Manga recommendations?

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Cheery

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Jun 22, 2009
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#1
I've recently begun reading Manga, starting with Fullmetal Alchemist, but I'm nearing the end of it and I'd like to find a new series to read. So my question is: Do any of you read Manga and do you have any recommendations for me, regarding good storylines? Cause there's a lot of stuff out there and a lot of it is "meh" at best and I kind of want to make sure I have something good before I buy a book for 13 bucks.

What I can say is that I prefer short (or shorter) storylines which have an actual ending. Or an ending in the forseeable future. I'm not a big fan of stuff like One Piece where the story just never ends and the books fill like 3 shelves if you want to read the whole thing. XD

As for subject matter, I don't care as long as it's good. :laugh:
 

Quatermass

Sergeant-at-Arms
Dec 7, 2010
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#2
Cheery said:
I've recently begun reading Manga, starting with Fullmetal Alchemist, but I'm nearing the end of it and I'd like to find a new series to read. So my question is: Do any of you read Manga and do you have any recommendations for me, regarding good storylines? Cause there's a lot of stuff out there and a lot of it is "meh" at best and I kind of want to make sure I have something good before I buy a book for 13 bucks.

What I can say is that I prefer short (or shorter) storylines which have an actual ending. Or an ending in the forseeable future. I'm not a big fan of stuff like One Piece where the story just never ends and the books fill like 3 shelves if you want to read the whole thing. XD

As for subject matter, I don't care as long as it's good. :laugh:
Fullmetal Alchemist is certainly one of the better shounen (action-adventure targeted mostly at teenaged boys) out there. Most of the famous manga over here, like Naruto, Dragonball Z, and One Piece, are shounen. I can certainly recommend quite a few...

*Monster by Naoki Urasawa. A very adult and surprisingly realistic, especially by manga standards, story. It's basically Silence of the Lambs meets The Fugitive. In Germany, a Japanese expat, Dr Tenma, is a brilliant neurosurgeon, who nonetheless is getting frustrated that he is being used to operate on bigwigs by the higher-ups in the hospital he works in. He makes a snap decision to save the life of a seemingly ordinary boy, Johan Liebert, who suffered a gunshot wound, only to be ostracised by many of his peers and his career deliberately hampered. In frustration, he vents to the seemingly comatose Johan. However, Johan was actually conscious, and soon afterwards, those who hampered Tenma die. Years later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tenma, after saving a criminal terrified of a mysterious killer, encounters Johan again. Only to find that Johan is actually a cold-hearted, manipulative serial killer. That's pretty much spoiled the first volume of the series, but there are 18 volumes. It's certainly the best manga I've ever read, and it's certainly one of the few that would translate to a live-action thriller with ease.

*Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. A famous supernatural thriller, there is a reason for the hype. A shinigami or reaper known as Ryuk, in a fit of boredom, drops his spare Death Note into the human world. A Death Note is a notebook that, when a person's name is written in it, they die within 30 seconds of a heart attack, used by shinigami to extend their lifespans. The Death Note is found by Light Yagami, a brilliant teenager who is nonetheless disgusted with the world as he sees it. Hesitantly at first, he begins writing the names of the criminals of the world, eventually deciding that he would become the god of the new world, working from the shadows to wipe out evil. The deaths of so many criminals due to heart attacks is soon noticed by the world, with the press nicknaming the mysterious murderer 'Kira' (or Killer), and some people already worshipping him. However, the police have taken note, as has the enigmatic detective known only as L, and Light shows that he is willing to kill anyone standing in his way, police or government officials...

*Yu-Gi-Oh! by Kazuki Takahashi. You might think this an odd choice, given the cheesiness of the TV series (something that the Abridged Series has mocked mercilessly), but the original manga was actually quite dark, and didn't focus on the fate of the world being dependant on children's card games. Yugi Motou, a timid boy who prefers playing games to sports, is bullied, but on the day he completes the Millennium Puzzle, he unleashes a dark alter-ego who ensnares the wicked in dangerous Shadow Games with lethal or damaging consequences. The first seven volumes weren't adapted as part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime that we know, though it was adapted as another anime series that wasn't officially dubbed (nicknamed Yu-Gi-Oh! Season Zero by fans), and some elements were adapted for that series. After the seventh volume, the familiar Duel Monsters storyline starts, but darker than you'd think.

*Neon Genesis Evangelion by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. The manga adaptation, which only recently completed, is a far superior beast to the anime TV series, and even has a more heartwarming, if bittersweet, ending. If you don't know Evangelion, then here's the drill: in the year 2000, a massive disaster known as Second Impact caused the destruction of half the human population, as well as the annihilation of Antarctica. The official story was that a small but very fast meteorite hit the South Pole, but the truth is very different. Fifteen years later, Shinji Ikari, a rather apathetic, cynical young man is summoned to Tokyo-3 by his cold-hearted father, Gendo, the commander of NERV, a special military agency who have been formed to fight off massive alien lifeforms known as 'Angels'. There, he learns he is to pilot a massive humanoid mecha known as an Evangelion. A dark, psychologically complex series that is quite disturbing at times, Neon Genesis Evangelion nonetheless is a good series.

