One of the difficulties with this blog is trying to please everyone. When I released the poll I secretly hoped that there would be one item that stood out in terms of amount of votes, but right now there seem to be a lot of people who want me to blog two extra series, cover manga and write recommendation posts. I can’t do all of those at the same time.
Okay, so I think I know what I’m going to do now: cover manga and whenever I feel like it and have enough time write some sort of Studio spotlight. The focus will remain on the manga though. this season is relatively small, so good enough for such an experiment. I am really new to manga though, so I still have no idea what my taste is in terms of mangas. I’m also not going to burn myself out by trying to tackle complete series that take forever to finish. I want first want to experiment a bit, as accessible as possible.
So for now, I’m going to pick a bunch of first chapters of manga that seem interesting and are fairly recent so that they don’t have many chapters yet, and I’ll continue covering them if they catch my attention enough. I guess that for the format, I’ll use the same short blurbs I use for last season’s Kaleidoscope.
Hito Hitori Futari – ch.01: This was the first manga that caught my attention and so far I like this first chapter a lot. It’s got this interesting take on reincarnation, and the lead character is this spirit who is waiting to be reincarnated. It has created this world in which these spirits are actually educated while they wait for sometimes even years in order to be born again. And even then this manga goes into a different direction by punishing the lead character for her behavior by making her a guardian spirit who does nothing but sit around a person from start to finish. There are a lot of neat ideas into just this one chapter here.
Phantom Syndrome (Oneshot): This is a manhua one-shot I randomly checked out. It seemed to have won an award, and the scanlator really seemed to like it so I gave it a try. Focusing around a girl who misses a finger, it’s the kind of story that feels really vague and confusing when you start it, but at the end things come together. It’s a cute little romance, and the twist at the end was well done, but there were a few things that didn’t fit well. The actions of the guy in the story in particular could have been better explained. Also I feel that this was a victim of a bad translation. No offense to the scanlator, but the story is already hard enough to follow without those stiff and half-broken sentences.
Mix – ch.01: Mix is Mitsuru Adachi’s next work, meant as a spiritual successor to Touch, taking place 26 years after that series. I can see that he shuffled around the different character roles in order to make this similar, yet still different from his other works, with this time there being a lot of twins, and no hints of romance yet. I’m not going to keep up with this, for a few simple reasons though: first of all, this is bound to get an anime anyway; second of all, Touch took bloody ages to get going, and for this experiment I want to follow series that immediately catch my attention, and this episode just didn’t catch my attention enough, plus the baseball throwing scenes just miss something when they’re not animated. I only want to know why the two main characters are brothers and yet not twins. Very subtle there, Adachi.
Inherit the Stars – ch.01: This is hard sci-fi, but what caught my attention about it is how it intends to combine the first ventures of humans into space, together with the human race of 50 thousand years ago, and I’m interested in how they’re going to do it. This first chapter was mostly set-up and introduction to a number characters, some of which are very easily ticked off. If anything the characterization seems to be the weakest part of this manga so far, as very little time was spent on it and the characters are rather one-sided.
A Million Pound Love- ch.01: When I started this experiment, I figured that people would start to recommend me things. I never expected that there would be so many though. With this I’m going to especially take care to not get overwhelmed by them, so I’m not going to touch upon them just yet, and at least for this first week trust my own judgment in finding stuff. The above manga I all found thanks to Mangahelpers, with the exception of Mix of which I knew it just recently started. However, I also got thinking started thinking:out of all the anime series adapted from manga that I have watched the past years, which manga author and concept impressed me the most? And with that, two names stood out: Mohiro Kitoh (Bokura no, Narutaru) and Shimizu Reiko (Himitsu). My attempt to check out Bokura no completely failed a few years ago, as I got stuck at chapter 33 or something, but I did want to try this out once more, in a bit more accessible way. Luckily, Shimizu Reiko wrote a collection of one-shots with A Million Pound Love that are very easy to get into. So what if it’s from 1984?
