Manga recomendations

[Neo Zx-Tole]

Trinity Blood: Even Though They Cut The Series Short its Still Very good.
Blue gender
Teknoman: It's an Oldie but Goodie
The Guyver Series: I recommend the New Version Since they Actually FINISH the Series instead of Leaving it hanging like the old version did.
Hellsing hands down probably my Favorite: i Recommend both the Old and Ultimate Series
Witchbladean overall good series, kinda borders on soft core porn tough. and well the endings bittersweet.
Vampire Hunter D: again Another Oldie but goodie
The Fist of the North Star A MUST SEE, and plz plz plz plz plz watch the older version the new one just butchers it all to hell.
Betterman; This ones a weird one but overall pretty decent.

a few of these might be hard to find, but hey you can always youtube them

 

[moretimethansense]

Elfen Lied
Full Metal Alchemist
Suzuka
Claymore
Eternal Sabbath
Parasyte
Black Cat
Saikano, I really can't recommend this one enough
And supposedly Monster is quite good but I haven't read it yet so I can't say for certain.

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

But now, the only good anime is cowboy bebop, and I'm assuming the manga is amazing.

The show came first. The comic is merely a licensed merchandise tie-in.

There's a lot of suggestions for comics targeted at young men, with a few suggestions for girls' comics tossed in, too.

I'll posit something else entirely. You may have heard of these comics, but most typical fanboys and fangirls overlook them entirely because they're too busy caught up with their Naruto or their fads of the month.


Cromartie High School [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SakigakeCromartieKoukou?from=Main.CromartieHighSchool], a deadpan absurdist comedy ostensibly about delinquents but quickly devolves into surprisingly understated insanity. The art style is deliberately old-school (manga from the 70's and early 80's) and it starts off parodying a genre of Japanese comics that most modern fans have neither interest in or knowledge of. But it's so funny you'll hurt yourself laughing.

Pantsman [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle0oz11ebp3lfe].

And finally...

Btw I strongly recommend any one who has not done so to go and look up akumetsu, which is sure to appeal to you if you loved death note

Death Note? I'll see your bet and raise you Kaiji [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiji_(manga)].

I don't think it's been licensed anywhere, but the recommendation stands. Another title with distinctive artwork that doesn't pander to fanboys, it's a gambling about tense psychological drama and an ordinary hero struggling to make a buck--and survive--against an inhumanly cruel gambling cartel whose main industry is to toy with human lives and watch, as they put it, the "scum of society struggle, languish, and fail." (Wherein their definition of "scum" means anybody poor, basically.) Despite appearing jarringly cartoonish in design, the story's more mature and frank than most of the other recommendations in the thread. It doesn't pull any punches and doesn't expect you to flinch when one of those punches hits you in the face. And when the protagonist manages to succeed or find some victory in the face of this adversity, you will cheer. And unlike most of the other comics mentioned, it's not targeted at a young teen demographic--it's marketed towards readers college-age and older (the "Seinen" demographic, which means comics for men). To put this in perspective, Death Note, despite being a high-tension suspense comic that dealing with dark themes, is actually marketed towards young teen boys. (Shounen demographic.)

Not to say that Kaiji isn't also popular with women, too. It doesn't hurt that the entire point of the series is to see the main character "lose tremendously, get back up in an inspiring and heart-winning manner...then lose even more tremendously." [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kaiji] It's the kind of emotional rollercoaster that can make grown men and women cry, and it's a better series for it.

Since it's not licensed in the states, chances are you'll have to dig around the internet for this one.

Or you could always try Monster [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(manga)]. This is one of the few "good vs. evil" stories where the good is just as interesting as the evil. The protagonist isn't a boring boy scout type, he's a man clinging to his convictions against a hell unleashed by an infinitely cruel embodiment of pure malice whose stated goal is to show the doctor just how terrible the world is. Johan Liebert is the kind of sick, twisted man who would take the savior of his life and try to break his soul just to prove his ideals wrong. And Kenzou Tenma is the kind of man who absolutely refuses to break.

And those're my picks.

They're definitely something different and more interesting than the usual kid stuff you see people recommending in this thread.

And supposedly Monster is quite good but I haven't read it yet so I can't say for certain.

It is.

 

[Caliostro]

Death Note
Hellsing (the manga...is so...beautiful...)
Cowboy Bebop
Gungrave
Neon Genesis Evangelion

For a more "western" but equally good graphical novel:
V for Vendetta
Watchmen

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I assume you mean comics as opposed to film? I haven't gone anywhere near manga for a long time now, however I can recommend these old cyberpunky/transhumanist classics:

Battle Angel Alita. Epic. Truly Epic. Cyberpunk mad max shit. Epic.
Appleseed I-IV. Gets a bit deep at times, Shirow does like to 'waffle' on about politics and the human condition.
Akira (obviously).
GITS (the 1st one, dunno about the others). Similar waffle content to appleseed, it's not a skip through braindead action fest.

