It's hard enough to make people hard. That's for sure. Also, watch the anime too, pretty good.
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Manga is way more diverse and varied than I had imagined
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It's hard enough to make people hard. That's for sure. Also, watch the anime too, pretty good.
Spread the love brother.
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Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
What, no KINGDOM recommendation?
Are you kidding me?
KINGDOM is most probably simply unmatched in its sense of scale and epicness. I literally experienced numerous goosebumps while reading through it.
Are you kidding me?
KINGDOM is most probably simply unmatched in its sense of scale and epicness. I literally experienced numerous goosebumps while reading through it.
I picked up Solanin at the bookstore on a whim a few months ago, and it was amazing.
With manga I always get the feeling that there's so much out there I don't even know where to start looking.
jetpacks was yes
Member
Really loved A Drifting Life.
There is a ton of worldbuilding. The story runs about 1000 pages. It's a single story arc.
Here's the setting via Wikipedia: The story is set in the future at the closing of the ceramic era, 1,000 years after the Seven Days of Fire, a cataclysmic global war, in which industrial civilization self-destructed. Although humanity survived, the land surface of the Earth is still heavily polluted and the seas have become poisonous. Most of the world is covered by the Sea of Corruption, a bioengineered toxic forest of fungal life and plants which is steadily encroaching on the remaining open land. It is protected by large mutant insects, including the massive Ohmu. Humanity clings to survival in the polluted lands beyond the forest, periodically engaging in bouts of internecine fighting for the scarce resources that remain. The ability for space travel has been lost but the earth-bound remnants of humanity can still use gliders and powered aircraft for exploration, transportation and warfare. (Powered land vehicles are completely nonexistent, with humanity regressed to dependence on riding animals and beasts-of-burden.)
Like a lot of Miyazaki's work, it has a lot of environmentalist themes. It also deals with fatalistic nihilism (which makes sense given the state of the planet), and you can see a lot of philosophical influence coming from some of the eastern religions. It's a great series, and not something that is neverending either. The version I have was 4 volumes.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Ugh, I don't understand the love-fest so many people have with this. It's probably one of the worst offender of the a where a manga that is initially great gets padded by seemingly endless nonsense stuff just to lengthen its story.
"Friend is A", "no wait Friend is B!", "Nooo Friend is C!", "Surprise, Friend is A after all!", "What, do you think Friend is C? He is actually D!" repeat ad nauseum over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Even Monster was not that bad, which makes it infinitely better than 20th Century Boys.
Goodnight Punpun is very good. Careful tho, it might exhaust you emotionally as you read through it. It's such a tiring--in a good way!--experience reading it.
Also, Kingdom. The lead is prooobably your typical hot-headed guy but my God, the sheer awesomeness of the entire thing entirely eclipses it. And the manga features basically no fanservice at any kind whatsoever.
Monster
Goodnight Punpun
20th Century Boys
although an anime "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" is one of the best if not the best political sci-fi drama.
MHWilliams
Member
You are correct, I was thinking of her work on Arslan. Sad mistake to make, as I generally love all of Arakawa's stuff.
my name is ed
Banned
Asano takes photos and then inks over them. He could probably draw those backgrounds too. Manga artists typically have background artists or other assistants that usually go unaccredited.
If you wanna see what an American comic looks like with a background artist
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Yesss to Dorohedoro! I think a lot of people are turned away by the artstyle, but the setting and characters are so good. It's really funny as well.
What's there not to understand? 20th Century Boys is the Lost of manga. It's super popular, tells great slices of human stories through character flashbacks which are self-contained from the larger plot, while leading everyone on with breadcrumbs in the thriller story only to end up being make-it-up-as-we-go-along pulp shit.
SixMachine
Member
There are lot of good recommendations in here. A personal favorite of mine, even though the artstyle is extremely "grungy" is Dorohedoro. The cast is extremely likeable, even the "bad guys" who are basically a magic user mob are all pretty much easy to like, and the setting is extremely unique.
On a side note, when you think about it, it is amazing how large the manga industry is relative to comics in the West (though I can't speak about Europe, so I mostly have a US perspective). Like I never really thought about it much, but there are manga sales in the millions, while getting a few hundred thousand for a comic is great. Personally I have met more people who have read manga in the US than read a comic. I used to work in a comic shop, and honestly it is pretty niche. Most sales are through online and weekly pulls from regulars. This is not to diminish the significance of mainstream comics, everyone knows the popular characters and the characters are spreading to other mediums such as film and television like Wildfire. But I just think it is impressive how diverse and large the manga medium is relative to comics as a reference.
