I agree with Arnees review from a week ago. This is a READING museum, not really a true museum. The building contains thousands of manga but only in Japanese, so if you don’t know the language about 85% of the museum is lost on you. It does contain an interesting fixed exhibit about the history of manga and a fun temporary exhibit on a trending anime Delicious in Dungeon. The other small exhibits consisted of looking at wax hands from manga artists or reading about the history of the building (it was a school before a museum). I only spent an hour here and left disappointed. What could have been an incredible museum in my opinion was wasted. Would unfortunately recommend you skip this one.
More of a library than a museum. If you are a manga fan and/or can read Japanese, then this would be heaven for you. Floor to ceiling, arranged by year of release. I would say though, for an “international” manga museum, very limited collection of Japanese manga in foreign translations or manga originating from elsewhere in the world. I was also underwhelmed by the limited displays or exhibitions about popular manga characters. Seasonal exhibits are tastefully displayed, but dont expect foreign translations. Google Lens is useful to get context on displays. On the 2nd floor, the sound of creaking wooden floors permeate the space so one can get distracted from reading. During my visit, I saw many locals just spending their time reading, books/volumes piled up in front of them. Some indoor/outdoor seating available, coffee shop just outside the museum. Unless you’re a die hard manga fan, your time in Kyoto may best be spent elsewhere.
Conclusion: not recommended
Service:
The staff was friendly, but sometimes too friendly: For example, there was a machine for entry and instead of you clicking there yourself (different languages possible), they slide you in and then do that. It actually takes longer than if you did it yourself.
If you have any questions, the staff is otherwise easy to approach, but they can only be found on the ground floor at the information counter.
Ambiance:
The museum is housed in an old school and is therefore set up partly as a school museum (warning: very creaky floor) and partly as a manga museum. Some information can also be read in English, but not all.
As far as manga goes, in addition to a sponsored collection, you can also access a best of hall and read a little. However, this is all in Japanese: the hall only goes up to 2005 and does not contain all the popular manga (e.g. Pokémon, Shaman King, etc. are missing), and some of the copies are in hair-raising condition. Theoretically, you can research the location of a manga for the collection (search PCs distributed throughout the museum), but the search engine is only in Japanese and even if you want to read in the original language, you first have to ask for the location at the information counter unless you write in Japanese can.
Another point is that many things are not allowed to be photographed (handprints or information boards) - why is unclear, since the manga can also be read.
Particularities:
A special feature that the museum advertises are portrait drawings, which are then transferred into a manga style as a direct model or from photos. The prices can also be found online along with a list of possible artists.
What is not stated online is that it takes around 30 minutes per picture and that you can only “reserve” on site (no reservations or orders to pick up online are possible). To do this, you have to contact the artists and arrange an appointment on the same day (this is the only way). But there are only two artists who work in parallel from around 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. including a break. This means that after approx. 15-17 reservations it is over (per artist). We arrived at 12pm and right in front of us the signs changed from “free spots” to “all spots closed”. There was also no longer any advert on site about “having a drawing based on photos”.
We were very disappointed by this, as it is certainly THE main reason (for foreign-speaking visitors) to visit. We can therefore only advise you to be there very early and on time for opening time.
Another special feature is the foreign language manga area, which is located next to the information counter and portraits. Here you can find editions of various manga in many different languages (e.g. German, French, Polish, Russian and many more). The disadvantage, however, is that not every manga is available in every language and sometimes only individual volumes (any number in a series). For example, the only edition of Pokémon is in English (and only the Diamond spin-off) and the only edition of Shaman King is in Spanish - mind you, spoken by the entire museum, there were no Japanese editions.
It was ok. I was expecting more a museum, but it's a gigantic library with one small exhibition. If you are a manga fan, you can go there and read some mangas, but it's not a museum, it's a Library. I would give it 1 star, but I know some people would loooove this place! If you want to spend the day reading some of the coolest mangas this is the place to go, if it's to go learn about mangas and expect and actual museum, this is not it. Enjoyed it, but I was expecting way more.
Very good place for manga/comics fanatics. Golden mangas that made Japan famius through out the years are displayed here and you can read them upon entry. Not so recommended for foreigners as most of the manga here are Japanese. Nonetheless, still worth visiting!
