The Gamer's Quarter

seryogin

I was in Border's yesterday with a few hours to kill. Since I wasn't going to read a whole book in that time, I decided to browse the manga aisle.

I was surprised to find that there were girls standing there. Like, actually leafing through them. And they weren't ugly either. There was this one cute asian girl... anyhow, this led to a few minutes of idle fantasizing.

I have never been a huge fan of manga. I've read a few oneshots from Leiji Matsumoto, whom I like for his Yamato Damashii, even if he can only draw four types of people, and the 1st volume of Rurouni Kenshin, which I also liked, as well as a smattering of Dragonball, Shaman King, etc.

So, yesterday, I read the first volume of Berserk. I didn't like it. It was too violent and sick for the sake of being violent and sick. And for all it's brutality it didn't even have a single original character in it. Guts is essentially an Adult version of Cloud Strife from FFVII. Meaning he's pretty much every other male manga lead with a big sword. The art didn't impress me either.

Blade of the Immortal on the other hand did the trick. The pencil-y art and Manji's design made me forget that I was still reading pretty much every other samurai manga ever published.

Boys be... seems like another dull relationship manga. I only read a few pages. But those few pages had a cute girl that runs into a slightly timid guy with her bycicle, giving him ( and us) the opportunity to look up her dress and her a chance to meet this totally cool guy who doesn't know how to talk to girls.

Here's where you come in. What manga do you like and why do you like it? or list in no particular order ten manga that you really like!

Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

hmmm...

i dont really have a top ten list of my own yet.... but i'll list a few that i've read and liked...

'20th century boys' rocks.. its the best one i've ever read.... it was recently licensed...so be sure to pick that bastard up. it keeps you interested in it for a loooooooooong time.... by long time i mean for over 17 volumes worth..i must find the 18th volume....

'bobobo-bobo-bobo' is smashingly beserk. its not for the serious at heart. it parodies alot of things so some of the halarity relies on some cultural knowledge. this one is unlicensed.. there are a few scanslations running around...

'death note' is good up until chapter 20.... then it sucks alot.. but those 20 are pretty spiffy.. this one is currently unlicensed... you can either pick up the scanslations or get copies of weekly jump...

'dr. slump' is very good stuff. if you liked dragon ball, you will like this one possibly even more so. me thinks this is licensed..so you might be able to pick it up..

that 'Blade of the Immortal' you mentioned is indeed good stuff..

thats all i know for now....
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I subscribe to Shonen Jump. . .

That is all

Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

Guts, however, came long before Cloud Strife. In fact, I could even say that Cloud Strife is the one doing all the copycating.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Yea, I read Berserk and JoJo as well. JoJo I read the scans as I can neither read French nor Japanese, but I guess that an edited version starting on part 3 is coming out for jojo in the US. None the less, I have volumes one through six for Berserk and also have all teh anime. Good stuff. Really good stuff.

Blazehedgehog · . Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Colorado

I used to read all of Shonen Jump until I couldn't afford the $8 a month anymore (I really miss One Piece... last issue I read was the one where they introduced Hikaru No Go). Friend linked me to a place with fan translations of the Full Metal Alchemist Manga, might read that.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

seryogin · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:06 pm Post subject:

seryogin · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:11 pm Post subject:

seryogin · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:18 pm Post subject:

Karii · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 31 Location: Tampa, FL

Hm, I will read darn near any manga, althought I find the action manga a bit hard to follow. I liked real Bout High School but quickly lost interest. Currently, I am on a girly manga kick (being a girl and all) I really liked Paradise Kiss, Hot Gimmick, Mars, Tramps Like Us (and the j-dorama verson of it - Kimi Wa Petto) but I also like humor manga such as Tuxedo Gin. I don't know what Immortal Rain would count as, nor Saikano. I borrowed those from a friend.

