![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, I recall that Comic Con frequently has dealers selling manga at reduced rates like 25% off. I see an opportunity to reduce the enormous amount I spend on manga. Other than Rurouni Kenshin, Blade of the Immortal, and Hikaru no Go, what series should I buy up that I don't already have? I have only read Her Majesty's Dog from Go!Comi, but I LOVED it and am interested in checking out their other series.
Off the top of my head, I already have all or most of what's been released of Fruits Basket, Naruto, X/1999. X-Day, Wish, Planetes, Saiyuki, Saiyuki Reload, Death Note, Planet Ladder, Demon Diary, Gravitation, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, Chobits, Clover, Alice 19th, Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden, Mars, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Paradise Kiss, Nana, His Majesty's Dog, Legal Drug, Dragon Head, DramaCon, Scott Pilgrim, Eternal Sabbath, and Absolute Boyfriend.
I have some of, but have not yet started reading or have only gotten a little way into Crimson Hero, Angel Sanctuary, Hana-Kimi, Beck, Tramps Like Us, Please Save My Earth, Monster, Ceres: Celestial Legend, and Hot Gimmick (I blame Mely for the last.)
I burned out on Fushigi Yuugi and Trigun.
The underage-looking kiddies in Shinobu Kokoro freaked me out, though I liked the snow spirit story.
Based on this, what should I stock up on?
Off the top of my head, I already have all or most of what's been released of Fruits Basket, Naruto, X/1999. X-Day, Wish, Planetes, Saiyuki, Saiyuki Reload, Death Note, Planet Ladder, Demon Diary, Gravitation, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, Chobits, Clover, Alice 19th, Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden, Mars, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Paradise Kiss, Nana, His Majesty's Dog, Legal Drug, Dragon Head, DramaCon, Scott Pilgrim, Eternal Sabbath, and Absolute Boyfriend.
I have some of, but have not yet started reading or have only gotten a little way into Crimson Hero, Angel Sanctuary, Hana-Kimi, Beck, Tramps Like Us, Please Save My Earth, Monster, Ceres: Celestial Legend, and Hot Gimmick (I blame Mely for the last.)
I burned out on Fushigi Yuugi and Trigun.
The underage-looking kiddies in Shinobu Kokoro freaked me out, though I liked the snow spirit story.
Based on this, what should I stock up on?
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I've heard good things about Hellsing, but I haven't read the manga--the anime was good, though.
Also, Clamp's oneshot, Shirahime-syo, is *yes*.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
If it was not for the crappy ending, I would have told you Shaman King. Now I'm telling you, one fantastic manga is One Piece ^^. That one and Gals (only 10 and it's pretty funny).
One Piece is about pirates ^^. It's fun, it's beautiful and it's priceless. If you love Naruto, you will love One Piece.
Gals is more light and "fashion". It's full of life ^^.
From:
no subject
Hellsing's pretty good. W Juliet is a crossdressing shoujo series with a non-fluffy heroine.
You may or may not like Hunter x Hunter - it's pretty standard Shounen Jump fare, but I like the characters. Vagabond is a manga retelling of a novel about Musashi. And I can't actually beleive that you don't already have Antique Bakery, so I shall condescendingly assume you have merely left it off your list above.
In the OEL, er, sorry, OGM now, category, My Cat Loki was very charming. I've got Fool's Gold but am only partially through.
From:
no subject
I didn't like Vagabond, and no, shockingly, I do not have Antique Bakery!
Shounen Jump is such a mixed bag-- some series I adore, and some leave me completely cold. Maybe I'll try a few volumes of Hunter x Hunter from the library, as I've seen it there.
What's Fool's Gold?
From:
no subject
From: (Anonymous)
no subject
Still recommending Kodomo no Omocha. Best mom figure ever. (The relationship between the heroine and her manager creeped me out a bit at first, but eventually got resolved in a way I really liked.)
Two other shojo titles that might at least amuse:
Cipher kickstarted with an implausible plot device, but was still intriguing. Aggressively genki heroine makes friends with the hot guy at her school who's a well-known child actor, and discovers he's actually twin brothers who have been taking turns leading one life. Two volumes out so far.
