How and Why I Narrowed my Sentimental Circus Collection

 Welcome collectors and otakus. This post took me quite some time to conjure up so I hope it will help anybody out there dealing with a collection that isn't making you happy.

It is amazing when you find that one thing you can't help but love. It just puts a smile on your face and whenever there is a new design or series or merchandise you absolutely NEED to have it. It doesn't matter how much it costs or what you have to do to get it, you will find a way.

That was me with a lot of things I blog about, limited edition games, stationery and so much more. For this post, the collections that these directly correspond to are my Sentimental Circus collection and stationery collection which overlap since all my pencil cases are Sentimental Circus. Earlier this year I realized I wasn't remembering all of what I collected and those items I didn't use! I have been decluttering for two years and didn't touch my collections until 2020, decluttering is a process, not a race. I took a lot of steps to get this far and I can say that I fully enjoy and use my collection to the fullest.

This is what I did to finally get to the point I am at today!

Looking back at purchases: PayPal transactions, stores, and amounts should be familiar to you. If you don't remember what you bought then you might have forgotten about it. For me, I remembered all the transactions of when I bought Sentimental Circus plushies and pencil cases. This might be due to the fact that I had to ask a few personal sellers in Japan to obtain some for me. However, loads of paper pads and note pads I bought were completely erased from memory.

Seeing what you used and kept using: You know what you use daily cause your mind and hands already know the movements they need to do to get them. For me, I know exactly where the washi tape is, my plushies are displayed, and how all my pencil cases are stacked, everything single day. 

Set items you haven't used in a box: Remember all those note pads and other items I forgot about. Well, I found them while cleaning and placed them in a box. After a week I placed them on Mercari and had sold most of them immediately after. I bought these items for a purpose and I failed to use them and failed to remember them. If I will not use them I hope that whoever buys them will use them greatly and love them even more than I did. Makes me feel better to know it will be used.

Make a list for future purchases: After figuring out what I will use and keep, I make a list every time a new theme comes out of exactly what I will buy out of it. Save money, save time, and when I am ready to buy I have no regrets.

Use money from selling to buy what you will love: Just because you sold part of your collection doesn't mean you will not continue to obtain more. You have to aware of what you really want and will use and cherish.

Solving storage: This was a very interesting thing that might just be me being creative in an overpriced NYC apartment, but I used one collection to store another collection. My Sentimental Circus pencil case collection is fully used to hold my well-loved, mechanical pencil, frixion pen, Sarasa limited edition, and many more awesome pens and markers I use for journaling and writing notes (my full collection will be shown in a future post!). Not all things are bad to keep, you just need to figure out what works best for you.

I will not stop collecting Shappo and Spica plushies but at least I am happy with everything. In the future, I hope to make more posts about the next themes I will collect!

 Please let me know what you collect in the comments! Until next time, stay hyped!

Tips on How I have Narrowed Down my Physical Manga Collection

Manga. It’s nearly impossible to obtain one absolute favorite and not slowly start to over stack your already strained bookshelves with thousands more. Especially if you are like me and have a Japanese book store within a short transit distance, multiple online shops to buy from and even a shop downtown that sells used and new books, it gets too easy to just buy more Manga and comics in general.

However, due to a blend of having massive amounts of energy to declutter and forcing yourself to contain my collection, I realized I had to figure out how my bookshelves were going to get organized. 

All of these are personal tips that I used to narrow my collection down while I had the time to do so. Please remember that you don’t have to lessen your collection, especially if your collection isn’t putting you in hardship. 

1. Compile everything you have into one space.

You really need to take inventory of everything you have. For me I had manga in two different places because when I moved most of my books were placed in my toy box because it was the sturdiest thing to put them in and the rest that couldn't fit in a large black trash bag. Seeing all of your manga will help you take inventory of what you do have, don't have and might want to update. Make sure you have a large clear space with a mat to place everything on.