After checking out the first chapter (which also seems to be the most noteworthy of the anthology it’s compiled in), I must say: this really was the first time in this experiment that I really was drawn in. The four manga above were nice and interesting, but I always felt like I was looking at a bunch of pictures with a bit of text here and there. Here I was really swayed along with the story, which is a really strange romance with a lot of heart put into it, containing some great twists. The panels were drawn beautifully, and the way the text boxes were lined out was much more dynamic than the four other manga listed above. Like Himitsu, this was just chock full of creativity and it subverted a ton of cliches. It did adhere to a few jarring cliches as well though, so it’s not entirely perfect, but if this is what manga can do, then I’m definitely going to continue this experiment.
NB. Dear god, how many romance manga are there anyway? While I was browsing through the different manga, I was really surprised how many shows there were that seemed like carbon copies of each other. Not to mention the bizarre fanservice titles. The worst I found beyond the incest ones is a show about keeping a young vampire girl as a pet…
If you really want manga, then you should definitely read these:
With The Light: Raising an Autistic Child (THIS YOU MUST READ!! I own all the volumes!)
+Anima
07-Ghost
Bokurano
Cantarella
Nabari no Ou
Hoshi wa Utau
+C: Sword and Cornett
But still, I wish your option to review more obscure anime got the most votes. I would have suggested a LOT of obscure anime for you to watch and review. But oh well. You can’t have everything.
Hi Firechick!
Can you please tell me from where can I read “With the Light” online ?
I checked it up upon your recommendation and it seems really interesting ^^
I’d like to give it a try before buying the volumes.
Sorry for the double post psgels,
@Firechick
I checked Batoto,Mangafox and Mangareader but it isn’t availablle there.
Gan, it’s not available online. I recommend going to your local bookstore/manga seller, picking up volume one, and just reading it for a couple of hours. Most major book sellers have comfy chairs to read in, and I’ve never been bothered even when I sit and read for 4+ hours.
Thanks for the suggestion Miriam! But in my country, manga isn’t popular at all đ It is hardly available (the last time I went to the bookstore,I just found Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha) and if someone’s really lucky, they’ll find Naruto or One Piece…so I am sure ‘With the Light’ won’t be available here…
I purchase volumes online (recently purchased Attack on Titan)…thanks anyways.
I personally thought Hoshi wa Utau was very slow paced. Dropped it immediately after reading about 10 chapters. I feel that the mangaka’s previous work (Fruits Basket) is a lot better than this.
Hey psgels, you should try one shots if you don’t want to deal with long completed series (they’re basically one chapter stories). I would recommend I am a Piano my Nakamura Asumiko; you would be amazed how much she can accomplish in 10 pages. If you are looking for unique romance, I would recommend Noel by the same author (again it’s a one shot), Matryoshka (one shot by Ando Yuki), Kingyo Sou (8 chapters by Fujitsuka Yuki), and by far my favorite romance of all time: Watashitachi no Shiawase an Jikan (8 chapters by Sahara Mizu).
Like many others I’ve read a lot of manga and would be happy to recommend from any genre. True, there is a lot of crap or carbon copies, but how’s that different of anime? I’d recommend mangaupdates if you haven’t found it already. You can search by genre or a specific category and you can read people’s reviews for every manga.
“Iâm also not going to burn myself out by trying to tackle complete series that take forever to finish.”
What about short complete manga? Ichigo no Gakkou is great, and it’s only five chapters long.
Some recomendations…
Kami-sama no Iutoori (Horror – Survival)
This is an odd one…so much fun…
3-gatsu no Lion (Slice of Life)
Great characters…
Gin no Saji (Slice of Life – Comedy)
Moyashimon + Fullmetal Alchemist…
Vinland Saga (Action)
Vikings are awesome!!!…
I second Vinland Saga.
i would prefer you pick Seinen manga, simply because it got less chance of being animated
Also One Shot Manga pretty good place to start, but pretty insane by the shear number it got
good luck in picking the rigth manga
Read Vagabond. It’s a manga based in Miyamoto Musashi. It’s level of depth is just amazing. You wont regret.