And I read the first volume of Ashiteruze Baby and was pwned by the cuteness. Self-centered teenage boy suddenly has to take care of toddler girl.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
How about KareKano? I like it quite a bit.
My husband and I both enjoy Hikaru no Go.
From:
no subject
Also, I selfishly want you to read Angel Sanctuary because I feel it will inspire many cracked-out phone conversations and posts.
From:
no subject
himto arrest him- it's really quite creepy and also has the lashings of subtext.I'd also definitely second Qwan and Antique Bakery.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I second the Kare Kano suggestion.
Hm, I remember
Are you actually going to read Hot Gimmick?
If you want a funny manga about a cute little girl, check out Yotsuba.
From:
no subject
Card Captor Sakura - Started it for the Tsubasa connection; found it much better than expected.
XXXholic - takes a while to get going, but gorgeous art and v7 is a total heartbreaker
East Coast Rising - Becky Cloonan's Tokyopop book. Multi-ethnic pirates in post-apocalyptic New York.
Of GoComi's other series, I can't stand Tenshi Na Jai -- you can have my copy of book one if you're interested. Cantarella is almost as cracked as a Kaori Yuki manga, and has lovely art. I am very fond of Crossroad, but no one else seems to be.
Dokebi Bride - the most interesting manwha I've found yet. Proofreading is awful and translation is worse, but the art is good and not very standard shojo
MeruPuri - I think of Matsuri Hino as the lighter, less certifiably insane version of Kaori Yuki.
Brian Lee O'Malley has a non-Scott Pilgrim book, Lost at Sea, which is also very good, if not as amazing as Scott Pilgrim. But then, so few things are.
Kare Kano and Land of the Blindfolded are two of myfavorite high school manga you're not reading yet.
Versus is about violin prodigy and his teacher and I'm kind of fond of it if only because of the scene where one kid attacks another with his violin. Ah, melodrama! That might have just hit me at the right time, though.
Don't forget to look for Demo and Hope Larson's Salamander Dreams in the non-manga racks.
Oh, and if you liked Planet Ladder, the mangaka has another series coming out from CMX, The Young Magician, which is growing on me as it continues.
From:
no subject
Whoops, meant v6.
From:
no subject
From:
Take an extra suitcase!
Lone Wolf and Cub! Because a 25% savings really adds up for a 28-volume series!
Or perhaps not. But based on the things you liked, I'd suggest checking out, in perhaps roughly declining order:
xxxHolic (7) - by CLAMP.
Love Roma (3) - the art style took a little getting used to, but it was a refreshing change to see the boy confess his love right away instead of having the girl agonize about it for 10 volumes first.
Aishiteruze Baby (2) - a girlcrazy teen boy is put in charge of his 5-year old cousin to teach him responsibility. Totally cute, but not cloying.
Azumanga Daioh (4) - Wacky hijinx of six high school girls. No romance (poor Kaorin!) but very funny.
Kare Kano (20) - A girl who masquerades as the perfect student to win praise is upstaged by a boy who really is perfect, or so it seems.
Fool's Gold (1) - an American high school girl organizes her fellow girls to ignore jerks. This would make good co-reading with Queen Bees and Wannnabes.
Gals (6) - Fashion and Fun in Shibuya. (Rightstuf just announced they second season of the anime (Supergals) is coming out December 1st in the U.S.)
Kodocha (10) - A child star declares war on the class bully.
Yotsuba&! (3) - Wacky hijinx of a young girl.
Red River (13) - A Japanese schoolgirl falls into water and finds herself NOT in a magical japan or china but in the ancient Hittite empire. A change of pace! (Yes, there's a prince, although you'd think he could afford a shirt.)
Shadow Star (7) - a schoolgirl on vacation finds a cute alien friend and descends INTO HELL. Very doomful. The anime version has the most misleading opening ever.
Telepathic Wanderers (3) - A beautiful girl can read minds but has to keep it a secret.
Boogiepop Doesn't Laugh (2) - now a manga to go with the novels, anime and live-action movie. A musical someday seems inevitable, perhaps even desirable.
Genshiken (5) - Otaku just wanna have fun.
W Juliet (11) - to compare and contrast with Hana-Kimi.