 

[_Janny_]

BioMega is worth a shot.

Ditto. It's got Sci-Fi elements and a little detective part thrown it there. Art is pretty decent and unique.

Also try Deadman Wonderland if you like the idea of a bunch of guys fighting in a Colosseum- type place.

 

[ZantetsukenQ]

I recommend the following:

Berserk
Rurouni Kenshin
Deathnote
Great Teacher Onizuka
School Rumble

All of these series are great, although Kenshin and Berserk are the best of them for action, and Great Teacher Onizuka is an amazing comedy.

 

[LokiSeto]

Berserk (big action, very long, anime makes people want to kill things because it ends in the wrong place but still awesome)
Great teacher Onizuka (COMEDY! YAY! AWESOME!)
GTO: The Early Years (Before Onizuka was a Teacher)
Biomega (Detective, survival, horror and lovely)
Death Note (Everyone knows this)
Gantz (Long and horror and survival)
Saikano (Slice of Life sortof about a little girl who falls in love and then becomes an increasingly more powerful weapon)
Hellsing (gory butvery awesome)
Monster (Suspense and just like Dorian said)
Pluto (from the creator of Monster, still very awesome)

 

[Caimekaze]

*snip*

Manga, not Anime.

*snip again*

You are amazing. Also, nice choice with Cromartie.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Well, I enjoyed +Anima, it was slightly different, and read like a ye-olde-worlde-quest(e) sort of story.

Full Metal Alchemist as good.
Battle Royale was equally so.
Death Note is worth a read.

If you like martial arts serieses, and don't mind being one of a million people, try reading the DragonBall and DragonBall Z mangas, they're pretty good.

The Devil May Cry manga is quite interesting as well.

 

[sorry user name taken.]

depends on what you like really i actually like stuff that isn't so cute you would want to hack your eyes out with a ice pick..(can't name any else i'll get shouted at )..older manga is the best..

such as:
akira (read the manga before you see the movie because you just won't understand)
trigun
cowboy bebop
el hazard
golden boy
neon genesis
gun smith cats
lots n lots...

that none of you emo anime wannabe's would know (since death note came out)and the only good anime of hellsing is the OVA not the crappy tv series.

 

[Darkwolf9]

I used to read a lot of manga. Here's what I recommend:

Naruto- because it has goofy characters and the story has some really emotional points. I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of this orange track suit wearing ninja, but if you haven't read it for fear of being a Narutard you can take it from me who's been reading it since before anyone gave two shits about it; it's good for what it is.

Bleach- because it has a great dark setting with an interesting story. Again I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of this one. Kid gets turned into a reaper to protect his neighborhood from hollows(think demon like creatures).

Full Metal Alchemist- because it is probably one of the best manga out there as far as character development and writing goes. Plus it's different in a lot of ways from all of the other manga out there. Don't be fooled by the anime. Another one I'd be surpised if you hadn't heard of. It's about two brothers who work for the the alchemy sect of the military in Germany. They get caught up in an adventure trying to retrieve a stone that will restore their bodies back to normal.

Fairy Tale- I just started this one. It seems like it could be interesting. It has some trite thing about it, but at the same time it goes another way about it. It's about a world where magic is real. The story orients around a kid who is a fire mage who wants to find his dad (which is a dragon (he was adopted)) and girl who wants to become a powerful mage.

One Piece- I recommend it highly because of the humor and characters. The cast is different and the situations they get into are so ridiculously goofy its great. The action is also done quite well. It's about a rubber boy who wants to be king of the pirates. The catch is that there are fruits (called devilfruits) around the world like the one he ate that grant all sorts of crazy powers and abilities (ironically once they eat a devilfruit they can no longer float or swim). As the story progresses he slowly builds his crew and makes his way to the grand line.

Air gear- it has some really sweet roller blading and the characters are interesting. About a kid who gets caught up in roller bladeing. The roller blades are mechanical and they allow you to ride up buildings and do all sorts of other amazing crap.

Beet the vandal buster- It's a manga RPG it has a trite beginning, but its easy to get into because it shows how an RPG might work in real life. The only downside is that it has been on hiatus for a couple of years.

Eyesheild 21- This one has some amazing humor. The quarterback is so badass he makes Chuck Norris look like a punk. It's about a kid who gets forced (at gun point if i remember correctly) onto his high school football team because he can run very fast.

