What Manga are you reading?

[Atria35]

Monster vol 1- walked into the library in my hometown and discovered a nice-sized graphic novel section... with this in it! WooT!

And even though it's not technically manga, Persepolis.

King of Thorn vol. 1-2- soooo hoping that this isn't the one that got cancelled. It's MARVELOUS! One of the better survival manga I've read! At least, I'm definitely enjoying it more that Jurassic Park!

Fruits Basket 1-Yes. I'm finally reading the biggest, best-known shoujo manga. And it's almost just like the anime. Time will tell whether I like it or not.

[wildpurplechild]

Pretear: The New Legend of Snow White- I get the feeling that the anime is better. It's definitely a good take on the Magical Girl genre, but the characters don't get enough time, the story is rushed, and some things go a little unexplained. Still on this side of good, though.

I started to read this, got about 2/3rds through, and then decided the plot and characters where to mediocre to continue reading. I guess if you like magical girls alot, and typical ones at that, this could be for you. However, I found the plot and characters a bit to mediocre.

[Atria35]

I started to read this, got about 2/3rds through, and then decided the plot and characters where to mediocre to continue reading. I guess if you like magical girls alot, and typical ones at that, this could be for you. However, I found the plot and characters a bit to mediocre.

*thinks about it*

Yes, the characters were fairly average. The main guy was incredibly typical for a shoujo love interest, but the girl was surprisingly assertive for a mahou shoujo- they're usually the shy, wilting type that will only kick butt when their freinds are in danger.

Unfortunately, because the story was so rushed, I can't comment on the other characters- they are one-dimentional because of it. If it was drawn out, there may have been more to them.

[MightiMidget]

Back to D.N. Angel. On volume 9.

[kairo14]

I have been reading Naruto. Between Christmas and then new years the manga has been on a long break. It should be back later this week though!

[Vega]

FMA Volumes 5 and 6 and im currently halfway through 7.

[AnimeGirl]

Read volume 1 of Land Of The Blindfolded. Interesting story. We already have a villain-y sort of guy show up with the same power as Kanade. I have yet to read the two bonus one-shots at the end.

[Atria35]

Real 1- Basketball usually isn't my schtick, but I think I might make an exception for this manga

[KeybladeWarrior]

Finished volume 1 of Story of Saiunkoku.
I didn't know this series was a novel before it became an anime and manga.

[Atria35]

Fruits Basket 4-8- Hit the end of the anime volumes. I enjoy the manga more than I liked the anime. It's sweet, cute, has a ton more characters.... And a ton more drama behind the scenes.

[AnimeGirl]

"Kimi Ni Todoke, Vol.4"
I sooooooo wanted to buy this at the bookstore yesterday, but had no money (oh well, next time!). But we were there for awhile, and I ended up reading the entire volume. It was really good! Very funny, very interesting. I especially loved the part with Pin and Kurumi XD!! That's what she gets!

[Atria35]

Nabari no Ou 5- getting to continue this series a little at a time

[blkmage]

A few chapters of Billionaire Girl, a new manga that I'd been hoping to read, showed up recently.

Billionaire Girl is the typical story of a normal and unassuming university student who gets roped into tutoring a seemingly normal high school girl. That is, until he stumbles onto her shameful otaku lifestyle that she's trying desperately to hide: that she works as a day trader and is obsessed with watching them stocks and controls about 170 billion yen on the market.

If you're wondering who could possibly weave an interesting tale based on the workings of the financial industry, it's written by Hasekura Isuna, whose only other literary work is some light novel called Spice and Wolf.

[KeybladeWarrior]

Reading Kimi Kiss volume 5

[AnimeGirl]

Read the two bonus one-shots that were in "Land Of The Blindfolded, Vol.1"
The first oneshot, "After The Festival" was OK. I wouldn't call it the best. But the second oneshot, "The Mistaken Man", was EXCELLENT!! I especially loved what was said at the end! It kind of had a good message, too; even if you make a mistake, it might end up being a good thing!