Short manga hmmm…how short are we talking here cause usual one or two volume stuff isn’t very worthwhile I still highly recommend Lucifer and the biscuit hammer.
But I will go and pick a rather odd recommendation for you and say “Onani Master Kurosawa” Just reading the synopsis of this one is enough to put anyone off but trust me when I say this manga has fantastic resolution. It starts off ok but becomes great at it’s halfway point. It’s only four volumes long.
If you need help finding out if a manga is worth reading or not try looking for it on this site.
http://www.mangaupdates.com/
It should provide you with reviews of the manga in question and help stop you from wasting any time on some unworthy titles. It also has Series stat’s which is a list of manga that is currently popular that changes daily.
Wow recommending an amateur masterpiece right off the bat with Kurokawa.
I heard the artist has turned pro now
i agree, this one needs to be read. it’s decent length, not too short, but not very long either. the artist’s done a lot of 2chan-originated manga and while they don’t have the emotion that kurosawa does, there’re still some pretty heartwarming stuff in there.
I don’t know about anyone else, but reading manga is a quick thing for me. I can read 20+ volumes in a day if the urge hits me. Definitely 10+ chapters an hour. Its one of the advantages IMO–you get great story, enough visuals to see where the author/mangaka is coming from, and you don’t need to sit through 24 minutes of show for something that takes 3 minutes to read.
Great news, Psgels start to update about manga. You sounds rather cute in the post, really.
Btw, how about the manga by Naoki Urosawa based on the story by Mr Osama Tezuka (like you always said, this’s practically Batman having tea with Superman)
http://mangafox.me/manga/pluto/
Or his Magnus Opus, 20th century boys?
http://mangafox.me/manga/20th_century_boys/
This comic is also quite interesting if you like Berserk. It is a Korean comic though
http://mangafox.me/manga/shin_angyo_onshi/
All of my recomendation are finished manga. Have no worry.
Again I’ll recommend Hotel by Boichi, it one volume long and has various stories that intertwine science fiction, irony and drama.
I find that I like manga scanlated by Storm in Heaven a lot – they have fantastic taste – and they have many completed one-shots (mostly a single volume, but also some that are a single chapter or two volumes) and good dld speeds. CDisplay is a good and simple viewer for manga .rar archives; this might be exactly what you are looking for. No harm in checking their site at least.
Unrelated to that, two recently started manga on mangafox that caught my eye are Fukigen Cinderella (a fairly realistic take on a jerk of a guy turning into a girl) and Chronos Deep. With about 20 chapters out (so a bit longer by now) there’s also CLAMP’s newest project Gate 7.
Either way, good luck with establishing your tastes. I strongly suspect that you’ll prefer non strict panels and josei .
I’d recommend Liar Game to you. Art style is not that great, but the content is all the better. From the creator of “One Outs”
Better late than never!
You should definitely read 20th Century Boys from Naoki Urasawa, as well as Pluto.
And other Seinen Manga like: Homunculus, Vinland Saga, Dragon Head, Otoyomegatari.
And my currently favourite Shoujo-Manga: 7 Seeds whose main focus isn’t romance but sci-fi, adventure, mystery and drama.
And every Anime you enjoyed and which is based on a Manga which is still runing is a must read, because the original is in ca. 90% even better. especially the Berserk and Naru Taru Manga!
I’m reading and collecting Manga of all genres sice 15 years and own above 3000 Tankobon, so i dare to say, i’ve got some idea of what one should recommend you.
Lucifer and The Biscuit Hammer is quite good. It’s also called Hoshi no Samidare. It’s probably one of the best manga out there. If you want something shorter or that’s still coming out from the same author, Sengoku Youko is also quite good, even though the writing and pacing aren’t as good.
But really, Biscuit Hammer is a classic, great character development and extremely unique in art style and execution. Great ending, very epic.