Tenjo Tenge- This has one of the darkest, most sexually driven, well drawn, and action oriented story lines I've read that I've read. That's not saying I haven't read others where they weren't better in one of the categories, but I've not read one that excels in all of them like this one. It's about a High school that is all about fighting. All of the groups battle it out once a year to see which group will be the enforcers. It focus on a boy and his friend who end up at this school after they had been kicked out of a whole of other schools for reasons of violence. They get there thinking they are gonna be the kings of the school, but it's not long before they find out that they are in fact at the bottom of the food chain in this new school

Battle Royal- This is a good read. I will say that you will see some sick stuff in this one. It's about a ninth grade class that gets abducted and put on an island where they must fight to death until there is but one survivor. The story is more about the emotional side of the kids. Some really get into the killing and some want nothing to do with it and are trying to escape. It's some crazy shit, but you'll get into it pretty quickly.

 

[Sir_Chumley_Warner]

You want to try some Cowboy Bebop (and the TV series)

Here's the plot summary from wikipedia

Spoiler

In the year 2021 AD, the first "Astral Gate" is built in orbit around the Moon; a hyperspace gateway meant to expedite space colonization by making travel between planets a matter of days instead of months or years. This gate, due to an internal defect, is destroyed in an incident that comes to be known as the "Gate Accident"; the gate exploded, and a massive blast of energy erupted from the gate and cracked the surface of the Moon, destroying a large part of it. Lunar debris immediately began to fall upon the Earth, devastating the planet's surface and killing 4.7 billion people. Fifty years later the human race numbers only 1.6 billion, but has colonized the entire Solar System through the use of perfected Gates.
While the Earth is still inhabited, its few remaining denizens must shelter themselves from the continuing rock falls in underground cities. With reconstruction rendered impossible by the rock falls, the human race instead terraformed other bodies of the Solar System including a variety of space habitats and industrialized asteroids. This solar community maintains a high level of racial and cultural diversity, and continues to use a large number of different languages, artwork and governments. However, its economy is predominantly Asian, using a nondivisible currency called the Woolong.
The population crash has led to a relative stagnation in technological development, though the Gates make space travel relatively easy. Directed energy weapons exist, but are large and dependent on heavy power sources. Gunpowder-based projectile weapons are the mainstay of combat, and many gun models from the beginning of the 20th century continue to be widely used.
As the Gates make it possible to cross the System in a matter of weeks, it became unfeasible for law enforcement to pursue criminals away from a given world. Criminal activity increased at every level of society; small-time criminals could act with relative impunity, and ruthless crime syndicates became as powerful as multinational corporations. In response, the bounty system of the Old West was reinstated throughout the System. Bounty hunters are encouraged to capture criminals and return them (alive and relatively unharmed) to the authorities for monetary rewards, in part through a regular television broadcast of "Big Shot", a bounty-hunter news program featuring Punch and Judy. This TV show is broadcast with a western motif and in the slang of the era, the term "Cowboys" refers to bounty hunters.
The crew of the spaceship Bebop are a partnership of "cowboys" (originally Spike & Jet) who travel the solar system trying to apprehend bounties. The Bebop is made up of a bridge, general living quarters, storage for food and supplies, and a small hangar to allow docking of smaller one-man space vessels. Jet owns the Bebop itself, but has partnered with Spike for his diverse combat skills; he is a master of Jeet Kune Do, marksmanship, and space fighter combat. Though he is reluctant to admit it, Jet has also come to rely on Spike for companionship in the normally solitary field of bounty hunting. The entire system is open to them via the Gates, but they regularly spend much of their time on Mars, the new hub of human civilization.
Most episodes revolve around attempts to bring in a specific bounty, but the show often shares its focus with the pasts of each of the main characters and of more general past events, which are revealed and brought together as the series progresses. Some of the Bebop's varied targets include small time thugs, gangsters, hackers (known as "Net Divers" in slang), religious leaders, psychopaths, genetic experiments, mutant creatures and petty thieves.

 

[sorry user name taken.]

You want to try some Cowboy Bebop (and the TV series)

