The end of an era (robot ver.)
Part 2: https://tankobonbon.com/pages/tankobonbons-next-era
Thank you for five years!
Hi! It's Bon of Tankobonbon. I want to inform everyone that the bookstore will close down at the end of the year. There are a couple of reasons why, but mainly due to it's no longer possible to handle alone and has severely impacted my health over the years as sleep becomes too rare of a thing to do (there are other stuff I do other than Tankobonbon too). It's too successful, haha! If you're thinking that I can just hire or ask volunteers, I've tried and they were truly a great help, but as someone who has solo leveled all my life, it's not easy to transition having a party. Hence, I'm ending it on a good note. Other than that, running a bookstore by myself has put great strains financially that I've been a source of expense than a source of income, as I don't profit much off of it. Though I never intended to be rich out of this passion project, it's a really nice feeling to be able to fill many fans' bookshelves with their favorite books through this project. What a wild thing to be a solo passion project, huh?! (Haha)
I've seen the growth of manga community while building this thing. I started Tankobonbon five years ago 'cause I can't easily buy manga in popular bookstores and it's a pain to handle with international shipping fees and customs every time I buy them overseas especially since I collect a lot of books, and now you see them easily, and I've heard a lot of manga stores have popped up too. I've done what needs to be done, haha. With such rise, I'm sure it won't be difficult for you to find an alternative to order where. I know many people may miss the website and its ordering system. I'm a collector myself after all, and I've built Tankobonbon from my own complaints in ordering books from other bookstores. I don't know much about coding, automations, building websites, importation, or business 101, but I've taught myself a bunch of stuff to run this. Nothing really is impossible if you set your mind to it... except it should be the only thing you're doing, but I'm not. My main thing still revolves around manga, so you'll probably still see me around (you just don't know it lol) as long as you support them officially. ;)
I've seen a bunch of different people through the many, many orders. People who became married cause their shipping names eventually had dashes, someone who has finished school and their adult money went to manga, payday being their collection's favorite day, transferred places to live, I can't ship orders yet cause they're overseas, slowly but surely paying their tingi order every 100 they can pay at a time, someone who started from mainstream manga to collecting nicher ones as they discover books outside the Shonen Jump realm, guys bravely buying girls' love and girls bravely buying boys' love, kids asking their parents to buy them Berserk or danmei hoping they don't know what it is, someone's favorite genre shifted from this to this, knowing someone's a big fan of a certain author or trope, someone having a pretty controversial--or rather courageous collection, guys buying shojo because masculinity is a construct, "Oh, I bet this customer will love this new license," "I bet this customer will hate this ending too," "Nooooo the books arrived damaged, they really want their books in pristine condition :(," "Aha, a box set was announced when this customer just finished buying the last single volume." It's quite a ride. I may handle this thing by myself (and my dad who you see at the physical store) most of the time, but it's never lonely. It's been a nice five years. I'll miss it (except fighting with suppliers, couriers, and customs), and I'll miss manga being only 480 back then (lol).
Important dates:
- We're still gonna keep on going until it's time to close doors. Normal days as usual. Donchu wori. I'll still ship your books. Please take them away from me. Please fill out the ship order early form (LOL).
- Pre-order and backorder form closes September 30, 2025.
- Pre-orders with release dates after October 28, 2025 will no longer process.
- Last day of Hold is on October 31, 2025.
- Our last attendance at the Manila International Book Fair on September 10-14, 2025 will be a clearance sale of all our on-hand books.
- Last day to place an order on the website and in-person on September 30, 2025.
- Bookstore "publicly closes" December 31, 2025. (Publicly? Keratin???)
If you reaaaaaaaaaaaaally want to order your pre-order books through Tankobonbon no matter what, I'm really sorry. But I'm sure someone cool out there will pop up. I mean, anime is now one click legally for free on the Muse Asia Youtube channel when back then you're gonna need to have 1 hour undisturbed time finding the missing flipped-cropped-scaled down-144p part 7 of 12 of an episode someone uploaded on Youtube, and when you manage to find it, it's sub espanol.
BUT, it's not just sad news. The lounge continues to operate. Tankobonbon will still be (somewhat) alive. The books there still have the potential to be read by many. I'll purchase all unsold on-hand books from the bookstore and transfer them to the lounge for anyone to read. I'll continue keeping up purchasing new and in-between books for the lounge so it continues as a manga library. The idea of the lounge being branched outside Cavite? The idea of books getting borrowed then returned from Visayas like an actual library? We'll see. No promises though.
If you're a rich person reading this and you're thinking of buying Tankobonbon, forget it (lol). I'm not here for the money, and the system I've built to run this is too complicated and I'm lazy to explain to you how to run it (haha), but if you're a library or school who wants to buy the stocks in bulk, let's talk—and I'll give you a discount, these books may be a hero origin story of some kid, who can probably run our government even better. Hopefully not a villain origin though... I don't have Death Note in stock so we're probably okay. Hopefully they hate the bookstore closing so much they decided to torture their brain and make their own bookstore. Is it you? I'll support you from here, and I may even become your customer if I like your website (haha).
Jokes aside, I could've continued hanging out with you, but I won't be greedy over here. When I had my vacation recently, away from the hustle and bustle of Tankobonbon, I was still busy, but I had a pretty good sleep. I can't wait to have more than 3 hours of sleep next year (HAHAHA real).
I'm announcing this 6 months early to give you ample time to fight with me on my emails (lol), and have you transition to a Tankobonbon-free life (wow). Some of you may already have a hunch since the beginning of the year, or when CDJapan has closed in April, or when new books don't get added anymore, or when you checked our social media and it's basically dead. I never intended Tankobonbon to last, but it did, way longer than I thought. Real homies know how I badly wanna close this bookstore years ago (lol). I've written so so so many of this final letter, but I ended up here having to write it from scratch, the most raw than them raw chapters. I even thought of pushing it 'till seven years cause I like 7 as a number, but I might really get isekai'd if I force it.
This is the me version, the robot version that I actually wrote. If you want this ChatGPT'd, click here. (How transparent, huh? Always. LOL)