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

So I just finished Ouran and I was pretty satisfied with the ending. The manga had some rough spots, and the anime is still better, but all in all I think it was pretty good.

[eternalprincess]

La Corda d'Oro 1.

Really charming.

[uc pseudonym]

Some people have commented that we could use more discussion of anime and manga here on CAA. Regardless of how you feel about other issues, I think that's true. I realized that it has been almost a year since I last posted in this thread, so let's see if there are any discussions to be had.

Tenjou Tenge (complete)

I am not at all convinced the manga-ka has any long term memory, considering how often he ignores much of the plot to introduce new elements that have nothing to do with the rest of the story (TT is even worse than Air Gear in this respect). Now that the story is finished, it's clear that most of it was pointless. I guess I'm glad I read it for some of the insanity contained within, but my reaction after finishing it is basically: "This was definitely a series of words and pictures."

Psyren (complete)

Going back through the SJ popularity quizzes and comparing them to this series is a depressing experience. Naturally we can't know for certain, but it seems that whenever popularity flagged, things were rushed forward into the next fight and the pacing became worse and worse. I had hope for this series, since it seemed like it had enough standard elements to perhaps sustain some interesting time travel mechanics.

Of course, whenever they did something decent with time travel (eg the defeat of the villain is undone when you go back before it occurred) that seemed to adversely affect popularity. So the final product isn't something I can recommend. With the failure of Psyren, I will probably not start any new SJ series unless people here are using superlatives for it.

Fishing for Discussion
- Anyone following the new arc in History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, the increasing strangeness of Medaka Box, or the rapidly declining Deadman Wonderland?
- I've dropped Bakuman, Bloody Monday, D. Gray-man, and Nurarihyon no Mago – anyone think I should change those decisions?
- I don't recall anyone mentioning Magic Ban Removal or Y+M here, but do we have any readers?
- I'd also be up for discussion of the much better than expected Ubel Blat, or definitely Vinland Saga.

Does anyone read much manwha here? I'm surprised how much more The Breaker had than its weak beginning, though I'm not keen on Part II so far. And while I can't recommend Veritas because it may never come back from its break, if anyone has followed it so far:
[spoiler]I'm impressed they took their setting seriously and slaughtered over half of the entire cast. I assumed the elders were brushed aside because of course the main characters have to be teenagers, but it's good to know they were just being held for the right time. Despite the fact that the plot of this series is basically just fighting, it had better planning than many series that rely on their plots.[/spoiler]

[blkmage]

When and why did you drop Bakuman?

I dropped Medaka Box shortly after everyone ended up with screws in them.

[Atria35]

Does anyone read much manwha here? I'm surprised how much more The Breaker had than its weak beginning, though I'm not keen on Part II so far. And while I can't recommend Veritas because it may never come back from its break, if anyone has followed it so far:

I'm really surprised you dropped Bakuman. That one, I believe, is one that should be kept up.

As for reading Manhua, I read a decent amount. I actually don't differentiate between it and Manga much, and sometimes can't tell which is which, unless I find it out by accident. I haven't read those two titles, though!

I also really enjoyed Deadman Wonderland, but I've only read about 25 chapters..... now I'm scared....

[Fish and Chips]

Anyone following the rapidly declining Deadman Wonderland?

It's managed to become even worse?

That's almost impressive.

[Atria35]

Fruits Basket 9-13- Yes. Waaay better than the anime. So glad I picked it up!

[MasterDias]

Of course, whenever they did something decent with time travel (eg the defeat of the villain is undone when you go back before it occurred) that seemed to adversely affect popularity. So the final product isn't something I can recommend. With the failure of Psyren, I will probably not start any new SJ series unless people here are using superlatives for it.

I've been fairly cynical about the way Weekly Jump does things for awhile now myself. It would have been interesting to see what Toshiaki Iwashiro could have done with the time-travel concept in a magazine that isn't nearly as "popularity-driven" as SJ.