2. Break them down by series.

This will make your life easier when placing them back on your shelves in the order you like. Or in alphabetical order based on title or Author. Its all up to you. It really makes everything look put together when you see your collection sectioned by series and not thrown together at random. Besides that this step helps you see which series you didn't keep up with getting more volumes for and what you read but didn't feel like continuing at all. I had several standalone first volumes that I remember reading but just didn't want to continue buying. 

So far so good right?

3. Taking note of missing volumes.

Life gets in the way and you miss a few volumes. Don't worry! For the most part you can get those missing volumes of your favorite series as long as you took note of it and use the internet to find it new and or used. This is also be a big help in not obtaining a copy of a volume you already own.

4. Extra volumes go into the sell pile.

It happened to me twice. I don't know how but I had two of the same volume 6 but somehow I forgot I bought it before! Just saying if you got extra and its still new sell it for regular price if you can. If you don't want to sell it and its a volume 1 you could give it to a close friend. Who knows maybe someone else will like it as much as you do.

5. Keep your favorites, sell the rest and move digitally.

This is where I really had to make hard choices. The manga I was close to finishing and really wanted to keep stayed while I sold the shattered random volumes of other series. You need to remember that you don't need to have every single one of your favorite manga in your physical collection. If you found and or pay for a decent manga app you can have your favorites all on your phone/tablet! However please be mindful of your storage space on your devices. Sometimes it is worth getting a phone with removal storage, large cloud storage or even investing in a large online drive. If it has been difficult to find volumes in stores or ordering them online, it might be best to go digital as long as its updated on the manga site of your choice. 

6. Would you buy this series if a HARDCOVER or COLLECTOR EDITION came out?!

I wanted to bring this up because some older manga will be reprinted in a hardcover or collector edition, like FullMetal Alchemist and Soul Eater for examples. This is a pain because if you already have the full series physically or digitally you need to ask yourself are you willing to get rid of these to obtain the new editions or do you have the money to shell out and the space to hold EVERYTHING. However if you love the series but didn't collect the volumes yet, the hardcover or collector edition is a great opportunity to get them all! 

The FullMetal Alchemist is so pretty in hardcover!

Bonus. Placing rated M and adult manga in a separate space or hidden, especially if you have people visiting your home and you don't want them to see it. Depending on how your shelf space is you might be able to place manga behind the others you organized. My bookshelves are pretty deep with a closed back so once I line all the volumes up I placed the adult manga in the back. If people don't actually go looking at your manga you could get away with placing them within the rest.

Personal example!

The reason why I curated these tips is because I wanted to share my actual experience. It took me two years to really let go of a lot of stuff (clothes, stationery and small items) and I finally got comfortable to do this with my manga. I know there are many people like me that have been collecting for over a decade but couldn't find the heart to condense the collection. It is ok to keep collecting! You don't have to let go, but when you tell yourself everything has to fit in a certain space, which is exactly what I did, you need to make a choice and I hope these tips help you on your journey. 

Thank you for making it this far! Please remember to try and support the official release to keep our favorites going, and I will see you next time. <3

Major Decluttering

Hello everybody, Tsubaki here! Changing living conditions will slowly but surely influence a person to either acquire more stuff and or feel a great need to get rid of stuff. In my case of temporarily moving into a small room that I share with one other person and then moving into our own actual two bedroom apartment, made it a necessity to get rid of everything I don’t need or want. This post will break down how I have been mentally breaking down what I get rid of and what I have been using to slowly make progress. 

The first item I started with is clothes. Personally, I was holding onto shirts and pants that were too small for me because I had either forgot about them all together or was hoping I was going to lose weight and would need them later. Unless you are going hardcore changing your diet, exercise routine and lifestyle there is a high chance your weight will stay the same or will change with time depending on the person. I also figured out these things were using up a lot of space and for some reason, many people have a habit of just holding onto clothes. That tight dress you got on sale last year, jeans from 3 years also, if it doesn’t fit and it is not being used, donate it or sell it. Places like GoodWill and Salvation Army are easy to find to drop off good condition clothes. If you realize you have a collection of old and worn or just completely uncomfortable undergarments there are certain collection services that will take them. Just cause they have a hole in it doesn’t mean the material can’t be recycled. Try to research services in your area that can take them, or start getting crafty and transforming them into pet toys, decorations, and so many other things. For all the socks that are completely destroyed or have horribly placed holes in them, they make great paper towel replacements depending on the sock but if its just not usable please donate them to a place that can recycle the fabric. 