I used to read Shonen Jump as well but since I didn't really like DBZ (ack! sacrilige! sp?) I lost interest after the first year expired. I liked Yu-Gi-Oh more than I thought I would as well as One Piece. I initially liked Naruto until it caught on and you can't even MENTION anime or manga without someone rambling off how great ep 1232312341231244 part 2 of Naruto was....but I digress...I have issues with that series. Sad

Persona-sama · Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:32 am Post subject:

LIST OF MANGA YOU SHOULD READ ONCE IN YOUR LIFE:

-Nausicaa by Miyazaki Hayao
(The god of all manga. Reading this will reveal where mostly everything video game cliche/idea/device/creature/character/etc. etc. came from. Final Fantasy and Evangelion draws heavily from this.)
-Black Jack by Osamu Tezuka
(My personal favorite out of Tezuka's creations. But hell, Tezuka created manga - any of his later works are full of genius.)
-Galaxy Express 999 by Leiji Matsumoto
(Encapsulated sci fi short stories - they're all either hit or miss. Some really hit me, though so I'm puting it up here.)
-Akira by Otomo Katsuhiro
(Alternative: Domu by Otomo Katsuhiro. Essentially a more concise, complete story that lead up to the creation of Akira. Akira in itself is just Katsuhiro's attempt at making his own Nausicaa, though.)
-Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima

These are all pretty hard to find now, most of them published/translated by VIz before the manga market really blew up here. Nausicaa had a recent reprint and Lone Wolf and Cub should be easy to find though.

PERSONAL FAVORITE MANGAS (bizarre sense of humor):

-Dr. Slump by Akira Toriyama
(Made before Dragonball, this is pure and classic Toriyama comedy. I grew up reading this... I miss this Toriyama. I don't think this has been published anywhere in English ever. Yet.)
-Short Cuts by Usamaru Furuya
(I think this was a limited print by Viz. Usamaru is masterful at reversal humor.)
-Cromartie High School by Eiji Nonaka
(I just read that one recently. His dated looking art style juxtaposed with his bizarre physical and anti-stereotype humor made me laugh a lot. Go buy it!)
-Azumanga Daioh by Kiyohiko Azuma
(Also try Yotsubato by Kiyohiko Azuma. Yotsubato has been licensced but hasn't been published in America yet. And I feel like such a poser mentioning Azumanga now that it's so popular everywhere now.. ahhh...)
-Level E by Yoshihiro Togashi
(Creator of Hunter x Hunter and other famous shounen series. He's also married to Naoko Takeuchi, creator of Sailor Moon! Jeez, what a pimp. But yeah, this is his best comedy work that I've run into. Togashi likes to pull shit out of his ass in typical shounen style and I think he uses it rather humorously up to halfway thorugh the series. Oh, also it hasn't been released in America; there are a few fan translations out there though. Search!)
-Comic Party (official manga adaptation) by Sekihiro Inui
(It's not that great but I really like Inui's random violence and punk rock. It's just so damn funny in the context of an otherwise plain dating sim story! Oh, I also have a weak spot of Comic Party in general so... yeah.)
-Maniac Road by Shinsuke Kurahashi
(Not that funny.. but something about the way it's written and made.. it's just damn honest. Even though he's just using cliches, there's something so motivating and just straight out honest about it that it's just.. really enjoyable. I mean, the mangaka's enthusiasm about his subject matter is just... addictive. I can't describe it.. it has some sort of subtle charm to it. Not really worth buying though.)

ACTION/SHOUNEN-ISH MANGA THAT'S PRETTY DAMN GOOD:

-DEATHNOTE by Ooba Tsugami and Obata Takashi
(Damn good. DAMN GOOD. Just read it now. Currently being translated by:
http://www.wethefans.tk/ Just go read it already!)
-BLAME by Tsutomu Nihei
(Awesome style. Has an incredible world of his own - unfortunately he can't create anything good outside of it though. His wordless storytelling and sense of scale is amazing - he's an amazing concept maker.)
-Freesia by Jiro Matsumoto
(Cool, although lazy, art style. Story is interesting as hell too.)
-MPD Psycho by Eiji Otsuka and Sho-u Tajima
(Cool rotoscoped style and awesome ideas. Trivia: Sho-u Tajima also did the character designs for the anime segments of Kill Bill vol. 1. He's becoming very popular!)
-GTO by Tohru Fujisawa
(It's friggin GTO! Go read/buy it already!)
-Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi
(Rumiko is a master of pacing physical comedy. In fact, all her works are great* - they just might be slightly more shoujo for most people's taste though. Well, not really, her work is great universally. *- exception for Inuyasha. I think that's just her recent shounen cash cow. It bothers me.)
-One Piece by Eiichiro Oda
(I mean, hell, it's One Piece. Oda is extremely creative and he's got a knack for keeping long story arcs interesting. I mean, this man's anime* took Dragonball's time slot for the last decade now!)
*NOTE: 99.9% of animes made from manga suck. Exceptions are any CLAMP anime because all CLAMP stories are so superficial that the developers of their anime, Madhouse, have to actually put thought into the stories and thus make it better than their source material. JOLLY GOOD.