On a side note, when you think about it, it is amazing how large the manga industry is relative to comics in the West (though I can't speak about Europe, so I mostly have a US perspective). Like I never really thought about it much, but there are manga sales in the millions, while getting a few hundred thousand for a comic is great. Personally I have met more people who have read manga in the US than read a comic. I used to work in a comic shop, and honestly it is pretty niche. Most sales are through online and weekly pulls from regulars. This is not to diminish the significance of mainstream comics, everyone knows the popular characters and the characters are spreading to other mediums such as film and television like Wildfire. But I just think it is impressive how diverse and large the manga medium is relative to comics as a reference.
More_Badass
Member
My only hesitancy is that I read a few reviews that said that the art changed pretty dramatically from the beginning of the series to now
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As for recommendations in this thread:
Vagabond
Blame!
Biomega
Historie
Ressentiment
Dorohedoro
Dungeon Meshi (Don't know if this is the kind of tropes you care about, it's turning D&D tropes on their head/playing with them)
Kurosagi
Shamo
One Outs
Battle Angel Alita/Last Order
Strongest Legend Kurosawa
Kaiji
SixMachine
Member
I noticed that this seems to happen to a decent amount of manga as they run long enough. The artists change and modify their style as they go along. I know Araki who created Jojo's Bizarre Adventure modifies his artstyle, even within the same Part. If you read it sequentially, interestingly enough you don't really notice a drastic change. But if you were to compare early Jojo Part 7 to late Part 7, it is interesting in the differences. Also I advise Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The stories are basically divided into parts with a different main protagonist and adventure. I recommend going through them in order. It's extremely bizarre but so worth it. The 1st part is the most run of the mill but it is short and it kicks in the crazy part 2 and up.
Dark_castle
Junior Member
Read Kingdom.
There's been already way too many good recommendations covered that I'm at a loss of what I can mention (Glad you checked out Ito Junji's stuff already! ) so I'll mention the two series that have yet been covered, Trigun and Watamote;
Trigun is about the pacifist gunman Vash the Stampede wandering on a world where humans have been stranded on for close to two hundred years. With a lot of fantastic art, plenty of well drawn gun battles (Though I'll admit the action can get a bit hard to follow at times) striking poses throughout, great character humour and memorable character designs, it's a great adventure to follow and my personal favourite manga. Whilst the anime followed the first 3 volumes pretty closely, the rest of the 11 or so volumes were unfortunately not adapted. If you like Westerns with a bit of sci-fi/fantasy on the side and a decent conclusion, give it a read. Nightow's art is pretty rough in the beginning but it's a series where you can see him improve over the coming years.
On the other hand Watamote is a comedic series about a highschool girl with serious social anxiety. Our protagonist Tomoko will find herself in many awkward position, instead of blaming her own social ineptitude she falls back on society being the problem and acts like a bit of a scumbag in the process. The series though is a really good laugh and as you progress through it, you can see how slowly develop from being unable to hold a conversation to saying normal stuff here and there. This however brings the manga's downside as it takes about 60 chapters or so before it starts hitting it's stride, before then it's still a good read but after that point almost every chapter has gotten lot's of laughs from me and some genuinely sweet moments.
Also I'd recommend JoJo's Bizarre Adventure just for how iconic the art is. I'd link you some images but I don't want to spoil myself since I'm only on Part 4
) so I'll mention the two series that have yet been covered, Trigun and Watamote;
Trigun is about the pacifist gunman Vash the Stampede wandering on a world where humans have been stranded on for close to two hundred years. With a lot of fantastic art, plenty of well drawn gun battles (Though I'll admit the action can get a bit hard to follow at times) striking poses throughout, great character humour and memorable character designs, it's a great adventure to follow and my personal favourite manga. Whilst the anime followed the first 3 volumes pretty closely, the rest of the 11 or so volumes were unfortunately not adapted. If you like Westerns with a bit of sci-fi/fantasy on the side and a decent conclusion, give it a read. Nightow's art is pretty rough in the beginning but it's a series where you can see him improve over the coming years.
On the other hand Watamote is a comedic series about a highschool girl with serious social anxiety. Our protagonist Tomoko will find herself in many awkward position, instead of blaming her own social ineptitude she falls back on society being the problem and acts like a bit of a scumbag in the process. The series though is a really good laugh and as you progress through it, you can see how slowly develop from being unable to hold a conversation to saying normal stuff here and there. This however brings the manga's downside as it takes about 60 chapters or so before it starts hitting it's stride, before then it's still a good read but after that point almost every chapter has gotten lot's of laughs from me and some genuinely sweet moments.
