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I have a problem with comics and manga and other long ongoing series that I start reading them and then either hit the point where I'm caught up to current releases or else can't find a volume, then by the time a new volume is released or found I've forgotten everything that happened previously, intend to start over from the beginning, am daunted by the sheer number of volumes, and never get around to it.
Also, I used to work for Tokyopop and so have a large quantity of manga I have not yet read or have read only in part for that reason.
This May I would like to read more manga, whether new to me or catching up with series I'd read part of but not finished. I really don't like reading manga online or on Kindles; please don't rec anything that doesn't have English editions available in print form.
Also, I used to work for Tokyopop and so have a large quantity of manga I have not yet read or have read only in part for that reason.
This May I would like to read more manga, whether new to me or catching up with series I'd read part of but not finished. I really don't like reading manga online or on Kindles; please don't rec anything that doesn't have English editions available in print form.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50
Which complete series should I read?
View Answers
20th Century Boys
21 (43.8%)
Monster
21 (43.8%)
The Young Magician
1 (2.1%)
Mushishi
21 (43.8%)
The Empty Empire
2 (4.2%)
Samurai Deeper Kyo (are the final volumes available in print for a reasonable price?)
4 (8.3%)
Emma
16 (33.3%)
Aria
5 (10.4%)
Grand Guignol Opera
6 (12.5%)
Something else which I will suggest in comments.
2 (4.2%)
Which ongoing (print English release) series should I read?
View Answers
The Ancient Magus' Bride
16 (42.1%)
Golden Kamuy
6 (15.8%)
The Story of Cells
3 (7.9%)
Children of the Whales
3 (7.9%)
Dragon Goes House-Hunting
3 (7.9%)
What Did You Eat Yesterday?
12 (31.6%)
Ooku
16 (42.1%)
Alice in Murderland
4 (10.5%)
Something else which I will suggest in comments.
1 (2.6%)
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I voted for Grand Guignol Opera, but, um, are you diehard Kaori Yuki fan? If you are, then definitely. If not, then eh. (I am a diehard fan, so.)
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Aria is also slice of life, just with a science fictional setting. Events happen in sequence, but it's more in the way of small, comfortable discoveries and lessons. Most of the characters are female. In spite of being about gondoliers on a planet mostly covered in water, it doesn't set off any bit of my phobia of boats and water.
I have not read all of Mushishi, and it's been a while, but the parts I read were largely episodic. It's fantasy, whatever the rural equivalent of 'urban fantasy' might be. The intersections between the human world and other worlds need tending, and humans sometimes don't survive because those other worlds don't notice or prioritize humans.
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Other finished series you should read: Kekkaishi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cross Game
Other ongoing series you should read: *points to icon* Yotsuba&!
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I'm a little scared of ongoing "adorable small girl" manga since Bunny Drop.
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Fair enough, about being burned by Bunny Drop. That was ... yeah ... not a good thing. FWIW, I cannot imagine Yotsuba&! going anywhere near that sort of thing -- even aside from the way that issues of identity was built into BD from the start in a way that Yotsuba&! explicitly rejects, part of the conceit is that it's literally nearly daily life, with at most a couple days passing between chapters, so that only a couple months (July-November) have passed in 13 volumes. Any kind of timeskip (as need for BD hijinx) would break the contract with the reader.
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In terms of my voting, I should offer the "Magus is one of mine!" disclaimer, but it really is great. ^_^
And it's not on your list, but Yona of the Dawn (which is also one that I'm adapting) is AMAZING and I love it so much. I think it's bumped My Love Story!! (written-but-not-drawn-by the High School Debut mangaka) as my very favorite thing I'm working on/have worked on for VIZ.
I've read very little manga that hasn't been for work for at least a few years now. ^^;
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What's Yona of the Dawn about?
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What's Yona of the Dawn about?
What
I think it's at 30 volumes in Japan, roughly; I'm working on vol. 21.
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It's like you can see inside my soul.
I really do need to finish 20th Century Boys (I think I've read the first volume 5 times but have always flamed out before getting past about 11 or so) so voted for that, and I voted for Monster because I have read it. Is The Story of Cells the same as Cells at Work? I picked a few volumes of the latter up recently and found it endearingly bizarre (and surprisingly accurate).
My list of shame has Ooku (have read first few volumes and love the art but had issues with translation) and The Young Magician, as well as Please Save My Earth, Parasyte, Kekkaishi, Full Metal Alchemist, Twin Spica and a few volumes of From Eroica with Love that I gave up reading in a fit of pique when the official translations stopped.
(also not that you need more, but Banana Fish is my favourite complete series and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service probably my favourite ongoing...)
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Yes, and I had the same reaction from opening a volume at random in the bookstore.
I also have random volumes of Banana Fish, Please Save My Earth, Kekkaishi, and Twin Spica lurking.
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Are you interested in light novels?
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I was trying to work out what I’m missing from Twin Spica recently, because I seem to have two of some volumes, none of others, and at least one v bulky volume with three of the Japanese volumes in it. Very confusing.
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Stuff I have read and recommend to people who love Kaori Yuki: Grand Guignol Orchestra, Alice in Murderland. (Alice in Murderland is better, but not finished yet.)
The Young Magician is permanently incomplete because CMX stopped publishing manga before they finished the series. I've read about the first half of what got published in the US; it only really gets going in Volume 3, I think.
Other stuff I have read and liked relatively recently: Frau Faust (a genderbent Faust retelling by the mangaka of The Ancient Magus' Bride! Complete in 4 volumes, but I've only read the first two) and Snow White with the Red Hair, a charming loosely plotted shoujo fantasy romance between an herbalist and a prince, mostly notable for how much they seem to sincerely like each other and treat each other kindly. Tone a bit like Kimi ni Todoke or High School Debut. Oh, and also Natsume's Book of Friends, a mostly episode shoujo fantasy series about a neglected boy who can see yokai and slowly begins to open up to the people (and yokai) around him; melancholy, wistful, bittersweet.
