In what may be the only recorded incidence of death by manga, if we are to exclude the murderous rampages politicians and the mass media assure us are the result of such things, a man (37) was tragically buried alive by his impressive collection of many hundreds of volumes, apparently toppled onto him in the recent severe earthquake in Tohoku.
His death was only discovered after he failed to show up at work, and one of his co-workers thought this amiss, and so called on him, only to discover his former colleague dead under a mountain of manga, each wall having been stacked with manga to the height of two metres, which had collapsed onto the man. He is thought to have suffocated due to the weight of the volumes upon him. We do not hear which titles ultimately killed him.
A lesson to us all – please take care to ensure otherwise innocuous items cannot topple over and cause an embarrassing death, especially if you are fortunate (and tasteful) enough to have every volume of Berserk or some such. Via Sankei.
In this world anything can kill you…
I know a number of fans of (western) science fiction who would be in similar danger should their shelves of novels, often stacked two or three deep per shelf, were to fall over.
The lesson: Bolt the shelves to the wall when you install them! It’ll be easier to survive just books falling on you than the shelf as well!
Reminds me of a Simpsons episode….
A really really bad way to die. >_<
Next time, get thinner volumes?