You probably already heard about his stuff, but anything from Asano Inio is also going to be great. Oyasumi Punpun is his magnum opus, it’s still being published and it’s long, though. If you want some shorter works from him, try out Solanin or Sekai no Owari to Yoakemae/Before Dawn and the End of the World, or maybe Umibe no Onnanoko/A Girl by the Sea.
Last recommendation that’s of a pretty short series: Memories of Emanon. Great art, only about a volume or two, super solid all around. And for something truly unique, with a Caribbean setting, unique art, and really interesting characters, try out The Voynich Hotel. It’s some cool stuff.
Stuff that’s currently coming out-wise, off the top of my head, might be Akame ga Kill. It’s gotten a huge boost in popularity, and it’s shaping up to be pretty cool. It looks super generic at first, but then becomes awesome.
I’m glad you’re finally reading some manga!
Actually, I think Korean webtoons might be more up your alley. They’re in full color, read left to right, and come out once a week in installments, like anime episodes. Each chapter is shorter, though, so it shouldn’t be too much of a burden. Melo Holic and Tower of God are my favorites, but I’ve heard good things about Noblesse.
If you insist on manga, though, I’ll second Hoshi no Samidare, Liar Game, 20th Century Boys, Vinland Saga, and Onani Master Kurosawa. I’ll also recommend Meteor Methuselah and Uzumaki.
Forgive me for posting twice, but are you downloading the manga or reading them online?
Manga are pretty great insofar as you need way less money to produce them, so there’s a lot more manga than anime around and a lot more non-mainstream stuff.
I know you said you want to start out with the shorter stuff, but if you ever want to try a longer series, I definately second the recommendation for 7 seeds. It might be shoujo, but not the usual kind. Nice dystopic survival story with a strong focus on character developement, and it tackles quite a lot of issues which are usually ignored in this kind of story. The art style takes a while getting used to, but it’s definately worth it.
20th century boys is great too and features a lot of older characters compared to the usual teenage protagonists.
Some more recommedations (all longer series though):
-Kurosagi corpse delivery service
-Eternal sabbath
-Ooku
For something shorter, you could try ‘the willow tree’ by Hagio Moto, it only has ~20 pages
psgels reading manga?
OMG I never thought I’d see the day.
These are what I’ve finished and recommended and or currently reading:
Bloody Monday (highly recommended)
Houkago Charisma (what if you put historical clones in high school?)
Mushishi (a lot of fresh stories that the anime did not air)
Liar Game (from the author of Death Note)
Deadman Wonderland (I know the anime sucked balls)
Mirai Nikki (Basically the same as the anime)
Love Hina (basically the same as the anime)
Elfen Lied (the story did not end in ep13 of the anime)
Kami no Shizuku (my lips are now salivating)
Hunter X Hunter (which is on Hiatus again)
Gantz (this is pure awesomeness)
Bokurano (try this one for experiment, different from the anime)
Shadow Star: Narutaru (from the same author as above)
Highschool of the Dead (I was reading this even before the anime)
“Liar Game (from the author of Death Note)”
what?
I was thinking of One Outs actually but wrote Death Note. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Nice experiment!
Just keep it up!
Do Adachi’s new manga : “Mix”
Since it’s still new (like 2 scanlated chapters), you won’t have to force yourself to read a lot of chapters. And we all knew Adachi ALWALYS deliver
Pandoras box has been opened Psgels.
You are right in just trying to go slow with manga at first, reading and blogging, all the mangas that people have recommended (and will continue to recommend will burn you out pretty fast.)
If you want something shortish but emotionally punchy I can’t think of anything better than ‘Bitter Virgin’.
I’m surprised nobody’s recommending the two great slice of life manga;
Yotsuba&!
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
These 2 are the slice of life at its best. I can confidently say that if you are a fan of slice of life genre,you’ll definitely love them. Since you have reviewed YKK OVA and liked it, you’ll love the manga still more. And mostly each chapter is a standalone story,so you dont need to remember what happened in the previous chapter when you read it after a break!