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Frau Faust sounds wonderful. I've seen some of the anime of Shirayuki and yes, it's very lovely and kind.
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Oh, also, the first (so far only) season of the anime, which is on Amazon, is also very good. I think rushthatspeaks posted a review of it a year or two ago.
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Another ongoing series you might enjoy is Silver Spoon which is a slice of life manga about a boy at an agricultural school. It features lots of stuff about food and agriculture, they cook, the take care of animals, they process meat! Also lots of thoughts about vocation and such.
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Hmm, I was wondering whether to start Silver Spoon. . Sounds like maybe I should.
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What Did You Eat is as the_rck said, gentle and sometimes melancholy slice of life, livened up with equally gentle humor. I like the friendships: there's another gay couple as well as Shiro's best cooking buddy, a forthright woman who has a husband and child. And the cooking fascinates me because it's home cooking, making a certain amount of use of convenience ingredients, rather than gourmet classical Japanese. Also, Western dishes make surprising appearances: pancakes, strawberry jam, clam chowder, and others.
Of course, what I really wish Yoshinaga would do is write some more cheery, explicit gay romances, like she did at the beginning of her career, but with her amazing improved art skills. Speaking of which, Not Love but Delicious Foods (Make Me so Happy!) is a very funny one-volume manga about a thinly disguised Yoshinaga and lots of wonderful real-world restaurants.
I'm enjoying The Ancient Magus' Bride. Apparently this is considered shounen? I'm so confused by the genre designations sometimes.
If The Story of Cells is Cells at Work, I got bored of it around the third volume. The episodes were getting very repetitive.
I wish my various seinen series would get moving again. They all seem dead in the water. Did you ever try Blade of the Immortal, which is complete?
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(Rachel, it's also one of mine...at least in print. The ways of licensing are a mystery to me, and this is one of the titles where Seven Seas did the print version but Crunchyroll did it digitally. So confusing. Anyway, I'm only familiar with the print edition, although I keep meaning to check out the other one just to see someone else's take on the script. ^_^)
Spirit Circle is also by the same mangaka (and has the same licensing situation), and it too does some really interesting things, although I bonded more with Biscuit Hammer.
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Anyway, as for manga, I voted for both 20th Century Boys and Monster, because they are both awesome, but if I had to pick one over the other I would pick Monster hands down. (I also really loved his more recent series, Billy Bat, but I don't think that's available in English at all and it seems like the sort of thing that probably won't ever get a US release.) I also liked Emma, but I didn't vote for it because I really would prioritize the other two way more.
What Did You Eat Yesterday? is an excellent choice for an ongoing series because it really doesn't remember if you forget to read it for years. There is no ongoing plot so to speak. Things do develop over the course of the story (some recent arcs have been about parents growing old, as both the main characters are in their 50s now), but it's easy enough to pick up after a long break. I personally have gone years without reading it with no problems.
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Yumi Tamura's Basara, a beautifully dramatic adventure about the destined savior of an oppressed kingdom who unfortunately dies in the first chapter, after which his twin sister decides to impersonate him and fulfill his destiny instead. Further feats of great adventure include running a marathon of doom, riding a shark blindfolded, and flying away from peril on a giant kite that's also a propaganda poster. For a long while I had a secret theory that Basara and Angel Sanctuary must have been coming out at the same time and the two mangaka were rivals because of the way Yumi Tamura kept having her characters say things like "it turns out my love interest is also my worst enemy whom I've sworn to kill? why couldn't she just have been my sister! that would actually have been much less stressful!" and "it's very sweet that you've offered to feed me with your own blood now that I'm bleeding out here on the floor, but you're aware that blood transfusions don't actually work that way?" but actually it turns out Basara preceded Angel Sanctuary by several years and so this was all just from Yumi Tamura's own head.
I still also do truly love Skip Beat!, which is ongoing and endless, but features one of the greatest and weirdest heroines in manga and is such a joyously ridiculous take on INTENSE! METHOD! ACTING! BATTLES!!!
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It may not be quite to your tastes, but Bakuman was a very solid completed series that may appeal to you as a creator--- it's about a pair of middle schoolers who collaborate to become mangaka prodigies, following them and their cohort to the completion of their dreams. (Same authors as the acclaimed Death Note, but a completely different genre; at times they affectionately parody their own---and others'---success.)
Please Save My Earth was so, so long, but I felt it was worth it and it had depth. If you were comfortable with its style and content, in that vein you might try Moon Child (it's about sci-fi-ish "mermaids" with some problematic twists) or Little Pet Shop of Horrors. The stories all present something that comes across as quite alien or beyond human.
Ongoing series to recommend: Bride Story by Kaoru Mori (same mangaka as Emma), Natsume Book of Friends, Skip Beat!, Saint Young Men, Gokushufudou: The Way of the House Husband (this is the one about the ex-yakuza house-husband) ...those are really the only ones I pay attention to anymore, aside from eagerly awaiting updates to CLAMP stories.
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Ah, I just remembered one soon-to-be-complete fun and sweet series, Behinds the Scenes!! by Bisco Hatori (of Ouran High School Host Club). It's about the lives of a college stage crew group known as the Art Squad, who are available to budding film makers and stage mavens alike at their school. The art is looser and less elaborate than OHSHC's, and the characters less over-the-top. I really like the club's charismatic president, whom everyone keeps trying to make into a tragic hero (because there has to be some reason he's so cool, I guess), and he's like, "What? Really? You guys... ."
It's got 6 volumes out, and the Viz website says vol. 7 will be the final one.