Also I'd recommend JoJo's Bizarre Adventure just for how iconic the art is. I'd link you some images but I don't want to spoil myself since I'm only on Part 4
my name is ed
Banned
This is a really effective way to stifle creativity
Artists need to live to produce good art. Not that you can't produce good work anyway but still
It's more like the artist gets better at drawing, which makes sense (it's over many years worth of work). The art style change isn't like super jarring or anything, if that's what you're concerned about.
This is gorgeous. Just the other day I thought maybe I'd like to check out the GitS manga, and now I see this thread. Never tried any before. I'd rather just do digital, though. Are most available that way?
Kasane is easily the darkest manga I have ever read. And I've been collecting manga for 26 years.
Arakawa's Hyakushō kizoku and Silver Spoon are both excellent works as well, both based on her experience growing up as a farmer in Hokkaido.
Indeed. Ugly is a sin to one while being beautiful is a curse to another. OMG.
20th century boys' 2nd act is on par with Death note's 2nd act to me and both have the same problems that really drag them down. Pluto is amazing, although the commentary on the iraq war gets a little thick in the 2nd half.
More_Badass
Member
GITS manga is actually on sale on Comixology
Unfortunately I've found that a lot of cool mangas aren't available digitally. I wanted to read Berserk so badly that I caved and finally ordered a physical copy. To put that in perspective, I have only read digital comics for the last two years and never planned to ever buy hard copies.
But if you're into digital, there is still a sizable selection
Frozenprince
Banned
What's there not to understand? 20th Century Boys is the Lost of manga. It's super popular, tells great slices of human stories through character flashbacks which are self-contained from the larger plot, while leading everyone on with breadcrumbs in the thriller story only to end up being make-it-up-as-we-go-along pulp shit.
Most accurate reading of 20th century boys ever.
More_Badass
Member
Ironic, since I tend to feel the same way when misinformed people talk about indie games
But yeah, it was the same with comics. I thought it was mostly Marvel, DC, and superheroes, and then I dove a bit deeper through the GAF threads and realized comics are where all the awesome sci-fi and horror stories were hiding. Oh and Stray Bullets
Nooo get vagabond insteadMy only hesitancy is that I read a few reviews that said that the art changed pretty dramatically from the beginning of the series to now
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As for recommendations in this thread:
Cool, thanks.
Shinichi Sakamoto never gets brought up in these threads. Damn shame. Here's some art from Innocent / Innocent Rouge.
Theatrical play reinterpretation of later 18th century France that is gorgeous, grandiose, and grotesque. Not licensed in English though, unfortunately.
Theatrical play reinterpretation of later 18th century France that is gorgeous, grandiose, and grotesque. Not licensed in English though, unfortunately.
I guess I'll take this thread as an excuse to dump images from my favorite artists
Takehiko Inoue
Hitoshi Ashinano
Taiyou Matsumoto
Inio Asano
Daisuke Igarashi
Kaoru Mori
Shinichi Sakamoto
Sumomo Yumeka
Natsume Ono
Kenji Tsuruta
Douman Seiman
Mitsuru Adachi (even though he uses the same character designs in everything he draws)
Takehiko Inoue
Hitoshi Ashinano
Taiyou Matsumoto
Inio Asano
Daisuke Igarashi
Kaoru Mori
Shinichi Sakamoto
Sumomo Yumeka
Natsume Ono
Kenji Tsuruta
Douman Seiman
Mitsuru Adachi (even though he uses the same character designs in everything he draws)
Been reading Innocent and its so beautiful and cool.
GamingPheasant
Banned
Welcome to Universes of Obsessions. Enjoy.
More_Badass
Member
Was thinking of going volume by volume due to not being sure if I like it, but the box set is definitely quite cheaper than getting them individually
Tell me about it. I read One Punch Man volume 1 and then I bought all current volumes immediately after. And Blame Deluxe Editions 1 and 2
aw man. You made me look up the author to check if he has made anything substantial since bokurano, but he has only a few volumes here and there. Now I feel bad. I hope you're happy.
DriftingSpirit
Member
Vagabond and Hunter x Hunter.
All I see is "Hiatus and Hiatus x Hiatus"
Personally, I wouldn't recommend an e-reader. I used to read on a kindle paperwhite, but the page sizes make it really slow.
I just read on my 7" tablet now.
The apps I are just the kindle app, google books and bookwalker.
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