And Yotsubato, it’s an amazing one ^^
Try them yourself and see đ
Short and great mangas? Try these ones:
Onani Master Kurosawa
The Music of Marie
Manhole
Uzumaki
There are some fantastic not-that-long mangas as well:
Battle Angel Alita
Nausicaa (10x times better than the movie, because movie only convers 1,5 volume out of 7)
And of course there are freaking amazing long mangas:
Great Teacher Onizuka (the anime only covers half of the manga, it goes beyond epic at the end)
Slam Dunk
20th Century Boys(Godsawa Naoki wrote it, enough said)
Berserk, One Piece and Vinland Saga ara amongst the best mangas ever made by humankind, though they are still ongoing…
Bloody Monday and Liar Game!
Well, if you’re open to requests, I only have one.
Yongbi the Invincible – http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=2228
Series’s long but I’m still in the early stages of scanlating that series. Personal favorite of mine obviously, since I’m directly involved in the scanlation process. I’m leader of the group Random Scanlations.
Lots of comedy, mixed with action and inklings of a much deeper story.
nice, there a much more manga that can go past what anime can do (mostly nudity issues and stuff) citizenofulysses certainly knows whats up. oyasumi punpun and biscuit hammer are pretty much standards of /a/
if anything see if you can find a manga rec page on /a/, pictures tend to do better than words
too many romance copies? check out some of the odd ones, but note that they tend to be oddly sexual in nature, but do not fall into the category of hentai.
Sundome – female dominance, character growth
aku no hana – blackmail
nana to kaoru – S&M
here are a few translated by hox
oyasumi punpun – coming of age surrealism
historie – greeks persians in the Mediterranean
vinland saga – vikings
franken fran – medical experimentation and karma
others that i had recently finished
soil – odd art style (comics?) horror mystery, dirt
takimitsu zamurai – odd art style (Ukiyo-e), historical samurai
shigirui death frenzy – historical samurai violence gore nuidity
fressia – physiological thriller about government killer
shin angyo onshi – considered a manhwa, but near the top of my list, wander goes about the country trying to stop evils
others
akame ga kill (cute girls actually die, even if major characters)
shingeki no kyojin (giant killing)
Kokou no Hito (mountain climbing)
glacuos (deap sea diving)
i am a hero (zombie killing without the HOTD bullshit)
bokko (stratage in china)
akumetsu (man kills corrupt politicians in flashy manner)
angel densetsu (comedy on a man with the face of devil)
Ocha Nigosu (delinquent tries to turn over a new leaf by joining the tea club, romance comedy)
homunculus (man drills hole in head and gains a sixth sense)
me and the devil blues (black slave in time of jim crow laws sells soul to devil for jazz)
kurosagi corpse delivery service (group takes jobs from the dead)
majin tantei nogami neuro (trololo devil solves mysteries)
detroit metal city (death metal comedy also 10 fucks in 1 second)
bambino (life at an italian resturant)
3337 byooshi (positive slice of life on a starting gigolo)
sengoku youko (man and his fox like mate try to stop experimentation)
sumire 16 sai (comedy on a schoolgirl ventriloquist doll)
ichi the killer (ichi,problematic childlike killer vs sadist yakuza)
also any works by douman sayman are fun as hell, have fun!
ahh wait
I am a hero (again)(survial horror, also known for high quality art)
biomeat (survival horror about organism that eats anyting)
gisele alain (artistic slice of life)
Eroica Yori Ai o Komete (gay comedic cold war james bond parody)
again!! (cheer squad)
kaoru mori is known for extremely high artistic quality slice of life
emma (victoian maid), shirly (maid)
Otoyomegatari (nomadic romance slice of life?)
and an honorable mention to
Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaete mo Omaera ga Warui!
(the daily life of /a/ in general, somewhat depressing)
it’s ok to spam recommendations right, I cant think of everything I’ve read right at the moment.
Pretty much everything someloser mentioned above and below my comment is well worth your time so I’m seconding his list.
oh just reminded of a few others
Teppu (mixed martial arts, saddism?)