I still have to finish up Psyren. I enjoyed it for a good portion of its run, but felt it lost a lot of momentum especially as it was nearing the end. The time-travel stuff he did was always really more interesting than most of the battles.

[quote]- I've dropped Bakuman, Bloody Monday, D. Gray-man, and Nurarihyon no Mago –]
Bakuman: Still following it. Still enjoying it. Not much else to say particularly.

Bloody Monday: I read all of the first series. Haven't started on the second series yet. I think I was waiting for more chapters to be out first. Was there something wrong with it?

D.Gray-Man: I was following this for awhile, but when the author took all of those breaks and then switched magazines, the pacing/story structure got weird and awkward to me...so I haven't really been keeping up with it.

[TWWK]

I just got the omnibus (volumes 1-3) edition of Cross Game in the mail. I'm a big fan of the anime series, and have really enjoyed the manga so far!

[MangaRocks!]

I've dropped Bakuman...

? *Points at footer* That's actually one of my favorite manga right now! I mean, unless there happened to be something in it that really turned you off (not sure what that would be, though...?), I'd definitely recommend keeping up with Bakuman.

[uc pseudonym]

To focus on my job and language study, I read no manga for about four months. When I began catching up with every series, I found that my motivation to go back to Bakuman was low. Low enough that it seems a lower priority than the books and games that generally occupy my spare time.

Part of the reason is that I personally get nothing out of the drama aspects of the series, which is a fair part of it. Second, I've started to feel like the aspects of the manga industry it explores aren't as interesting as they were nearer the beginning. If their situation has changed recently I might look into it again, but if they're still running with the same manga I'm not sure.

I dropped Medaka Box shortly after everyone ended up with screws in them.

I sort of respect the series' decision to do something like that instead of a long set of fights. However, that was a generally good time to stop reading. Since then the villains have turned out to be much less interesting than they were implied to be (they just have negative/destructive powers instead of abnormalities) and it's actually entered a tournament arc. It remains just strange enough that I don't want to condemn it too harshly as generic.

It's managed to become even worse?

That's almost impressive.

I don't know how much worse it is than before, but the things that were worse are exacting more of a toll, if that makes sense. I don't know if the multiple personalities thing was one of your complaints, but it killed what little hope I had for the series (this is rapidly becoming one of my least favorite tropes). Looks like it's going to end soon, so I figure I'll finish it.

Bloody Monday: I read all of the first series. Haven't started on the second series yet. I think I was waiting for more chapters to be out first. Was there something wrong with it?

It was about the same as the first series, which is why I lost interest: things weren't moving forward, just starting another arc in the status quo. Also, many of the things I was curious about during the first series were answered or weren't as interesting as expected. But the quality did seem about the same.

D.Gray-Man: I was following this for awhile, but when the author took all of those breaks and then switched magazines, the pacing/story structure got weird and awkward to me...so I haven't really been keeping up with it.

That was basically my experience. With the plot strangeness I felt like the story lost some of what I originally enjoyed about it.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Listening to old podcasts, I heard blkmage's praise of The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, which I've now begun due to its unlicensed status. It's pretty fantastic as of chapter twenty-three. I really like the art style, which reminds me of FMA not in that it looks like FMA, but it still kind of has that "manga" look while looking distinctly its own, if that makes sense. The fights are awesome and I definitely like how the golems are stronger than any one character aside from Sami(and Hangetsu, I guess), so the fights require a lot of strategy and teamwork, rather than shooting a bigger energy ball or whatever. Also, the characters are pretty interesting, and it's nice for a character to be insane without being like "Look at me, I'm random, isn't that funny?" or just some complete monster kind of insane, though I guess Sami is kind of a complete monster.

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to how the series will end.

[Atria35]

Special A 1-2- Not too shabby. I like it better than the anime.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

I just read The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer chapter thirty-eight.[spoiler]Every death in this series hits you like a truck. It was hard enough with Hangetsu, and now with Tarou it's just, ughhh.[/spoiler]Given how many knights have survived the previous engagements, I'm actually pretty worried about the survival count for this.

[Atria35]

Special A 3