Here's the plot summary from wikipedia

Spoiler

In the year 2021 AD, the first "Astral Gate" is built in orbit around the Moon; a hyperspace gateway meant to expedite space colonization by making travel between planets a matter of days instead of months or years. This gate, due to an internal defect, is destroyed in an incident that comes to be known as the "Gate Accident"; the gate exploded, and a massive blast of energy erupted from the gate and cracked the surface of the Moon, destroying a large part of it. Lunar debris immediately began to fall upon the Earth, devastating the planet's surface and killing 4.7 billion people. Fifty years later the human race numbers only 1.6 billion, but has colonized the entire Solar System through the use of perfected Gates.
While the Earth is still inhabited, its few remaining denizens must shelter themselves from the continuing rock falls in underground cities. With reconstruction rendered impossible by the rock falls, the human race instead terraformed other bodies of the Solar System including a variety of space habitats and industrialized asteroids. This solar community maintains a high level of racial and cultural diversity, and continues to use a large number of different languages, artwork and governments. However, its economy is predominantly Asian, using a nondivisible currency called the Woolong.
The population crash has led to a relative stagnation in technological development, though the Gates make space travel relatively easy. Directed energy weapons exist, but are large and dependent on heavy power sources. Gunpowder-based projectile weapons are the mainstay of combat, and many gun models from the beginning of the 20th century continue to be widely used.
As the Gates make it possible to cross the System in a matter of weeks, it became unfeasible for law enforcement to pursue criminals away from a given world. Criminal activity increased at every level of society; small-time criminals could act with relative impunity, and ruthless crime syndicates became as powerful as multinational corporations. In response, the bounty system of the Old West was reinstated throughout the System. Bounty hunters are encouraged to capture criminals and return them (alive and relatively unharmed) to the authorities for monetary rewards, in part through a regular television broadcast of "Big Shot", a bounty-hunter news program featuring Punch and Judy. This TV show is broadcast with a western motif and in the slang of the era, the term "Cowboys" refers to bounty hunters.
The crew of the spaceship Bebop are a partnership of "cowboys" (originally Spike & Jet) who travel the solar system trying to apprehend bounties. The Bebop is made up of a bridge, general living quarters, storage for food and supplies, and a small hangar to allow docking of smaller one-man space vessels. Jet owns the Bebop itself, but has partnered with Spike for his diverse combat skills; he is a master of Jeet Kune Do, marksmanship, and space fighter combat. Though he is reluctant to admit it, Jet has also come to rely on Spike for companionship in the normally solitary field of bounty hunting. The entire system is open to them via the Gates, but they regularly spend much of their time on Mars, the new hub of human civilization.
Most episodes revolve around attempts to bring in a specific bounty, but the show often shares its focus with the pasts of each of the main characters and of more general past events, which are revealed and brought together as the series progresses. Some of the Bebop's varied targets include small time thugs, gangsters, hackers (known as "Net Divers" in slang), religious leaders, psychopaths, genetic experiments, mutant creatures and petty thieves.

also the sound track is amazing!

 

[arcainia]

What, no Hetalia? sure, it's a webmanga, but it's still bloody awesome.
The best thing is, it's cool, AND it teaches you stuff. 8D
Might have a little too much of 'teh gay' in it though (not that I mind).

 

[KBKarma]

*snip*

Manga, not Anime.

I was going to say that a fair amount of people seem to be recommending anime instead of manga, or manga based on the strength of the anime when they've not seen the anime.

I'll second those. I never got into the One Piece manga, because it's HUGE. I liked what I saw, and started watching the anime instead. I dropped the Bleach anime in favour of the manga. The FMA manga has some good parts, and appears to be reaching a climax. And Fairy Tail is pretty decent as well.

also the sound track is amazing!

While we're at it, Stand-Alone Complex. Awesome soundtrack as well. Hell, anything by Yoko Kanno tends to be awesome.

On-topic, I'd also recommend Hellsing, but it gets REALLY bloody.

 

[[Gavo]]

]Fullmetal Alchemist. Very well done. Don't do Naruto.
Death Note is pretty good, too.

You would be surprised man. In the latest chapters of Naruto it became pretty obvious that the guy behind the whole story is a pretty awesome storyteller, and I mean AWESOME. It summed up the whole story of the thing and made a 180 degree turn to the whole thing. And the guy is not afraid of killing important characters for the sake of telling the tale of his hero, you gotta love it when they kill a character who you've seen for like 3 years. I get why you try to make the point with Naruto, but it actually applies more to series like Bleach or One Piece, which are constantly going nowhere, the same way Dragon ball used to be.
(However, unless I'm wrong, Dragon Ball was the first important one to do this so in my heart it will always kick ass)

Really? Well, in the beginning I thought it was like immortal protagonists. Still, I'm not going to pick up a series that gets good 35 volumes in.

 

[bmf185]

I don't really know anything about manga, but the Uzumaki series is an awesome horror comic.

 

[Llil]

Bakuman. It's a manga about drawing manga.

 

[TheTygerfire]

Elfen Lied

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG

The anime was god awful, and i suspect the manga wouldn't be much better.

it's a matter of taste i guess. i enjoyed watching it a lot more than other animes, plus the anime was cancelled halfway through the story and i promise, the real ending to Elfen Lied is epic.

First, Nelson: HA HA! You got cancelled

Second, I didn't watch the whole thing, I liked it up until I was convinced it was just made for the creator to jerk off to. A stance I still have to this day.