Today, Tim and I visited Borders to browse -- what else? -- manga. It was during this visit that I noticed something I've never come across in my long history of reading manga, and now I'm concerned.

The very first book I picked up to flip through, Strawberry Panic Vol. 2, popped open to the middle page, where I found one of those white sticky security tags affixed right in the middle of all the action. As an avid reader of manga, and a regular customer of both major book chains and various online retailers, I've never come across these raised plastic tags stuck on print pages. I have, on occasion, come across the rounded square flat tags, and they're usually placed somewhere on one of the covers. But I've never seen these thicker, potentially damaging security tags until today.

At first I thought it was an isolated incident, and possibly a mistake. I went about shopping, picking up Vol. 10 of Yakitate! Japan. Normally I won't flip through something I'm buying, but I did this time, and unfortunately I found the sticky tag in this book as well. I slid my fingernail underneath the sticker to see if it could easily be removed, and it seemed to pull at the printed page too much. I put the book back on the shelf and picked up another, this time Pretty Face Vol. 4. It also contained the tag, and I decided to try to pull this one fully off (when no one was looking, of course). It did come off, but some of the print stuck to it. Oops!

I hope this is just a single-store incident. Have you noticed tags in the newer manga from your local Borders location? What are your thoughts on this?