Suggest or discuss your last or beloved title you've read with others or even share your own. My last title was a manhwa "Tower of God", which is really full of bizarre events and soulful characters
Manga/Manhua/Manhwa/ranobe/novellas etc.
- Thread starter Self-Confident Jester
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Indeed, Miura's ability to startle a prospective reader has only grown with time. It is just as troubling to read as Berserk was, albeit for extremely different reasons.
Duranki is the ultimate proof that we're lucky Miura is too slow to finish Berserk before the heat death of the universe.
Better an unfinished masterpiece than a finished turd.
I have read exactly 2 mangas to completion in my life: Battle Royale and Homunculus. Both were good, albeit in very different ways.
I also read half of Berserk or so, but see the posts above as to why I didn't find much motivation to finish it.
I also read half of Berserk or so, but see the posts above as to why I didn't find much motivation to finish it.
Haven't really read much manga lately except re-runs of what's been scanlated for Gin no Saji. A buddy has recommended Gunka no Baltzar, so I'm going to give that a look over at some point. Can't think of that much off the top of my head since I went through a phase of not really watching anime/reading manga after emigrating, but a few of my favourite titles are Fullmetal Alchemist, Gunslinger Girl, and Oyomegatari.
Not a fan of manhua mostly because there isn't much decent stuff to choose from.
Same for manhwa, though that's more to do with not really liking the art style. Ragnarok, way back when, was pretty good (and a decidedly different character design archetype, very manga-ish) but it's been so long since the artist did anything to further the story after working on the game. Priest was good, too, but not something I'd want to read again, 'cos damn, it gets dark. Surprised it was only 16 volumes, always felt longer. Eh...
Not a fan of manhua mostly because there isn't much decent stuff to choose from.
Same for manhwa, though that's more to do with not really liking the art style. Ragnarok, way back when, was pretty good (and a decidedly different character design archetype, very manga-ish) but it's been so long since the artist did anything to further the story after working on the game. Priest was good, too, but not something I'd want to read again, 'cos damn, it gets dark. Surprised it was only 16 volumes, always felt longer. Eh...
Just finished Renai Bokun (Love Tyrant). It's pretty obvious it got the ax finally and has the whole rushed ending thing, it had two chapters to end it, which is always lame. I have to applaud going for the harem ending, since most just end in a way that leaves everyone a little sad.
I read both versions of the Battle Royale in high school. The manga was....interesting. I still prefer the novel version.
Yeah I read that the manga made quite a few changes, though the author of the novel was by and large supportive of these changes.
I had fun reading it, but I found the villain at the end fairly boring, which is when it started to drag on a bit for me.
First time I heard of BR, was in 2003. I was 14 at the time, and one of my older brother's college roomates had downloaded it on his laptop. We all watched the movie. Seeing that film at such a young age was a huge experience.
Manga that I've finished are very few. There was the DMC3 prequel manga (never officialy finished due to the author leaving), Shaman King (Manga version sucks cuz pf the ending), Change 123 (pretty good story about a teenage girl with multiple personalities), and Battle Royale. I've taken on and off interests in Battle Angel, and plan on getting the hard cover collections that are on sale. I've heard mixed reception on Last Order, and I know the next sequel is set on Mars.
Y'all should be reading Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon. It's a fantastic write up of a fantasy world, is a master-class in world building and character design, and has gorgeous artwork.
Can we count American comic adaptions of Japanese properties or Asian influenced shows made in America? If not, too bad, because I am putting my own.
Street Fighter: Ibuki Legends. Udon comics are known for doing the artwork for and story for a lot of Street Fighters adaptions starting around 2008. They usually do a pretty good job, but sometimes they have certain characters either act of character compared to the person's personality in the games, or make them bigger jerks than their neutral selves. I'll get to that. Ibuki Legneds is a 4 issue solo series starring, you guessed it, Ibuki from Street Fighter III. In fact, 3/4 of the female cast from III are in the comic, Ibuki herself, Makoto, and Elena. Ibuki's story is basically about a teenage girls struggle with school life, everyday life, and becoming a ninja. Even though she is good at it, she rather live a normal life. Every character from III that appears is represented well, and their depiction is mostly accurate. The only one is Makoto, which makes her a little more stand-offish and a arrogant martial arts girl than her game counterpart. The game version could be hot-blooded at times, but usually composed. The Sakura Legends issues suffered even worse with Karin in this regard. This does get fixed in the last two issues as Makoto and Ibuki are rivals just like in III. There is even a tie in to Ibuki's backstory to the first SF game. I'll give you a hint: The Geki Ninja from SFI has a clan. I won't spoil the rest. Overall, it's a great comic, and is my favorite of the Legends run.
Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance. This and North & South are the better comic sequel/gaiden stories in Avatar. The Rift was okay, but others are horri-fanfiction-bad. That goes for the Legend of Korra comics too. Imbalance is the 6th comic in the series, and goes back to the town where Earthen Fire industries is located. Basically, there's an issue of bender vs. non-benders going on. Due to technology increasing and more people looking for work, bender aren't needed as much, so they either being laid off or quit due to pride or feeling resentment. In turn, you have actual benders threatening or harassing non-benders due to that resentment or feeling they're superior to those lesser than them. For those that are lost, a bender is a person that can control one element, while the Avatar can control all four. The elements of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. It's up to the Gaang: Aang (Avatar and Last of his kind), Katara (expert water bender), Toph (blind master earth bender), and Sokka (regular guy, but knows how to statergize and kick ass too). What I love about Imbalance is that even though it's a comic, the story feels like a proper episode that could have aired on TV. Everyone acts how they are, the character interactions, are on point, and story is better because of those elements. The theme of bender/non-bender prejudice is explored better here than the first season of Legend of Korra. Much much better. With no crappy or forced bad fan fiction "romance" to interrupt the flow of the story or turn the characters in to complete dumbasses. Like some of the other comics, it shows that stopping Ozai, did not solve all the problems in Avatar's world. There are morally-grey complexed problems in the world too. If you're a fan of the original show or the sequel series, I highly reccomend this comic. I find it the best of the Avatar comics.
Street Fighter vs Darkstalker - One of the most awesome crossovers ever made. I can't say anymore than that. There are a surprising amount of heartwarming moments. Especially from Elena, who is practically the main character of this crossover event. If you're fan of either, read this now! Even if you're not a fan of either franchise, you can get through the story just fine.
Street Fighter: Ibuki Legends. Udon comics are known for doing the artwork for and story for a lot of Street Fighters adaptions starting around 2008. They usually do a pretty good job, but sometimes they have certain characters either act of character compared to the person's personality in the games, or make them bigger jerks than their neutral selves. I'll get to that. Ibuki Legneds is a 4 issue solo series starring, you guessed it, Ibuki from Street Fighter III. In fact, 3/4 of the female cast from III are in the comic, Ibuki herself, Makoto, and Elena. Ibuki's story is basically about a teenage girls struggle with school life, everyday life, and becoming a ninja. Even though she is good at it, she rather live a normal life. Every character from III that appears is represented well, and their depiction is mostly accurate. The only one is Makoto, which makes her a little more stand-offish and a arrogant martial arts girl than her game counterpart. The game version could be hot-blooded at times, but usually composed. The Sakura Legends issues suffered even worse with Karin in this regard. This does get fixed in the last two issues as Makoto and Ibuki are rivals just like in III. There is even a tie in to Ibuki's backstory to the first SF game. I'll give you a hint: The Geki Ninja from SFI has a clan. I won't spoil the rest. Overall, it's a great comic, and is my favorite of the Legends run.
Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance. This and North & South are the better comic sequel/gaiden stories in Avatar. The Rift was okay, but others are horri-fanfiction-bad. That goes for the Legend of Korra comics too. Imbalance is the 6th comic in the series, and goes back to the town where Earthen Fire industries is located. Basically, there's an issue of bender vs. non-benders going on. Due to technology increasing and more people looking for work, bender aren't needed as much, so they either being laid off or quit due to pride or feeling resentment. In turn, you have actual benders threatening or harassing non-benders due to that resentment or feeling they're superior to those lesser than them. For those that are lost, a bender is a person that can control one element, while the Avatar can control all four. The elements of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. It's up to the Gaang: Aang (Avatar and Last of his kind), Katara (expert water bender), Toph (blind master earth bender), and Sokka (regular guy, but knows how to statergize and kick ass too). What I love about Imbalance is that even though it's a comic, the story feels like a proper episode that could have aired on TV. Everyone acts how they are, the character interactions, are on point, and story is better because of those elements. The theme of bender/non-bender prejudice is explored better here than the first season of Legend of Korra. Much much better. With no crappy or forced bad fan fiction "romance" to interrupt the flow of the story or turn the characters in to complete dumbasses. Like some of the other comics, it shows that stopping Ozai, did not solve all the problems in Avatar's world. There are morally-grey complexed problems in the world too. If you're a fan of the original show or the sequel series, I highly reccomend this comic. I find it the best of the Avatar comics.