I'm less sure of:
Whistle (13) - Like Hikaru no Go except for Soccer instead of Go, and no ghost. I'm not particularly a fan of sports manga or even soccer, but I liked this.
From:
no subject
Right now, I'm reading and enjoying Sugar(2) Rune, Red River, Sensual Phrase, Saiyuki and Full Moon wo Sagashite. In regards to OEL that's not on your list, I liked Mark of the Succubus. It has potential.
Buy the Kenshin manga, but make sure you watch the Kenshin anime first. The Sojiro arc is utterly magnificent in the anime version -- better than in the manga. It's...breathtaking. By which I mean I couldn't breath for fear of what was going to happen.
From:
no subject
Monster is a brilliantly done thriller.
Suikoden III is a great fantasy epic.
NANA is clever and funny. I tend to mostly like sci-fi and fantasy, though. *g*
From:
Yokohama Shopping Trip
It seems unlikely to ever make it to the U.S. but once upon a time I would have thought that of Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms novels and they're on their way, so anything could happen.
From:
no subject
One of the guys in the TokyoPop booth at the New York Comic-Con was recommending Sorcerers and Secretaries (I think the author is Amy Kim Gantner) to people who liked Dramacon, and vice versa. I liked S & S (which is actually about a secretary/college student who's secretly writing a fantasy novel about a sorcerer betrayed by his dragonlike friend; meanwhile, the student/secretary's bookstore clerk ex-neighbor keeps trying to date her, but she thinks he's just a player--because that's how his cold-hearted buddy taught him to act in order to get girls), although I didn't think it was quite as good as Dramacon.
Incidentally, Dramacon writer/artist Svetlana Chmakova also does webcomics--"Chasing Rainbows" on Girlamatic (www.girlamatic.com) and "Night Silver" at Wirepop (www.wirepop.com). These are both pay sites, but I think you can still read something like the first 20 pages of "Night Silver" (which is an often tongue in cheek fantasy about the world's most inept young wannabe sorceress, among other things) for free on Wirepop. The latest installment of each comic is also free, but in the case of these two series (and a lot of the others, such as the slashy OniKimono on Wirepop), that basically just means the latest page. Chmakova also does the "Adventures of CG" comic in the teen magazine *CosmoGirl*. This is actually pretty interesting--the American title character starts out as an exchange student in Japan. You can read at least some of the earlier installments of "The Adventures of CG" on the *CosmoGirl* website. (Keep looking--the comics archive was pretty difficult to find the last time I checked out their site.)
In terms of OEL/global manga, I also liked Jen Lee Quick's Off*Beat, although it's more of a gay-themed teen psychological novel in manga form than the classic shonen ai-type romance the original PR would lead one to believe. Rachel Hartman's "Amy Unbounded" minicomics and "Belondweg Blossoming," the trade paperback which collects the latest story arc of them, aren't manga, but they're definitely worth a look anyway. "Amy Unbounded" is basically a rather cheerful fantasy about a ten-year-old medieval girl who discovers that her mother used to be an Amazon warrior from a foreign land and the nice bespectacled scholar who's doing a study of local folklore is a dragon in disguise. Hartman also does a webcomic, "The Name of the Toad," on Girlamatic. This strip is a sort of post-modern fractured fairy tale (complete with disapproving monkish narrator) about the adventures of Pau-Henoa, the wacky part-rabbit trickster god occasionally alluded to in "Amy Unbounded."
The Del Rey Manga Othello is about a girl with multiple personalities. She's usually a wimp who lets everyone else walk all over her, but when pushed too far, an alternate personality named Nana (which actually kind of reminds me of a more extreme version of Nana O. the punk rocker in the manga Nana--this may or may not be a coincidence on the manga-ka's part) takes over and kicks her tormentors' butts. It's a little like having both Nanas from Yazawa's Nana rolled into one person, except that the Othello heroine's meek baseline personality is much more of a submissive doormat than the rather high-maintenance-ly ditzy demon lord-invoking Nana K./Hachi.
