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What are your favorite manga, manhwa, manhua, and other Asian comics that a) have not yet been licensed in English, b) were created within the last ten years or so?
Other than Yokohama KK mumble, which is delightful and which I am already reading, and Yoshinaga Fumi's Ooku, which I already know about... and would really appreciate scanlation links for, if scanlations exist. If not, maybe I should bid on scanlating services from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
livelongnmarry.
If you describe why I ought to read them, and provide or email scanlation links if they exist, I may read and review them here. Also, I am in a position to occasionally suggest licenses. Just sayin'.
Other than Yokohama KK mumble, which is delightful and which I am already reading, and Yoshinaga Fumi's Ooku, which I already know about... and would really appreciate scanlation links for, if scanlations exist. If not, maybe I should bid on scanlating services from
livelongnmarry.If you describe why I ought to read them, and provide or email scanlation links if they exist, I may read and review them here. Also, I am in a position to occasionally suggest licenses. Just sayin'.
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My tag from the little bit I read last year: http://meganbmoore.livejournal.com/tag/shin+angyo+onshi
(though the tag will likely soon change to manga:+shin+angyo+onshi)
It's like someone decided that the Chun Hyang legend sucked because the hero left the heroine there while he went off to become an official and THEN saved her, and she sat around waiting for him, so they offed him, made her a badass, and sent her off with another badass to reform ancient Korea. And added bondage issues. (This is all the first few chapters.)
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(icon is from an excellent unlicensed manga [running in Shonen Jump so it won't be unlicensed long])
Perhaps tonight I can at least narrow it down to the top...seventeen starring WILDEBEESTS, or something. Or save time by merely posting hundreds of links without context.
(Someday I will obtain a laptop and be able to read scanslation in bed & on the run, and I will never be seen again.)
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Re: (icon is from an excellent unlicensed manga [running in Shonen Jump so it won't be unlicensed lo
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Re: (icon is from an excellent unlicensed manga [running in Shonen Jump so it won't be unlicensed lo
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Re: (icon is from an excellent unlicensed manga [running in Shonen Jump so it won't be unlicensed lo
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Re: (icon is from an excellent unlicensed manga [running in Shonen Jump so it won't be unlicensed lo
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The manga was licensed by Comics One for about an eyeblink in 2001, then dropped after three issues. Supposedly DrMaster (who I never even HEARD OF before Googling this) bought up all of CO's licenses when they went out of business, but has chosen not to do anything with this one. Other than that brief little hiccup, to the best of my knowledge none of the mangaka's numerous other doggy-shonen series, nor the anime adaptations of Gin and Weed have been licensed in English, although they've done well in Europe and are apparently particularly huge in Scandinavian countries -- I got all my fansubs from a Swedish site. You can find more information on the mangaka and his various series, including some scans and a translation of one short piece, at this fairly extensive fansite: http://www.gingasite.net/
(If not for your "last ten years" caveat, I'd also be clamoring here for Rose of Versailles and anything by Moto Hagio...)
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My bad, let me edit the post to include "manhwa or manhua or other Asian comics."
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I also like Gokusen, which is mentioned below, though not to the same degree.
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Also, my poor untranslated (and pretty!) Bleach doujinshi begs you to not outbid me on that particular scanlation offer...
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#1 awesome manga of awesomeness is Tamura Yumi's 7 Seeds. It's currently ongoing (at 13 vols, I think) and wow, just wow. Consistently blows me away. It's another post-apocalyptic tale, yet nothing at all like Basara. The gov't. knows about a huge comet that will hit the Earth and, worst case scenario, make it unlivable, so they have several plans. Their last-ditch effort is a project called 7 Seeds. Five teams of teenagers are cryogenically frozen, with a computer set to thaw them when it senses that the world has become livable again. There are lots of twists and turns and awesomeness which would be spoilery to mention.
#2 is Tegamibachi (or Tegami Bachi aka Letter Bee) by Asada Hiroyuki. I have seen his previous manga on the shelves and wow, his art has gotten so much better. This is one I just marvel at while reading because the drawings are so beautiful. It's a sci-fi/fantasy story about a world which has no sun. The people live by the light of a man-made star, but it doesn't reach far, so the world is divided into three lands, the innermost one being the lightest (and where the rich people live). Letter bees are people who deliver letters and packages across the land, but they're no ordinary postmen. They use spirit amber to fight these giant insects who lurk in the darkness. When Lag is little, a letter bee named Gauche comes to deliver him to a different town. The journey makes Lag want to become a letter bee, too. It's only on vol. 4 so far, but there are hints of awesome twists and turns to come. It's shounen, but not at all a fighting manga.
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Also I have vowed to personally send cookies to anyone who licenses You Higuri's Ludwig II, which is in fact her insane kind-of-yaoi bio of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Featuring the building of Neuschwanstein! My love knows no bounds-- it is so much better than Cantarella. It's like Cantarella crossed with Emma crossed with Angel Sanctuary crossed with, um, gay porn. Unfortunately I read it in French and I do not think there actually are scanlations.
I'd like The Ice-Cold Demon's Tale, so the licensing of Silver Diamond gives me hope.
Oh also more Moyoco Anno! Either Hataraki Man or Sakuran would be awesome, but I will read anything by her at this point.
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Seconding the Anno love. Even in something as cracked as Happy Mania, there is something pure and refreshing about how her 20-or-30-something female protagonists aren't housewives, even the ones who want to be.
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Hourou Musuko: The focus is on friendship of on-the-cusp-of-being transgendered boy and girl in the sixth grade, as they try to figure out not just this puberty thing but why they want to dress and act like the other gender. Plus bonus school!drama with expanding circle of friends.
Cross Game: Adachi's current series, and it's shaping up to be as good as H2 and Touch. (Which are, of course, two more criminially neglected licenses, just below YKK and Rose of Versailles in seriousness.)
