made by the contributors and these people may have different opinions from yours. By the way, the opinions stated by the contributors do not reflect the opinions of the editor!!

Although I tend to like a good series no matter the genre, I definitely have certain types of manga I like more than others. My tastes lay in the "shounen" part of the manga spectrum, the "business" type manga, the "young adults" manga. Manga appearing in magazines like "Afternoon", "Shounen Jump", "Shounen magazine", "Big comics (spirits)", "Gao", "Shounen Captain", "Shounen Ace", "Shounen Sunday".
I don't like Shoujo manga, Ladies, Yaoi manga.
One type of manga I like very much is the "romantic comedy" type of manga. All time favorites of mine are: "Maison Ikkoku", "Living Game", "Video Girl", "Aa! megamisama". You could say that I'm a softy for these manga.
On the other hand, "Kiseijuu", "Marmalade Boy", "Chairudo", "Kodocha" are also series that I like a lot but who don't fall at all in the genres I described above.