I also like Guru Guru Pon Chan, an earlier manga by the Othello manga-ka, which is about a female dog who turns into a human girl when she licks a special bone invented by her wannabe mad scientist owner. (He was trying to create an invention which would enable dogs to talk.) Ponta the dog turned teenage girl falls in love with the Rei Kashino-lookalike teenage neighbor who saved her from being hit by a car when she was a puppy--and, amazingly, he eventually starts to feel the same way about her, even though by that time he knows that she's really a transformed Golden Retriever. (Manga, thy name is crack.)
From:
no subject
Boys Over Flowers (a/k/a Hana Yori Dango) is kind of like an over the top cross between Hot Gimmick and a gender-switched version of "The O.C.," with the lower-class interloper being female instead of male. Tsukushi is an indomitable girl from a struggling middle class family who, at her social-climbing mother's behest, managed to get into elite Eitoku Academy, where most of her fellow students have allowances bigger than her unsuccessful dad's salary. When Tsukushi sticks up for a friend and butts heads with the F4, the clique of megarich boys who effectively run the school, they make her life hell--until Tsukushi's refusal to knuckle under and habit of insulting and even kicking him rather than kowtowing start to remind Tsukasa, the slightly scramble-brained leader of the F4, of his domineering but beloved big sister. Soon Tsukasa is trying to make Tsukushi over into a potential girlfriend suitable for someone of his exalted station. Meanwhile, Tsukushi is still secretly pining over Rui Hanazawa, the only one of the F4 who was occasionally decent to her back when she was still the target of Tsukasa's wrath.
Ouran Host Club is also about a poor girl who falls in with a clique of popular rich boys at an exclusive private school. In this case, the boyish-looking bookworm Haruhi stumbles into the host club's headquarters thinking it's the school library. When she accidentally breaks an expensive vase in her hurry to depart, the boys demand that she pay it off by working at the host club (a sort of PG-rated--in this case--on-site escort service; basically, their female fellow students come to the club's HQ and pay the good-looking boys to have tea and flirt with them). When the host club boys finally realize that the short-haired Haruhi, who had worn something resembling the boys' uniform to school because it was cheaper and more practical than the skirted ensemble she should have bought, is actually a girl, they insist that she maintain the charade of being a boy host anyway--not least because Tamaki, the somewhat airheaded club president, developed a crush on Haruhi when he saw how well she cleaned up with contacts instead of glasses, a good (boy's) haircut, and a nice blazer. (No, he's not supposed to be gay.) See also Revolutionary Girl Utena (although the anime is somewhat more entertaining than the manga) for a much, much more fantasy-tinged and over the top treatment of some of the same story elements, plus ritual duels for possession of the Rose Bride, a girl with an incredibly passive personality who functions as a cross between the Lady of the Lake and a human version of the stone King Arthur pulled Excalibur out of. (I.e., the duellist deemed most worthy is enabled to draw the magical Sword of Dios from the Rose Bride's bosom--literally).
More annals of girls in male disguise: Kaze Hikaru is sort of like Hana-Kimi meets Rurouni Kenshin, except that Sei/Kamiya disguises herself as a boy and joins the self-appointed samurai militia of the Mibu-Roshi (later known as the Shinsengumi, who as supporters of the Shogun against the Emperor Meiji would have been Kenshin's enemies) in order to avenge the murders of her father and brother. However, she sticks around even after she's begun to have doubts about this plan because she's fallen in love with the handsome young Okita, one of the (real-life) leaders of the group.
Oh, and in view of your past experiences in India, you might want to check out CLAMP's early series RG Veda, which is based on Indian mythology. I kind of lost interest partway through the first volume, but the only CLAMP series I really like are Legal Drug, Suki (probably the only manga CLAMP ever did which has no fantasy elements), Tokyo Babylon, and Chobits.
