I'M GONNA RECOMMEND RANDOM STUFF CAUSE I'M BAD AT RECOMMENDATIONS OKAY LET'S GO
Yuureitou - A psychological thriller/horror/mystery manga that deals with...I'm gonna spoiler this because it's a pretty big reveal but is also a pretty big reason to read it in the first place so buyer beware...
issues and amazingly it handles it exceedingly well. The general plot is that in the 1950s a woman was murdered after being tied to the face of a clock tower by her adopted daughter and now a couple years later the MC Taichi is about to be murdered in the same way by a mysterious assailant but is saved by a young man named Tetsuo. Tetsuo is searching for a treasure in the tower and the two of them go on to try and solve the mystery of the tower and what is really going on. Very good art and very good writing.
NEXT ONE
Jitsu wa Watashi wa - This is the rom com manga that all other rom coms need to take lessons from. There is almost no better rom-com/gag manga than this one. Basically the MC Kuromine Asahi discovers the secret of his classmate and crush Shirigami Youko; turns out she's a vampire! But Kuromine is a man who is totally balls at lying and Youko is an airhead who constantly almost reveals herself. How will this whacky set-up work out?!?!!
Ignore that simple premise and just realize that this is one of the funniest manga that has ever existed. And in much the same way as Gintama, it is excessively good at getting you to emotionally invest in the characters by laughing along with them and their silly hijinks and then when shit gets real it gets realer than fucking real. This manga has made me cry. I'm man enough to admit that. Like...all the time. I cry easy.
Definitely worth a read and it's also ending in like a week or two so good time to come in!
ON TO THE NEXT
6000 - A horror manga about a deep sea facility 6000 meters below the surface of the ocean. Closed years ago after an accident that killed all it's workers, it has recently been acquired by a Japanese company that is being bought out by a Chinese company who reopens it. Kadokura Kengo is sent there along with the workers and shortly thereafter his colleague is injured. More and more off stuff begins to happen and dread begins to build as a lot of things don't seem to be just coincidence.
A short manga, self-contained and tells it's story. Very VERY good at creating an uncomfortable and spoopy atmosphere and utilizes it well. Might fall off a bit when you learn some stuff but I didn't mind it at all.
WHOOP WHOOP WHAT ELSE
Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro - By the guy who did AssClass, his previous work. A demon from Hell who eats mysteries has gotten bored and tired of being unfulfilled in Hell and comes to Earth to feast on the great mysteries we have here. He is attracted to a girl, Katsuragi Yako, whose father was recently killed and solves the mystery of his death along with Yako. He decides to use Yako to find mysteries on Earth so sets her up as his face in the world and makes her famous as a teen detective so that he can find all the delicious mysteries he wants.
Quite a funny manga but since it's basically Case Closed but with a demon all the cases that they solve are basically murders so it deals with adult themes. There is an underlying plot line that does continue throughout the manga and end in a pretty satisfying way; the mangaka has a really good habit of not letting a manga outstay it's welcome. He ended both Neuro and AssClass when they felt like they should end instead of having them go on forever. Don't read if you want to figure out the mystery yourself as Neuro uses demon tools and shit to figure stuff out; it's not about the mystery being solvable by you it's about watching him figure it out and be amused and entertained.
LET'S DO ONE MORE GOD I WISH THERE WAS AN EASIER WAY FOR ME TO GUSH AT PEOPLE ABOUT MANGA INSTEAD OF TYPING FOR LIKE 30 MINUTES
Sket Dance - A high school slice of life by the assistant of the mangaka for Gintama so it has a very similar feel to it. The adventures of the Sket Dan which is basically a volunteer club that goes out to help people who come to them with their issues. Lead by Bossun, a lovable goofball who has tremendous powers of concentration and deductive reasoning, Himeko the ex-queen of delinquents and Switch a brilliant otaku who speaks only through a voice program on his laptop. Much like Gintama it is primarily a gag manga but knows how to do emotional stories very well.
This mangaka is a rarity; he is someone who handles a lot of topics that manga aimed at teenagers never touch and he handles them with incredible respect and deft writing. I won't say what they are as most of them are reveals to very important plotlines, but suffice to say that the final arc of the manga was amazing and made me incredibly emotional. Hell, the big arc that happens in the middle with a huge reveal is...pretty incredible too.
It is finished and thus easier to read as it has a succinct stopping point. It follows them through their high school years so it obviously ends when they graduate. Very good series.
I tried to recommend some stuff that I don't normally see talked about or talk about a lot, things that other people might not suggest to you.
God it takes me so much time to research and do recommendations it's no wonder I don't do them. It'd be easier for me to just record myself talking about shit because it's so much easier for me to ramble about shit I love for 30 minutes and contain so much more information than if I wrote for 30 minutes. BLAH
