Rec Request: Manga

[forestofglory]

I've been reading a lot of manga and comics lately. I want to read more manga but I don't really know what's out there, since its been such a long time since I really paid attention manga. So please tell me about manga you like. I'm up for trying anything, though please warn me if something is gory or dark or there is a dead mom. Here's some thoughts on some things I've read recently to give you an idea of where I'm at.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon v1 by Naoko Takeuchi I've never read or watch any Sailor Moon before so I thought it was high time I tried some. This was cute but confusing in places. Also transformation sequences are much less awesome in comics than in anime.

Yotsuba&!, Vol. 1 by Kiyohiko Azuma Cute slice of life manga about toddler who moves to a new town. I thought it did a good job of portraying what's awesome about little kids -- and why they are exhausting.

A Bride's Story, Vol. 1 by Kaoru Mori I liked all the historical detail but I couldn't get past the child marriage that's central to the plot. It's just not ok!

Cross Game vol. 1-3 by Mitsuru Adachi I read the 1st omnibus. I really liked the art in this. The faces are very expressive. But I was upset by the fact that child character dies suddenly. I was not expecting that. Its most a sports manga about baseball which is fine but wasn't really grabbing me.

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya I got up to volume 10 in the collectors edition and someone else at the library has checked out the last two volumes -- and they are now two and half weeks over due. I have ordered a different edition ILL because I really want to finish this and find out how it all works out.

Golden Kamuy vol 1 by Satoru Noda Well this really gory and thus not my usual fair at all. But I've got the next volume form the library and am enjoying it. It historical fiction set in early 20th century after Russo-Japanese War on Hokkaido Island, and I'm loving all the details of the setting and the art. There's a lot of wilderness survival (including eating squirrel brains and other gross things) and I'm especially enjoying those bits.

Anyways I'd love some more recs for manga to try out!

Comments

[rachelmanija]

That's what Golden Kamuy is about?? I'd somehow osmosed that it was trashy barely subtextual MM vampires, sort of like Vassalord.

[forestofglory]

Huh... I'm not sure how you got that idea. There is a character called The Immortal Sugimoto -- but he's not vampire just lucky and very good at surviving violence. So far there's very little romance of any kind.

I think you'd enjoy the wilderness survival and Ainu culture bit -- there's quite few detailed cooking scenes.

[alchimie]

I also somehow expected Golden Kamuy to be vampires, I think because I associated the name Kamuy with Kamui from CLAMP and my brain proceeded to conflate a lot of genre expectations.

[coffeeandink]

Some relatively recent stuff:

Ichikawa Haruko, Land of the Lustrous: genderqueer rock people fight mysterious moon creatures in the far future; intricate world-building. Very good one-season anime on Amazon Prime.

Hagio Moto, Otherworld Barbara: beautiful and deeply bizarre story combining a dream world, invaders from Mars, psychic therapy, and cannibalism, from a classic mangaka.

Yamazaki Kore, Frau Faust: Female Faust! That was all I needed, honestly, but the ambiguously romantic relationship between Faust and Mephistopheles was also a plus. Yamazaki's Ancient Magus' Bride is longer and better known.

Nagabe, The Girl from the Other Side: Siuil, A Run: a mysterious and melancholy fairy tale about a little girl abandoned in a wood where people turn into monsters.

[forestofglory]

Thank you!

[alchimie]

My tastes tend to run to either gentle slice-of-life stories or out-and-out shoujo romance (often with a darker tone), and I am not certain if either of these would be your speed, but here are some things I have been reading recently --

My Brother's Husband is delightful slice-of-life about a Japanese man meeting his dead brother's Canadian husband and learning to love him as family. It is very charming and nothing terrible happens except the off-screen before-book death of the brother.

Flying Witch is also delightful and slice-of-like -- a teenage witch is sent to stay with her cousins as part of a witchy cultural rite of passage, and gentle humour ensues with mild cultural conflicts (her witchfulness is real magic, but treated more like a cultural tradition in that people are just not as surprised as they would actually be) and some really nice numinous bits of exploring the setting.

Silver Spoon is about an unhappy teenage boy from Tokyo going to an agricultural high school in rural Japan, written by a mangaka who actually grew up in rural Japan and thus cared to get details right. There is a lot of humour, a lot of culture clashes around the realities of agricultural life (raising animals for food, getting up at 4am to take care of cows, what counts as 'intelligence' in the agricultural school vs. what he learned to value in the standard urban school system), and some gradual character growth as our protagonist struggles to come to terms with the ethics around various parts of farming. I watched the anime first and am now reading the manga and it is marvelous.

Do you watch anime at all? I agree that Sailor Moon is much more effective as anime, and I definitely have anime recs were you to be interested.

[forestofglory]

Thank you for the recs!

I've actually read the 1st four volumes of Sliver Spoon and its great. I'm really into food systems so I love all the agricultural details. I have many feelings about all the vocational musing the main character does.

I would have preferred to watch Sailor Moon but my library doesn't have any of the anime so I thought I'd try the manga since friend thought it was an ok starting place

In theory I watch anime. In reality I watch TV very slowly. I did recently watch and enjoy Yuri!!! on Ice and I have a couple of other anime shows on my list of TV to watch but I haven't gotten around to them. However I would very much like some anime recs from you.

[alchimie]

I am delighted you already know Silver Spoon -- I have just read the 5th volume and am really enjoying it. There is an anime as well, which I have seen all of, and it goes at least through the 5th volume of the manga and is very faithful to it and equally delightful.

My watching of TV is also very, very slow, and it often takes me months to years to finish a series even when it is readily available. I am part of a weekly anime group that used to watch 4-6 episodes of various shows a week, but as my children get older and take longer to get to bed and the anime group members get older and want to go to bed earlier our consumption has shrunk dramatically.

Are there any anime you have watched that you particularly love? My favourites seem to fall into either 'charming slice of life stories' much like the manga I recommended, or highly dramatic queer feminist trope-exploding.

[forestofglory]

I will have to check out the Sliver Spoon anime at some point.

I'm jealous of your weekly anime group even if your consumption has shrunk at lot. Back when I was first reading Fruits Basket I had group of friends who where reading it and other manga with me, and watching anime together. But I moved away and lost touch with those people. Anyways I miss having local friends to share media with.

I haven't watched much amine since then. The thing I remember the most fondly is Revolutionary Girl Utena. I thought about rewatching it recently but it seemed hard to find. The only recent anime I've watch was Yuri!!! on Ice which I did really like. Oh and saw the movie Your Name recently too -- that was good. I especially liked all the landscape bits. And I watch a bunch of Studio Ghibli stuff with my kid. My Neighbor Totoro is one of the few DVDs we own. Sorry if this isn't much to go on -- I've been out of the loop for a while.

Both 'charming slice of life stories' and "highly dramatic queer feminist trope-exploding" sound good to me.