Margaret
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
That's kind of why I compared Hana Yori Dango to Hot Gimmick. Frankly, I don't recall any specific near-rape incidents from the first few volumes involving Tsukasa, if that's who you mean. (I wouldn't actually call him the hero at that point--that term doesn't seem particularly apropos to me even by volume 10 or so, and he's been rehabilitated a lot by that point.) I do seem to vaguely recall Tsukushi's rich rival who'd been in love with Tsukasa since kindergarten unsuccessfully setting Tsukushi up to be date-raped by her half-German buddy, or something of the sort (or am I confusing this with a similar scene in Peach Girl?). The incident where a non-F4 mob literally ties Tsukushi to a car with ropes and drags her behind it around the campus because she refuses to transfer out and stop contaminating Eitoku Academy with her insolently plebeian presence was more indelibly engraved on my mind. That struck me as unquestionably the worst thing that had happened to her so far, since in that case she really was subjected to enough physical harm before Tsukasa showed up--and, for his own twisted reasons, put a stop to it--that in real life she would probably have been dead, or at least severely injured. Tsukasa's punishing the perpetrators of this attack by suspending them from the roof of the school and offering to let whichever ones Tsukushi wanted fall to their deaths stuck in my mind pretty unforgettably, too.
The level of violence, general abusiveness, and in your face political incorrectness, etc., in Boys Over Flowers/Hana Yori Dango eventually subsides somewhat by about volume 6 or 7. But when I was reading the early volumes of both that and Hot Gimmick I found myself trying to decide which heroine was in a worse position--the one who was now the sort-of object of affection of a guy who seemed more than willing to get downright homicidal toward anyone who wasn't part of his chosen circle of intimates, but appeared to be attracted to her out of some sort of semi-masochistic, sister-substitute-seeking impulse (i.e., Tsukushi)? Or the one who had the obsessive attention of a guy who at that point appeared to be some kind of sadist incapable of expressing liking or attraction for anyone except by perverse actions like psychologically enslaving and tormenting them (i.e., the one in Hot Gimmick)? It was only by virtue of repeated strategic interruptions and other improbable plot contrivances created by the manga-ka that Ryoji didn't actually rape Hatsumi (or whatever her name is) himself during the period when he was forcing her to let him use her for practice while he was working up to losing his virginity.
From:
Discounts and Free Stuff
TokyoPop usually sells manga at their booth for five books for the price of four, which comes out to a 20% discount if all five books are the same price. Cold Cut Distributors, whose booth is traditionally attached to the indy comics creators' sales collective Indy Island (usually recognizable from a distance by the large fake palm tree in the middle), sells overstock and allegedly damaged books (I didn't notice anything visibly wrong with some of the stuff I bought there last year) at some price per pound which usually works out to more than 25% off the cover price.
Margaret
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Stock up on Tramps Like Us and Monster, they are EXCELLENT and sophisticated. I'm torn on Hot Gimmick, since I think you'll either get hopelessly hooked on it and want all of it at once or you'll throw it across the room with great force--it's one of my favorite shojo series, but I hesitate in reccing it to people because it's very love/hate.
I'd vote to hold off on Ceres: Celestial Legend until you've read more from a library or scans, as I got a couple of volumes into it and wasn't impressed. I'd pimp Watase's other series Alice 19th at you instead; I think it has some of her best characterization work.
Qwan has fantastic art and writing; I haven't gotten hopelessly hooked on its characters as I'd like to be after 3 volumes, but I'd still recommend it. Merupuri is gorgeous and very clean despite its premise. I wish it were longer! Matsuri Hino's darker series, Vampire Knight, was recently licensed, and I can't wait for it to be released in volume form. I third/fourth/whatever the rec for Antique Bakery, which is hands-down the best fluffy shonen-ai manga I've read for getting me so caught up in it I forget it's supposed to be fluffy shonen-ai manga. But don't read it while you're hungry, as it is utter food porn.
W Juliet is my darling beloved high school crossdressing manga, and I also very much like Hana-Kimi (I understand for many people the sentiments are reversed).
DON'T buy/read the Princess Tutu manga, especially if you haven't seen the anime. It's temptingly short at only 2 volumes, but it's spoilery for the anime and also it's terrible. Hands Off! I adore but you may still find it too fluffy; Petshop of Horrors I love but you may find it too episodic--it's flowery shojo Twilight Zone horror.
If you're in the mood for shonen, Eyeshield 21 is surprisingly entertaining. I dislike sports manga, sports in general, and football in particular, so I should not enjoy ES21 half as much as I do. (Although I still flip quickly through a lot of the game scenes as I do many fight scenes in Naruto.) I
And I almost recommended Sailor Fuku ni Onegai! which I am "reading" until I remembered that it isn't available in English!