The next cluster of items is books. Now this will vary depending on if you like to hold onto physical books or you like having a digital library of books since having digital books is a lot easier since you just need more online storage or a larger SD card depending on where you want to store them. If you have physical books you have to come to terms with yourself and if you are not willing to read certain books or re-read them at a later date, it is best to donate them to your local library, sell them to second-hand bookstores or even sell them online. All books you are willing to keep will take up space either digitally or shelf space so you have to be picky on what is worth keeping especially since there are ways to still be able to have access to the same titles by having access to a public library.  

The next cluster of items is collectible items. If you love blind bags/boxes and gacha machines it is possible you have full sets of collections or random collectibles. If you had bought a blind box/bag for one specific item, the rest should be sold off and or traded for the one you want. If you want to keep a certain collection then you must make space for it and maintain the items. In a case that you don’t want to keep a full set, selling it online as a bundle or selling to a shop that takes in said items will make you a bit plus get it off your hands all at the same time. DVDs and CDs and older media storage(cassettes, vinyl disks, etc) also count as part of this set. More often than not it might be easier and sometimes cheaper to obtain movies, videos and music digitally, especially if you aren’t super crazy about obtaining a favorite. I only keep favorite shows I can’t watch online as DVDs and it helps when you have limited shelf room. If you have physical ones that are still in almost new condition and have no need for them you can sell them online for a good price. Just remember to do research on what other places are selling it for so you don’t undercut yourself. 

The next cluster of items is tech. Tech can be anything from hardware, AC cords and actual sets of devices even with accessories. If you took the time and fully matched each cord with its device and realize that you have dead charging cables, AC cables to stuff you never had in years and batteries that were used. Please find your nearest tech recycle center. BEST BUY is an example of a retailer that actually will take broken devices and parts for recycling as long as you bring them to the store. There are also places to bring in working tech and will give you cash for them. If you do that do remember to clear all personal info and data on the device. You also have the option to sell it online. Just make sure to give a very detailed description of all defects. If you can’t do any of those then it might be best to find your nearest community recycle event where they will take anything from old TVs to paint cans! Please note depending on your location this might not happen that often and only at specific meet up locations.  

Those are my personal main clusters that I have been improving especially for the new year. To make these things more effective I have also taken upon myself to only buy clothes when absolutely needed like a new pair of professional pants for work, using what I have for tech to complete what I need like downloading a good drawing app for my tablet to do digital art, and donating books I either only need for school or will replace being of hardcover editions of favorite books.

 I just want to add one more on the side but I personally haven’t been able to declutter because to me it is items I want to keep, and that is video games. If you been here on my blog before you may have stumbled across many limited edition video game sets that I reviewed. I do a lot of research into games so if I buy a physical game I know that it is something that had replay value for me. Also if I am confused about getting a game physical there is a high chance there is a free downloadable demo or video of some gameplay up for me to try or watch so I am very sure of my choice when I buy a game. However, if you are willing to let go of working games, the best choice is to sell them at a store that will give you a better amount of money even if you trade it for another game. In my experience selling games to big retailers like GameStop have been poor with very little money for older games. If the game is more or less within a few months since it has been out then big retailers might give you more. If you sell older games to a shop that also sells more pre-owned and import games and systems, they might give you more money for it. Another option is to sell them online however, you will have to make sure there is no way they can get damaged on the way there. So be friendly on the bubble wrap! 

If you made it this far, I hope my experience will help you declutter. If you are wondering which app/site I use to sell my goods it is Mercari. Click here for a link to the app plus ten bucks off your purchase! 

See you next time and Happy New Year! 🎉❤️