Matsumaru Kumi of the Daily Yomiuri wrote, “Toshio Naiki believes a manga comic book is not something to be enjoyed just once but be continuously enjoyed by reading it over and over. That is why he has been collecting manga for more than 50 years and opened a private library dedicated to manga in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, 30 years ago.”
“I initially wanted to become a mangaka,” said Naiki, who was deeply impressed with The Lost World, a work by manga giant Osamu Tezuka, when he was a fifth-grade primary school student. “As I realized it would not be easy to [become a mangaka] and I came to own a lot of manga that I couldn’t discard later, I decided to open the library.”
“Naiki established the Contemporary Manga Library near Edogawabashi subway station when the size of his manga collection, both in magazine and book format, reached 27,000 volumes.”
“Naiki moved the books from his house, where the fusuma sliding doors on his oshiire closets had begun to bulge under the pressure of so many manga stored inside, and opened his collection to the public. His own manga were augmented by 3,000 more donated by manga rental shops around the nation.”