What Manga are you reading?

[FllMtl Novelist]

So for Christmas I received and read some manga.

A Bride's Story volume 1 -- Gorgeous art. It's like the artist loves drawing everything that shows up in the panels. Other than the art, what stood out to me was the heroine. She's pretty good-natured, mellow and content with whatever. I was afraid she'd get boring, but her personality's really a little refreshing. The household also has an awesome granny.

Kare Kano volumes 1-3 -- I like this a lot, but I couldn't read it all day. I think my problem is mostly with the art, but I can't really place what bugs me about it. I love the two main characters, though, especially how they deal with their fake selves.


I also caught up on Shingeki no Kyojin (chapters 38-40), which is as awesome and depressing as ever.

[Kaori]

Galaxy Express 999 volume 9 has stories about the following: a really weird-looking creature; a tyrannical ruler who through machinery still exacts tribute centuries after her death; a monk who gives up his freedom to move and declares he will meditate for 2 or 3 thousand years as penance; a family who sacrifices their lives to go against the law and burn the poisonous flowers that cover the entire surface of a planet; a dark nebula in the midst of which the Galaxy Express 999 train gets dismantled by aliens.

In volume 10 Tetsurou and Maetel finally reach Andromeda. This volume only has four chapters, and one of those four, "Pirate of Time Castle," was almost 100 pages long. In this volume I was reminded of both Chrono Trigger and Star Wars. Also, Captain Harlock put in an appearance in the Time Castle story—and more than just a cameo. So basically, this volume was awesome, mainly because "Pirate of Time Castle" was a really grand, gripping story, despite some flaws. Overall, I'd say it's the best volume so far since #4.

I'm also halfway through GE999 volume 11, in which there is an army of flying robot cats.

Marie no Kanaderu Ongaku (The Music of Marie) starts out as an absolutely gorgeous fantasy story, not exactly steampunk but similar in that it is set in a world in which technology has very specific limits beyond which it simply will not work (people aren't able to make airplanes or android robots). For a while I was wondering why on earth the series is labeled as "mature," since everything in the first 2/3 of the story was pretty clean and innocent. Then the last 4 or 5 chapters pulled a series of mind-bending plot twists that completely floored me (including a brief section that contained some very disturbing Holocaust-like images, hence the "mature" label). Overall, I don't think I've read any other manga that was so beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time. The artwork and story in this manga are both incredible, and it is going in my top 3 manga along with Nausicaa and Tenkensai.

[Panda4christ:3]

D.Gray Man chapters 119-127 (Volume 13)

[SierraLea]

My current bookshelf is
Bakuman 16. there was a lot of less interesting stuff in this volume, but I really liked the chapter on Iwase and her struggles. It had a very good ending.
Crimson Hero 7-10. I like this one! The romance isn't sappy, because it's centered around Nobara and her struggles as a player and a girl. This is what i mean when I say the best romances often happen on the side.
High School Debut 3& 4. This is the exact opposite of Crimson Hero. While it started well, it has quickly gone downhill. I'll hang in there to see if anything good pulls the series out of this serious hole.
One Piece, 17, 19, 20, and 29. My library doesn't have all the books so I have to skip around. I'm missing most of the story arcs!
Zatch Bell 4-8. This one is good, even though I still don't like the art style. They added a mystery element, a great relief from the endless fight scenes.

[Atria35]

Cantarella 1-3- .... Can't discuss because of content, but dark and edgy. I like.
Magic Touch [b]1-4- This has the dumbest premise ever. Yet still manages to be sweet and engaging. Also, I like massage. I like getting them. So I kind of like how it's worked into the story and does have some interesting informative stuff.
Little House With An Orange Roof - CUUUUTE. ADORABLE. SWEEEET.
Brave Story 1-3- Interesting story about a guy falling into a fantasy world. From what I understand, the manga tones down some of the darkness of the novels, but I'm okay with that - the art is cute to boot.

[SierraLea]

I am currently over the moo. After a week or so with nothing new to read, I was finally able to get to the library and pick up almost 20 new volumes! The first things I read were Crimson Hero 11 and 12. Man, this is one good series!

[MangaRocks!]

Whoops, haven't posted in this thread in a while-- guess I should remedy that! Been reading a couple of continuing series and a couple of new ones:


Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun chapter 36: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Oh dear... so *that's* what was going on with the family (or at least that's a part of it) ... also, LOL at the 'respective paths' and head-patting stuff.


Zetsuen no Tempest chapter 22: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: LOL, those flashbacks with Aika. I liked that pointed conversation Hanemura had with Mahiro, too. And oh man, the end there... I guess I have to say "poor Hanemura" for the third chapter in a row, LOL. Wonder what the full plan actually is, though (apart from apparently cutting a bit of the tree)...


