Best NEW unlicensed manga, manhwa, and manhua

[rachelmanija]

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 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'.

Comments

[larryhammer]

People already beat me to They, Too, Love and 7 Seeds. Others:

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.

[octopedingenue]

Seconding the love for Hourou Musuko! I will be one of the, like, five people to buy a licensed version, but I will buy TEN COPIES and give nine to libraries. Also, its scanslator Kotonoha is an excellent group to watch in general for great seinen and yuri-leaning titles.

[larryhammer]

Kotonoha is one of the few scanlation sites I visit regularly, rather than hanging around the aggregators. Another one being Manga Downloads, because contra my statement above, Cross Game isn't carried on Stop Tazmo and so I also get it from the source.

---L.