Five by Shiori Furukawa: Why this languished while Special A got picked up is a mystery that just goes to show I haven't a clue how licensing works. Premise: take one girl and five unapproachable guys, all at the top of the class ranking -- and run with it. Or as I put it once, "Special A without the stoopids." Maybe better would be the best parts of the union of Special A and They, Too, Love.
Global Garden: The thematic (though not literal) sequel to Please Save My Earth, only instead of reincarnated aliens were get rival immortal boys created by Einstein (!) looking for the reincarnated spirit of the World Tree (!!) who, when they find her, is trying so hard to live as a boy she's altered her gender by sheer willpower. The moment of (!!!) comes when a pattern of archetypes built up for a couple volumes collapses in stages and the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima becomes, in a symbolic sense, Yddrassil burning. Yeah, that.
Oh, and all four are available at stoptazmo.com, though I usually snag the first direct from the scanners (Kotonoha).
(Sorry about the multiple edits, but the new version of opera is Not Playing Nice with LJ's code.)
---L.
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---L.
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I posted a sample chapter here. There are also a million and two scanslations available.
Caveat: I'm sure that this one will be licensed any minute.
Other recs:
Ashita no Nadja. It would be like if Charles Dickens did shoujo, and everyone actually got a happy ending. Anyway, it's about an orphan girl traveling with a circus across a very manga-fied version of Europe. She's also on a quest to find her birth parents. Oh, and she gets tangled up with a handsome masked thief. The manga is only two volumes long, nice and short and sweet, and the artwork is really beautiful. The whole thing is rife with shoujo cliches, but they're really well done, if that makes any sense. Most unfortunately, I don't think there are any scanslations currently available. But as it's such a short series, I can only cross my fingers and hope that somebody will pick it up soon.
Deadman Wonderland. It's like "the Fugitive" only starring a fourteen-year-old boy framed for mass murder, and also showcasing a bunch of grisly and gruesome science-fiction ideas about how criminal justice will work in the future. The artwork is by the fantastic Kazuma Kondou, who also did the Eureka Seven manga. There are lots of scanslations.
Mirai Nikki. Basically the same as "Death Note": take one outlandish fantasy premise and show, in excruciating (and thought-provoking) detail, how that would play out in the real world. In this case, it's a diary in which users can read entries from their future selves. Oh, and said diary users are also locked in a kind of Battle Royale-esque game of survival. The characters are really fascinating, the main girl doesn't suck, and overall it's a great read. There are lots of scanslations.
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Strawberry Shake/Strawberry Shake Sweet, Hayashiya Shizuru - Cute, funny, completely plot-free shoujo-ai manga set at a modelling agency. "Ouran with lesbians" would not be an unfair summary.
Honey & Honey, Takeuchi Sachiko - Autobiographical manga about a lesbian couple. Very sweet with very rough, simplistic art.
Plica, Amamiya Sae - Probably-autobiographical comic about a lesbian woman in Japan, very simplistic art like Honey & Honey, but much grimmer. Actually a 4-panel comic strip.
All three of the above can be acquired at Lillilicious.
Okay, I got one that's not yuri: Pandora Hearts. I am unsure that this manga is actually any good, but it amuses me that it's basically Tsubasa - guys who look suspiciously like Syaoran and Fai, in roughly the same roles, trying to help girl who's lost her memories recover them - if Sakura was the greatest warrior in the universe, especially when she transforms into her true form as a goth monster rabbit.(Annnd I just googled and it's been licensed.)Again purely for Crack Logic reasons, the Legend of Zelda: Four Swords manga, by Himekawa Akira. Himekawa felt that the basic plot "Link splits into five Links with different-colored hats, and they fight" would be improved by angsty UST between the evil Link and the Link in the purple hat. He/she was right. It may be read here.
And if you haven't read Ashinano Hitoshi's PositioN, you should. It's similar to YKK, but urban fantasy rather than sci-fi, and only one volume.
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There's a scanlation of it, because, hell, it's Watase Yuu doing yaoi, so of course someone snapped it up to scanlate.
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Scanlations of the first two or three chapters can be found at http://www.yuuwatase.org/sakura.shtml
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YES?
---L.
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I adore Karin Mochizuki's Kagi (Key) (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=731), and like Switch tolerably well for a manga based on one of my least favorite tropes; she also has a bunch of unscanlated stuff from your specified time period.
I like Kazusa Takashima's Harlem Beat Come Dawn but think Lilian mentioned a while ago it's tied up in licensing.
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---L.
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My favorite Yuki Kaori one shots so far are Boys Next Door, which is about the pure true love of a 14-year-old boy prostitute and a kindergarten-teacher-cum-rent-boy-serial-killer and should be so wrong and yet is angsty and disturbing and all those things we love about Yuki Kaori, and Kaine, which has a proto-Kira and identical twins and rock stars and the image on the cover is of someone in a body bag! I also read Neji, which is not quite as good, but is Yuki Kaori doing psychic kids in a lab in the future. Also, it has a killer doll.
Yazawa Ai's Kagen no Tsuki has gorgeous art and I love the four kids. Her Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai is the first series of hers that I read, and though the art is horrible at first and it falls prey to the hero's angst overtaking the story halfway through, it still ends well and holds up well on a reread. It also has one of my favorite manga female friendships.
I second other people's recs of They, Too, Love, and also add Pahanjip, which isn't the best thing ever, but has possibly Korean possibly Chinese folklore and is set in Tang China. So far, it's very MotW a la early xxxHolic, but two cool women have just come in, and I'm hoping the arc will start soon. Plus, it stars a ghost-hunter/curse-dispeller guy and his loyal and devoted servant who also happens to be a sword.
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