Gunka no baltzar (european historical military)
Wolfsmund (middle ages, tragedy, rebellion, more tragedy)
wow… i read the Hito Hitori Futari after i read your post about it and i have to say that the manga was amazing. I love the storyline. Thanks for recommending it.
I have a fondness for Tsukkomi gag mangas, if you enjoyed School rumble or Azimanga Daioh animes, then stuff like Saint Young Men, D-frag, Fujimura Kun Mates, High School boy’s daily life, Choku!, and It’s not my fault that I’m not popular are great. Nice thing about these are, none of the are 4koma, but they are all light-hearted and you can start or stop at any time point since there little commitment.
for an atypical 4koma, Houkago play
You should probably give up on romance mangas,there are way too many of them, it’s easier to pick a situation or author that you think you may be interested in and find work that way. Also I think seinen romance manga generally have more depth and rarely will ever get adapted into anime because some mature content, something like Honeymoon Salad or Toshiue no Hito.
Manga that are just plain interesting
Franken Fran is way up there for the weird stuff. Otoyomegatari, about life of people of central asia, Mori Karou’s art is so detailed that you cant help but marvel at it. Waters by Urushibara Yuki, same author as Mushishi, if you want to get philosophical and feel cured afterwards, she’s the mangaka. If you want just Horror, Ito Junji’s work are a go to(all very short as well). Chiheisen de Dance by Kashiwagi Haruko who does a lot of different stuff, but her stuff often has great pacing and plot, and this was my favorite work of hers.
Most of these are either non-committal or are median length completed series around 5 to 7 volumes.
I can recommend some mangakas on art alone as well
Well I have no idea where you search for your manga, buy I think you should try mangaupdates and use the Release Filtering feature they offer, it can be very helpful.
Also, really? Only fairly recent manga? I don’ really get this one, this way I expect you will come upon a lot of crap, it’s ok if you don’t wanna start long complete or long ongoing manga but there are plenty of great manga under 5 volumes and complete, at first I did not want to recommend anything, but I am will do so because I doubt anyone else would have mentioned this manga, maybe only on a manga blog that deals with seinen titles: the works of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Jiro Taniguchi, Inio Asano, Jiro Matsumoto, Matsumoto Taiyo, Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma, Undercurrent by Tetsuya Toyoda, and this are only authors that write short manga and manga titles that are quite a quick read. There are plenty of other titles and mangaka that would fit into this category, but I think this is enough for now.
As for Hito Hitori Futari, Tsutomu Takahashi is one of my favorite mangaka, but I won’t start this one yet, I have been reading manga for more than 5 years and I never start ongoing manga that have not been going on for more than a year or two and don’t have a scanlation group that is up to date with the Japanese releases.
I love Inio Asano and Undercurrent, though both uses a fair amount of decompression and you kind of get that still feeling of staring at the oceans or something, very calming
Pax: why? Have the manga of the most recent years become really bad or something?
The reason you avoid recent manga is the same as why I chose to go for them. I mean, look at these comments; I’m pretty much overwhelmed by the sheer amount that has been recommended here and picking recent manga that come out every once in a while will be a good way for a manga noob like myself to get into them. After all I have been unable to get into manga at this point, and I refuse to burn myself out.
I suspect that he says that for the same reason people recommend old anime to newbies, and because there is such a huge selection of manga – far more than anime – that people generally will be more familiar with the popular titles. That is, we manga readers are usually unfamiliar with the new stuff, and only hear about manga when they’re complete or a lot longer. But at this point that doesn’t mean anything to you yet.
That’s also why I mentioned a scanlation group (Storm in Heaven) I trust with a large selection of titles so you could just pick one that catches your interest, rather than focusing on specific titles; the downside is that they focus more on shoujo/josei (they group josei under shoujo), and most of the commenters are recommending seinen. Going through the first page of mangafox is just as good an approach that averts this, though in turn you’ll land significantly more duds.