And here's a list of other shounen titles that I don't want to be bothered trying to remember the mangaka's name for because I'm shit-tired:
-Hellsing (mangaka has one hell of a sense of humor. I also like his taste - his art could use more work though)
-Trigun (awesome style, interesting characters)
-Naruto (good artist, no good as a storyteller. His brother is much worse, though..)

NICHE (probably never will be published in America) FAVORITES:

-Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko by Ashinano Hitoshi
(Soothing.)
-Sexy Voice and Robo by Iou Kuroda
(Stylish and awesome literary style story telling)
-National Quiz by Reiichi Sugimoto and Shinkichi Katoh
(Eccentric!)
-Love Roma by Toyoda Minoru
(Clever!)

And I'm not including any shoujo titles in this list because, although there's a million geniuses in that genre as well, I'm just not that knowledgable about it. I have a friend who's particuarly informative about shoujo but he's been drafted by the Korean army now so eh...

IN OTHER WORDS:

Sell your soul and read manga. There's a lot of damn good ones out there if you try to find it.

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

My wife tried to get me to buy the first volume of Prince of Tennis for her over the weekend. Instead I got both volumes of FLCL, the latest One Piece, and the first volume of what I found out was the second series of King of Bandits Jing.

Maybe it's because I missed some vital intro information in Jing, but I didn't much care for it.

Now that several of you guys have mentioned Hikaru no Go, I might pick it up-- it's just such a peculiar subject, I can't resist!

Prince of Tennis, though... I just don't know.

seryogin · Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:37 am Post subject:

Well

This turned out a lot better than I had hoped. I have quite a few things to read now.

I must ask, "What do you think of Rurouni Kenshin!" It's the only manga that I've ever read that would force me, at the end of my second year English class, to hand its first volume to my professor with the words: "I found this a lot more enjoyable than Tender is the Night." I gave him a few seconds to absorb the cover, adding. "A lot more meaningful and inspiring too." He was visibly shaken at this point. He never emailed me after that. Even though he assured me that he would. Normally, I wouldn't expect an email from a professor, but we had excahainged a few emails earlier. This professor was impressed by my interpretation of Master and Margarita and my knowledge of Russian WWII literature, most of which nobody outside that Great Union of Freeborn Republics has never heard off.

It's not like I cared much about his opinion anyway. That day I was just done with Kenshin and I wanted to give it someone; I had gotten it free and my shelf space was running out of room. I was also angry about having to read Tender is the Night, which is a boring preppy journey through the upper-classes of the type a New Yorker-er would enjoy. I wanted revenge.

I knew that comparing a "comic book" to this piece of "great literature" would bruise his taste. Especially, since I was elevated in his eyes: my knowledge was vast, I came to class every day in a three piece tweed suit ( so as to stick out from the fucks always looked like they had just fallen out of bed) the knew answers that he wanted. So the class turned out to be pretty boring and my attempts to derail it and make it more interesting worked only half the time.

He didn't speak for about fifteen seconds as he held the first volume of Kenshin in his hands. He looked at the cover, then turned it around and read the back. It took him another fifteen seconds to tell me "that it looks interesting." I replied that "it's more than interesting. This is one of the brightest, most meaningful works of art that I had ever viewed." (that's only 1/10 of a lie) He nodded and said, "Really" The coversation went on like this for another five minutes.

No, I haven't forgiven him.

Karii · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 31 Location: Tampa, FL

I neglected to mention Erica Sakurazawa. She is a shoujo mangaka and her stories are generally self contained in 1 volume. (except The Aromatic Bitters, which seems to have 2 volumes or one hell of a cliffhanger ending). Some of her manga are Angel, Angel Nest, Nothing But Loving You, Between the Sheets, Rules of Love and more that I am too lazy to type. Check here
http://www.tokyopop.com/dbpage.php?propertycode=ERI&categorycode=BMG

Her art style is very loose and sketch-like. It almost seems like a dairy of actual events (which is probably the point!)