Street Fighter vs Darkstalker - One of the most awesome crossovers ever made. I can't say anymore than that. There are a surprising amount of heartwarming moments. Especially from Elena, who is practically the main character of this crossover event. If you're fan of either, read this now! Even if you're not a fan of either franchise, you can get through the story just fine.
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I read way too much of this stuff, so lets throw in the stuff I've been reading recently.
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Kengan Omega is the sequel to the already fantastic series Kengan Ashura. It takes place 2 years after the conclusion of the original story and features the protagonist on the cover above. The difference between the plot in this to the original is that the protagonist isn't as skilled as the one from the original work and thus he has to train himself to even be able to get on his level.
The training arc is also very interesting, since it's almost completely opposite from KA opening arc which just features fighting straight from the start. It's more slice of life than what I and most people expected, but it's also extremely fun since it also explores more into the previous tournament characters, who already had such an amazing personalities from the start.
Asper Girl is a psychological drama featuring two characters that are on autism spectrum. Now already that sounds like a pretty fucking dangerous area to explore, since it could go into an extremely childish and immature depiction of autism. But thankfully enough, that's not what Asper Girl is about. It's all about the weird relationship between the two above characters and seeing how that is explored. The titular girl in the title is the one that's further on the spectrum and she just walks into the life of the male protagonist and he's trying to figure out how to help her.
This is probably one of the better works I've read in the last 2 years now and I highly recommend you guys should check it out.
Act-Age is one of my favourite new Shonen Jump mangas that has come out in the recent years, since it feature a theme that I don't see explored that much: Acting.
The protagonist on the poster is a high school girl who makes pretty big waves in the film industry, as she's a very talented method actor. The story delves into many facets of what an actor has to go through for a variety of different industries. Initially the main character dives into being an extra for a feature length film, then she does theater, suddenly she's the main face for a music video before she dives into an acting showdown for a theater show between two different acting groups to see which one the audience likes more.
It's definitely very interesting for me, since I studied film and tv production for the last three years and I had to interact with many actors on different scales and skill level.
Kengan Omega is the sequel to the already fantastic series Kengan Ashura. It takes place 2 years after the conclusion of the original story and features the protagonist on the cover above. The difference between the plot in this to the original is that the protagonist isn't as skilled as the one from the original work and thus he has to train himself to even be able to get on his level.
The training arc is also very interesting, since it's almost completely opposite from KA opening arc which just features fighting straight from the start. It's more slice of life than what I and most people expected, but it's also extremely fun since it also explores more into the previous tournament characters, who already had such an amazing personalities from the start.
Asper Girl is a psychological drama featuring two characters that are on autism spectrum. Now already that sounds like a pretty fucking dangerous area to explore, since it could go into an extremely childish and immature depiction of autism. But thankfully enough, that's not what Asper Girl is about. It's all about the weird relationship between the two above characters and seeing how that is explored. The titular girl in the title is the one that's further on the spectrum and she just walks into the life of the male protagonist and he's trying to figure out how to help her.
This is probably one of the better works I've read in the last 2 years now and I highly recommend you guys should check it out.
Act-Age is one of my favourite new Shonen Jump mangas that has come out in the recent years, since it feature a theme that I don't see explored that much: Acting.
The protagonist on the poster is a high school girl who makes pretty big waves in the film industry, as she's a very talented method actor. The story delves into many facets of what an actor has to go through for a variety of different industries. Initially the main character dives into being an extra for a feature length film, then she does theater, suddenly she's the main face for a music video before she dives into an acting showdown for a theater show between two different acting groups to see which one the audience likes more.
It's definitely very interesting for me, since I studied film and tv production for the last three years and I had to interact with many actors on different scales and skill level.
Part 2 of the stuff I've been reading recently.
Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is one of those dime a dozen mangas that you often see that's about a main character that goes to high school, meets a bunch of quirky people, makes a few friends and participates in a school tournament or a two. And yeah sure, occasionally there might be something that slightly spices it up by including magic or supernatural creatures with it but the formula tends to stay the same.