Even when I don’t read manga, just like with anime, a few months can pass without me reading or watching anything, I check almost daily the New Releases section on mangaupdates and I keep note of the tiles that might appeal to me, expect shoujo, which I don’t really read, I also wrote posts on a manga blog that mostly dealt with manga for seinen fans, posting updates on new manga and complete manga and that’s how I got the habit on checking mangaupdates that often, so I am pretty familiar with most seinen, josei and even shounen titles that are currently being released in english and there are not that many new tiles, released during the last months, that look that promising. I can’t judge if the last year or so has been bad for manga since a lot more manga than anime are being released in Japan and only some of them get to be scanlated, compared to anime. Still there are plenty of excellent ongoing manga, but not fairly new as you mentioned you would like to focus on, honestly I think you should experiment even by trying longer manga, maybe read only the first 2-3 chapters, it’s just that by picking only new titles it might be some time till you pick something truly brilliant and maybe your interest will dwindle. I for one, when I started reading manga, I started with short complete manga, under 5 volumes.
btw the reason why I did not want to recommend anything was exactly because of what you mentioned above, you already received a ton of them and you will find it impossible to decide what to read.
I second the post about Korean webtoons and they’re all recent. It’s full color, the chapters are all on one page (you simply scroll down) and you can read from left to right. If you’re interested I would suggest you start with Kisswood for the following reasons:
– it’s completed and has only 34 chapters
– the MC is an old gardener
– great art and the story is solid.
If you’re going for something shorter then go for Westwood Vibrato, which has a similar feel and quality going on. It’s about a young woman in South Africa who repairs music instruments. Though incomplete, there are only a few chapters out.
Some other webtoons that I like, but are longer and ongoing:
– Supernatural Investigation Department: A supernatural/horror webtoon, which is sort of a mashup of Ghost Hunt/Natsume/Yakumo. The difference is that three of the main characters are adults, which is rather refreshing for that type of genre.
– Kubera: Genreless fusion fantasy. It seems rather cliche at first and it took me a while to get into (it was actually meant to be a novel), but the author has done some really great worldbuilding. Normally I don’t like fantasy, but I really love this one.
Since everyone seems to be having a blast recommending Urasawa’s stuff, I’ll just go ahead and slip in Please Save My Earth into the pile. It’s shoujo, it’s old, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.
Or you could just read Hunter x Hunter, but that might just spoil the TV series for you for all I know.
Or you know what? Why don’t you just stick to reviewing anime series. You’ve already got your hands full and I don’t like seeing you stretching yourself too thin for us readers.I mean just looking at the sheer number of recommendations is making me dizzy. Just do the occasional extra post aside from the stuff you’re doing now.
Gintoki: that’s why this is an experiment. To be honest, the current season doesn’t have too many interesting seriese compared to usual, and rather than forcing myself to sit through the mediocre ones I wanted to try something different this season.
I’m sorry, but I just feel you deserve a break after this past season.I understand that english is not your first language and you’ve been juggling this and work, but the grand number of posts you’ve been making have taken a toll on the quality of your writing, and you’ve been forced to reuse the same lines as well as commit typos. I’ve been through something similar so I know that when you’re just recycling the same phrases it’s high time to reevaluate your writing,read a variety of literature(from novels to business articles),get out of this constant routine for a while and take a breather.I would, after all, prefer quality over quantity any day and I know you’re capable of just that, but if this is something you really want to try then I’m all for it.
In the previous comments there are quite a lot of good recommandations!
Here are some I like :
“Ran to Haiiro no Sekai” (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=39704): Only a few chapters are translated but I find it interesting.
“Real” (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=142) : There is quite a bit of tomes already translated but the manga is very good.
“Parasite” and “Tanabata no Kuni” are from the same artist and even is the drawings are not that good, the story make up for it.
I second Shin Angyo Onshi. It’s soooo good (ignore the movie, just read the manhwa, you won’t regret it).
And of couse, 20th century guys! One of the best seinen ever.
Just echoing previously sentiments here but:
Inio Asano does realistic modern life and surrealist black humor very well. Two of his shorter works Solanin (2 volumes) and What a Wonderful World (2 vols) – series of very short stories tangibly connected to each other. Oyasumi PunPun is longer but his best work so far.
