There’s just something about the early-mid 2000s tokyopop published manga. Of course, other manga from the time fits the vibe, regardless of publisher, but I feel like the selection of the tokyopop ones highlight the vibe. Deviantart days vibe. Gaia online vibe. Of course this is just because of the era it was in, but I love it, just nostalgia, but I wanna ramble anyways. The manga from this era is soothing, warm, friendly, and most importantly, incredibly cute. Tokyopop seemingly had a lot of shoujo, and most of the stories were fantasy, romance, school life, comedy, or a combination of these. It’s most definitely a feeling of nostalgia I have for all of this, tokyopop and non-tokyopop published manga from the time, as the first manga I ever read was the tokyopop publication of Fruits Basket. Also, for some reason, it seems every library in Canada was stocked full of manga, and usually the tokyopop published ones during this time. What’s with all this simping for tokyopop? You may wonder. Like I said, it’s nostalgia, but also in modern times, and by that I mean when libraries were still open, I’ve been enjoying lots of this manga again. I don’t know what’s up with all the libraries being filled with all of it, there’s even tokyopop titles featured in our highschool social textbooks. I also admire the covers of everything tokyopop has published. Whoever works on that design team, I admire their work so much, here’s some examples on what I’m talking about:
I guess I’m just nostalgic for the books that raised me. I’m a big fan of manga, and especially all the manga I read from that era. The mundane school life shoujo romances, magical girls fighting in different dream realms, to a band of rogue heroes travelling and battling to defeat the demon lord. Also all those wacky manga about some kinda super power that don’t take themselves too seriously. I love all the stories, and while they are LOADED with tropes and similarities to one another, I really love all the new specific things each one seemingly offers. Of course delrey and many others were publishing bangers, but there’s just something about tokyopop, rather it was unavoidable back in the day, and still is in many libraries. Anyways here’s some of my faves, and I may feature reviews of them later on this page, or their own pages. Note: this is pretty empty for now, as I can’t remember the title of some I’ve read (lol) and I don’t have access to the library I read them at right now, so it’ll have to wait till then. Going to ramble about other related nostalgic things on this page later. Deviantart, old cons, cosplay videos, ^_^, glomp, etc. look forward to it!