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I should also mention that I am reading Lament of the Lamb, which I can't wait to be done with. I think I will sell the full set on ebay when it is over. It started really well (and I am a sucker for Vampire stories) but after the second volume it seems to get about a one chapters worth of story advancement per volume...

Anyway Kenshin!

The only Anime (no, not Manga) that I watched more than once that was longer than one season long. If you ever intend to watch the anime I must warn you that the 3rd Story arc (the one after Shishio in the Manga) is not in the anime. So about 4 episodes after the Shishio arc it goes down hill... way down hill. Still one of the best series I have ever viewed.

ZartanLovesYou · . Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 4

Well, My manga collection is pretty small. I really dont like alot of stuff as I don't like scifi and samuri stuff. that really limits the selection down at my local borders. So, here is what i own.

Akira - all of it
Planetes - All of it
FLCL - all of it
Steam Detectives - 3 of it
the ring - all of it
the spiral - all
red prowling devil - a gift from a clueless friend

Planetes is probably my favorite manga and anime as well.

seryogin · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:40 pm Post subject:

I had a few hours to waste before my torture session with the dentist and decided to read up on my manga on the 66th street Barnes and Nobles.

That's kind of a lie. I actually arrived a few hours early INTENT on wasting them on manga reading.

So... I read volume 2 of Rurouni Kenshin. It started out well enough, I now know why Segihara Sanosuke has 悪 branded on his jacket. When Kenshin says "The revolution isn't over. The government may have changed, but until happiness is brought to every person the revolution is not over. It may take a year or eternity, but my battle will not end" I'll admit I was touched in ways that only a Stalinist can be. It seems I haven't lost my love for revolutionary rhetoric. The rest of the volume didn't do anything, Watsuki was obviously letting himself take a break.

The second volume of Blade of the Immortal has glued me even more to this series. I'm really starting to love it like I used to love Kenshin.

I then moved on to Cromartie High School. I was a bit skeptical at first, but damn, personz was correct. Cromartie is funny in a ridiculous- but-you-wish-it-was-all-true way. When one of the students punched a gorilla that also attends the school with the words: "Liar, you were only pretending not to study!" I dropped the manga out my hands and laughed like Iori in Capcom vs. SNK 2 for ten seconds.

Cromartie High School also gets my vote because I experienced an Insert Credit moment while reading it. The main character at one point says to a recently arrived student who made up a bullshit story to avoid trouble: "Please let us help you! For great justice!"

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

So how about horror? Other than the Ring, that is.

I hear that Gyo and Uzumaki by Ito Junji are pretty good, can anyone recommend them or anything else?

Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

if uzumaki is the one with the spiral obcession and the haunted town... then it is good.... in that 'whoa!' sort of way.

recently i've picked up a copy of 20th century boys volume 18....

any rocker that can take a bullet and yet keep on rockin' is a real rocker, indeed..
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DonMarco · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 349 Location: 33903

I've been keeping up with the Jump ones pretty well.

Ichigo 100% - Basically a harem manga, but not really. Writing anymore will spoil it.
Naruto - I read 3 out of every 7 chapters and still know what's going on and who's doing what.
Death Note - Great characters. Great character designs. .
and Bleach. - Your average shonen adventure, but one I enjoy reading.

It's good to point out that the Ichigo 100% anime will air in ... less than a week. If you are in to that kinda thing.

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

Yes, I quite like Bleach too. It has a lot of character that many similar works don't. Plus it's pretty obvious that the creator is a Jamie Hewlett fan to some degree.

I bought a few volumes of Blade of the Immortal on Saturday. Whoa, amazing stuff! I'm hooked.

Karii · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 31 Location: Tampa, FL

Persona-sama · Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject:

Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

Giampi · . Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 17

I will say the following:

Detective Conan
20th Century Boys
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Get Backers

That is all.

DonMarco · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 349 Location: 33903

Persona-sama · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:09 pm Post subject: Re: dirty old men laugh well

DonMarco · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 349 Location: 33903

Persona-sama · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:14 pm Post subject: Re: OMGF SPOILARZ!!1

Giampi · . Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 17

I stopped reading Yakitate! Japan at around the time when they showcased Pele getting erectile dysfunction.

This manga is about bread, by the way.

Persona-sama · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:08 pm Post subject:

You should've stopped the moment when the main character and his friend had to enter a bread tournament.

BREAD TOURNAMENT.
WHY?!

DonMarco · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 349 Location: 33903