Also anything by Kengo Hanazawa (e.g. I am a Hero) is fantastic.
You may want to try Attack on Titan (Hajime Isayama) – the author has really thought about and detailed how the world works. The slightly crude but energetic art make terrifying monsters and great action.
I’m very much looking forward to this experiment, psgels!
As a short manga I’d recommend A Lollipop or a Bullet aka Satou Kashi no Dangan wa Uchinukenai.
The mangas of YKK (which has been recommended above) and Hourou Musuko both are beyond awesome imho but not that short.
Btw, what is the show (read: manga?) about the vampire girl you mention in your post?
Good luck for the aniblog tourney semifinals!
Try “Pluto” ! đ
I agree with this.
Mix is okay but for a monthly manga… it’s fine. But I much prefer it in weekly format though…
If I can recommend something it might be Iris Zero
http://www.batoto.net/comic/_/comics/iris-zero-r44
and Tonari no Kashiwagi-san
http://www.batoto.net/comic/_/comics/tonari-no-kashiwagi-san-r445
7 Seeds (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=548)
Real (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=142)
The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=10866)
D-ASH(http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=146)
Suicide Island (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=38105)
Piano no Mori (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=926)
Sengoku Youko (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=20587)
Teppu (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=38747)
Tower of God (http://www.batoto.net/comic/_/comics/tower-of-god-r1)
While you probably aren’t going to take a look into it, I’d like to make suggestion…
Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, specifically the version with art done by Ishida Akira.
The premise is very good in my opinion.
It’s ongoing, fourteen chapters are out, but has a slow release.
Though given how a lot of people are suggesting other manga left and right, I don’t blame you for overlooking this comment…
However, as a fan, I’d like to see this manga get more coverage.
Related to the characterization in Inherit the Stars, I am tempted to say that could probably apply to all of Yukinobu Hoshino’s manga, very reminiscent of the Golden Age sci-fi novels from the US and Europe, for example, all the Arthur C. Clarke novels I read did not much care for character development, which I didn’t mind one bit. Actually, I think even Hoshino’s artwork is most likely influenced by french comic book artists.
I’ll bet your sorry you started this…..
You know what else A Million Pound Love is? Shoujo. Borderline josei shoujo at that, as a good number of series in Hana to Yume, the magazine it was serialized in, are imported as 16+.
The other titles? Mix is a shonen bordering on seinen. Bokurano, Hito Hitori futari (which I tried to read three times by now, but can’t get into) and Inherit the Stars are seinen. Now, I personally like Bokurano, but I also found it incredibly hard to read and I needed to concentrate a lot to pay attention.
The difference between shoujo and josei on one side and shonen and seinen on teh other goes deeper than just demographics. They don’t have the same flow. In anime this isn’t particularly apparent or important because of the medium, but in manga this is everything; even a mediocre manga becomes entertaining to read if the mangaka gets it right, and the best plot ever written can become hopelessly dull if done badly; furthermore, everyone has their own feel it. (I find shonen flows far better than seinen though.)
Do you remember – granted, ages ago – when I proposed you read a certain josei manga (which I picked because I thought it easy on the eyes) to read for 20 minutes (the length of anime episode) just too see whether you can like manga? Then people started recommending Vagabond, which was when I said that I didn’t believe you’d enjoy the rigid paneling (and overall style – at least not at first) of seinen. Seems like my prediction came true.
Mahwa also has a different flow (which I personally dislike), but I can’t really comment on it.
I find shonen’s pace sometimes can be too fast, while it’s engaging, for some moment it doesnt do as well as Seinen. As a rule of thumb, I usually read Seinen by the volumes, while Shounen I can follow week to week even month to month.
I do have to say, style of art does impact my selection sometimes in spite of the plot, a lot of older shojo or josei i simply couldnt read because the art just deviates to far to my liking. Same goes for any loli/shota-centric mangas
Just thought I’d mention this, Mohiro Kitoh also has two collections of short stories, Kakutoshi no Yume and Zansho.