Kyoto International Manga Museum

Kyoto International Manga Museum, as the name suggests, is a museum dedicated to the art of manga, Japanese version of comics! The museum - an old elementary school - is home to an incredible collection of over 300,000 manga exhibits neatly piled up on wooden shelves throughout the interiors to be picked up freely by the visiting crowds. The only caveat, if it can be so called, for the non-native is that most the manga books found on hand are in Japanese print with only a few handpicked translated editions aimed to entertain the non-Japanese speaking public. Pick up one of these manga books and flip through the pages – it’s fascinating. If reading manga comics doesn’t excite you, visit the exhibits gallery on the upper sections instead. The gallery is a great place of fun-learning and speaks about the history, development and evolution of manga through its interesting and informative exhibits, original manga artwork and illustrations. As an added bonus of sorts, try to plan your trip to the museum around one of the weekends. That’s the time when various DIY workshops are planned like drawing manga portraits where you can get involved and learn more about manga by actually participating in such exciting activities.