I'm not going to state that Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is any different from the rest, but I still very much enjoy the idea of taking that formula and just going "Nah, lets just take the main character and throw him into hell, where he has to attend a demon high school that has its own rules and cultural ideas that still may be kinda similar to the traditional high school."
This is another tournament fight sort of manga that I've been reading recently. The twist this time is that it's about mythical gods vs selected members of humanity. This isn't really something you would call "high-art" or any art wankery like that. It's just a good ol' fighting manga with some good choreography and some interesting art takes on the already familiar historical figures and gods you've already seen before.
The thing that's mostly keeping this hype is that the author decided to make a bold move by announcing at the beginning who the competitor for both sides were going to be. So at the moment, people are going crazy hype for the potential fights that might happen in the future. The thing that is still keeping this on the down low is that this a monthly release and at the time of writing this, we've only had four fights thus far with the beginning of the fifth fight happening this month.
Also
>four fucking japanese historical fighters
Japanese bias is reeeeeeal.
RPG... Yes, this is the actual title, is a manwha about people playing an VRMMORPG, but the difference this time is that it heavily focuses more on the character relationships with each other since that's the actual focus of this story. The usual take of this story would be that characters are playing this "full dive MMO where everything is super realistic and it's the coolest thing ever"... except that in the story, this is already a pretty old and familiar technology and the game that the main characters are playing isn't even the most popular game on the market.
Infact, the game they're playing is actually one of those old and forgotten mmos from Korea that you occasionally hear about and there's nobody in your friends group that has even touched it. The characters know this, but the reason why they're still playing is because of all the social relationships they made through the game and story touches quite often on that.
The story is also getting into some very interesting stuff now, as there is the prospect that the server they've played all this time on might get shut downed and everybody is freaking out since there are some people on the server that might be okay with it and some that even want it to happen.
Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is one of those dime a dozen mangas that you often see that's about a main character that goes to high school, meets a bunch of quirky people, makes a few friends and participates in a school tournament or a two. And yeah sure, occasionally there might be something that slightly spices it up by including magic or supernatural creatures with it but the formula tends to stay the same.
I'm not going to state that Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is any different from the rest, but I still very much enjoy the idea of taking that formula and just going "Nah, lets just take the main character and throw him into hell, where he has to attend a demon high school that has its own rules and cultural ideas that still may be kinda similar to the traditional high school."
This is another tournament fight sort of manga that I've been reading recently. The twist this time is that it's about mythical gods vs selected members of humanity. This isn't really something you would call "high-art" or any art wankery like that. It's just a good ol' fighting manga with some good choreography and some interesting art takes on the already familiar historical figures and gods you've already seen before.
The thing that's mostly keeping this hype is that the author decided to make a bold move by announcing at the beginning who the competitor for both sides were going to be. So at the moment, people are going crazy hype for the potential fights that might happen in the future. The thing that is still keeping this on the down low is that this a monthly release and at the time of writing this, we've only had four fights thus far with the beginning of the fifth fight happening this month.
Also
>four fucking japanese historical fighters
Japanese bias is reeeeeeal.
RPG... Yes, this is the actual title, is a manwha about people playing an VRMMORPG, but the difference this time is that it heavily focuses more on the character relationships with each other since that's the actual focus of this story. The usual take of this story would be that characters are playing this "full dive MMO where everything is super realistic and it's the coolest thing ever"... except that in the story, this is already a pretty old and familiar technology and the game that the main characters are playing isn't even the most popular game on the market.
Infact, the game they're playing is actually one of those old and forgotten mmos from Korea that you occasionally hear about and there's nobody in your friends group that has even touched it. The characters know this, but the reason why they're still playing is because of all the social relationships they made through the game and story touches quite often on that.
The story is also getting into some very interesting stuff now, as there is the prospect that the server they've played all this time on might get shut downed and everybody is freaking out since there are some people on the server that might be okay with it and some that even want it to happen.
Just finished reading Black Torch. It was the breakout work of its creator and while not particularly original during the fight scenes (borrows heavily from things like Naruto) it has a very fun premise of a ninja dude who talks to animals and is posessed by this cool demon cat. Great story for animal lovers. The art style is gorgeous too, char designs are a lot of fun and cool. It is a pretty short series at only 5 vols and it feels like it has a lot of open ended story bits which I hope they explore in a sequel sometime.