The NASH library recently received a plethora of new manga for students to enjoy. Manga is a form of Japanese comic that has taken the world by storm. Manga’s unique visual style and ability to tell stories in an artistically sophisticated way has made it one of the most popular forms of storytelling today.

“Since I’ve been at NA, we’ve had a really small graphic novel collection, so I’ve been trying to grow that, and I’ve been pretty deliberate about it,” NASH librarian Ms. Wienand said.

While manga stems from Japan, its popularity is growing worldwide, and the US especially has seen an increase in interest for this form of reading, though it is a bit different from American comics.

Manga is usually read from right to left rather than left to right, like most books in the United States. This difference in reading format can be confusing for new readers, but after adjusting to the difference, many enjoy and consume manga for entertainment. 

Manga covers diverse genres including action, romance, fantasy, and educational topics. One of the most popular types of manga is sports manga like Haikyu!!, which is about volleyball, and Blue Lock, which covers soccer. 

Other various popular manga series are One Piece, which is widely considered the most popular manga in the world, Hunter x Hunter, and Demon Slayer, all standing out for their unique and interesting plots that keep readers hooked.

Popular manga like these are also often adapted into anime, a distinct style of animation originating from Japan. Anime is well known for its in depth and beautiful animation.

“We’ve had some students – who are manga readers – ask for specific things, but it’s kind of tricky because manga is a little bit different than a graphic novel,” Wienand explained. “With a lot of the graphic novels that we have in the library, a volume is a complete story, and manga are longer than traditional American comic books, and they also tend to have really long series.” 

Many manga tend to be very long, with one of the best examples being One Piece, a series with 113 volumes that, as of 2026, is still going. According to Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, the manga is only 80-90% completed, with the series likely ending in 2030 to 2032, having been first published in 1997. 

To place that into perspective, the anime adaptation of One Piece is at 1,155 episodes, as of December 2025.

This is where the importance of the new increase of manga in the NASH library lies, as it makes these series accessible and allows students to explore these longer series as the collection continues to be built up. 

Wienand shared more on this.

“What we were really lucky to do is get this grant through the NA Foundation because some of [the manga] are such long series that trying to build up a collection gets a bit tricky, and this allows us to do so,” she said. “We were really fortunate that Ms. Vora joined us this year, because she is a big manga reader, and manga isn’t really my genre.” 

Ms. Vora, a 2018 North Allegheny graduate, was hired in the NASH library at the start of the 2025-26 school year.

“Manga reaches an audience of readers, including myself, and transports us to extraordinary worlds,” Vora said. “I’m excited for manga lovers to be able to read the new books, and I also want to inspire those who have never read them to check some out.”