*Azumanga Daioh by Kiyohiko Azuma. Basically a high school comedy series following a group of high-school girls and their teachers. If you want light-hearted stuff, then this is what you want. Not much to say about the plot, given that there is little actual plot beyond high-school hijnks.

*Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow. One of the most famous manga of all time, Ghost in the Shell follows the adventures of Public Security Section 9 as they investigate all manner of crimes in a world where cybernetics and androids are commonplace, corruption is rife, and victories are sometimes pyrrhic. I'm recommending the original volume rather than the sequels here: Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface is ridiculously hard to follow what the hell is going on. The original volume is pretty violent and dark, but also includes a surprising amount of comedy, especially for those who have only seen the adaptations. There's even a lesbian threesome early on, so...fair warning.

*Soul Eater by Atsushi Ohkubo. You ever wondered what would happen if Tim Burton ever did a manga? Well, this would be the result. Set in a bizarre world filled with anachronisms, Soul Eater follows the exploits of students of the DWMA, an academy set up by the surprisingly goofy Lord Death to train up living Weapons and their wielders, Meisters. Weapons are humans who can transform into magical weapons, and Meisters are those that wield them. To wield them in the first place, though, they must have a certain amount of compatability between their souls. Weapons and Meisters are charged by Death to slay killers whose souls are in danger of turning into demonic entities known as Kishin, as well as Witches, who are generally destructive entities in this series. If a Weapon consumes 99 near-Kishin souls and a Witch's soul, they become a Death Scythe. The series mostly follows the Meister Maka, and her Weapon partner, Soul Eater Evans.

*DRRR!! (aka Durarara!!) by Ryohgo Narita. A bizarre franchise based originally on a novel series, but adapted as both a manga and anime. It's set in Ikebukuro, and revolves around various people in that part of Tokyo, as seen through the eyes of a new transfer student, Mikado Ryuugamine. Amongst the cast of characters includes a cheerfully amoral and nihilistic informant known as Izaya Orihara, a ridiculously strong and bad-tempered (yet surprisingly pacfistic) man known as Shizuo Heiwajima, the mysterious gang known as the Dollars, the shady people of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, and, believe it or not, a Dullahan masquerading as a motorbike courier known as Celty Sturluson, who is always on the lookout for her missing head.
 

Cheery

Sergeant
Jun 22, 2009
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#3
Gosh thank you so much for taking the time and writing all of this down, Quatermass! :laugh: These all sound really brilliant. I've definitely heard of Death Note and Soul Eater before and I've been thinking about continuing with one of those two but after reading your summaries, I think I might go for Monster first. That one sounds really really good. Also, I was surprised you added Yu-Gi-Oh! cause I remember watching the tv series. XD But I'll definitely consider looking into that one now. I had no idea it was actually such a dark story.

These are definitely going on my list. Thank you so much!! :laugh:
 

Quatermass

Sergeant-at-Arms
Dec 7, 2010
7,736
2,950
#4
Cheery said:
Gosh thank you so much for taking the time and writing all of this down, Quatermass! :laugh: These all sound really brilliant. I've definitely heard of Death Note and Soul Eater before and I've been thinking about continuing with one of those two but after reading your summaries, I think I might go for Monster first. That one sounds really really good. Also, I was surprised you added Yu-Gi-Oh! cause I remember watching the tv series. XD But I'll definitely consider looking into that one now. I had no idea it was actually such a dark story.

These are definitely going on my list. Thank you so much!! :laugh:
Let me put it this way about the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga: Seto Kaiba was a real SOB. After his first lost game to Yugi/Yami, he forces Yugi and his friends to go through 'Death-T', a lethal theme park. And he gets off lightly with his Mind Crush, compared to some of Yami's other opponents. One gets set on fire, another gets stung by a scorpion, another is left effectively blind with his vision perpetually pixellated, another driven mad by the sound of his own heartbeat...though to be fair, they're all SOBs. And the fates of some of the characters in the manga parts adapted as the anime are darker too: Bandit Keith (who in the manga played Russian Roulette) is forced to shoot himself in the head by Pegasus...with his hand turning into a gun. Dark Marik actually flays the skin from his father's back. Gozaburo Kaiba actually committed suicide after Seto took over Kaiba Corp. You get the idea.

If you can't get Monster, try Death Note. It's popular for a good reason, though it's a bit of a tangled snarl, what with all the outwitting each other. But Monster is an excellent series. I really should start collecting the manga again. I gave up when they went out of print, but they've been re-releasing the series.
 

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