Kamisama Hajimemashita, a.k.a. Kamisama Kiss, vol.'s 1-14 (I think? Well, through chapter 87, anyway ) so far: This started out as a fairly entertaining little supernatural rom-com, but as it has moved out of a more-episodic plot phase into a more-arc-based one, it's gotten better (I just raised it a point on MAL from what I had rated it at originally )-- in fact, the last couple of arcs drew me right along, and before I knew it I was out of chapters to read. And the current arc, SPOILER: Highlight text to read: which deals heavily with time-travel, was obviously well-planned; plus, it also has quite an urgent feeling to it since it's about saving a certain character's life within a very short time frame. Even so, it's certainly not the deepest manga ever; but I'm quite enjoying it, and look forward to what happens next.


Finally, Junkissa Neko chapter 1: This is a new series by Yukiru Sugisaki. Judging by the magazine that it's running in, it's apparently a seinen; but, quite frankly, all that matters is that there are cats, and lots of them! Seriously, though, the gist of the story so far is that the main character failed to get into college and doesn't really have anywhere to go, but he does own (or, rather, is owned by? ) a cat-- and not only does he have a great love of cats in general, he also has a 'special ability' with them SPOILER: Highlight text to read: (he sees them as people with cat features, and can actually have conversations with them as well! )-- which leads to him being invited to work at a certain cafe... Only the first chapter has been translated into English so far, but I loved it enough to look ahead at the rest of the available raws, and even without knowing what's being said in them I liked them already, too. Now, all that said, this mangaka has (somewhat infamously) tended to have a bit of A.D.D. when it comes to finishing her own series , but I really hope she keeps going with this (and also that it stays as good as the first chapter was ).

[Atria35]

Bride of the Water God v 1-5 - Okay, missed out on a little bit of 4 since I accidentally left it in my aunt's classroom... But hey. This is really a nice story. While I do think that a lot of manhwa have a tendency to build relationships while missing chinks of storyline or interactions - and I still think there's a slight issue here with it - overall, there seems to be nice development. This has a host of quirky characters I'd love to get to know more about, and Soah's story is just downright tragic.

[SierraLea]

I'm almost done with Monkey High!, and it turned out to be kind of a dangerous read. They keep the tone so light hearted with Macharu that you don't realize what they're actually doing in the last few volumes, particularly their escapade to Mouse world. You could find yourself rooting for something unsavory. Very few series have caught me off guard like this.

[mysngoeshere56]

Volume 3 of the Sailor Moon reprint! I'm still so happy this has finally come stateside.

[SierraLea]

I just finished volumes 5 and 6 of High School Debut. These volumes sort of rescued the series by handling some typical shojo story lines not typically. I personally liked the one about the Ex.

Okay, this is a later post. If I thought High School Debut was redeeming itself with 5 and 6, it totally turned adorable with 8. THat is one of the cutest, most adorable chapters I've ever read! Holy smokes, but that was cute! If I wasn't reading it late at night and my sisters weren't sleeping in the next room, I'd be squealing and laughing like crazy!

[the_wolfs_howl]

Over Christmas break, I read the first volume of the Legend of Zelda: Four Swords manga. It was really fun to see all these different Links running around My favorite character is definitely Red - so cute! ^_^

[Vii]

Ouran High School Host Club vol 1-10 - I love my library for buying the entire series.

Silver Spoon 63-64 - Oooo, some drama. Me likey.

[Meira]

hi im new here this is my second post

i am currently reading Ouran High School Host Club and very much enjoying it. i am also rereading Tsubasa Chronicle from the beginning cause i only read it before from after the anime ends. these are my two favorite series of all time so far.

[SierraLea]

I just read volumes 2&3 of The Story of Saiunkoku. I have to say, this is one of the best harems I've seen in manga, because it's so descrete and fun with a variety of characters that mix well. This is also one of my favorite artists!

[KnightOfFive]

Neane: You have oficially killed any inkling of desire to even look at Negi out of curiosity and for that I thank you for sparing me the puke fest.

As for myself I'm keeping up for the moment with Bleach. This "final arc" might turn out to be fun after all.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Silver Spoon chapters....62-64 or something? I'm just glad they finally explained what "silver spoon" means

D.Gray-man chapters 111-120 - a;dlskfjsd;lgfjsdklf SO EXCITING!!!!!! Of course, Allen always seems to evolve at very convenient times.... <_< But yeah, I loved getting more information on Lavi's past, and just...a;ldjfd;lfjdljdlj Lavi is definitely my favorite character now. I couldn't decide between him and Allen before, but...yes.

[MangaRocks!]

Otomen vol. 14: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: "Are you going to become a bride?" Also, cute flower stuff.


Gin no Saji, a.k.a. Silver Spoon, chapters 63-64: Ah, the title of the manga. Also, wow-- no wonder Komaba hadn't been back to school. Yikes. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Nice frankness and determination by Hachiken there at the end, though.


Akagami no Shirayuki Hime chapter 38: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Oh, Obi. On another note, I'm glad they found the stuff for the cure. And I wonder what's up with that character at the end...


Kamisama Hajimemashita, a.k.a. Kamisama Kiss, chapters 88-89: Ah, I was wondering how that was going to play out. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I knew Tomoe had to have *some* interaction with the real Yukiji as well (not only just Nanami or Nanami-in-Yukiji's-body), and I think I can see how that might work out now. Also, LOL-- so Nanami *did* end up meeting Akura-Oh! That was really amusing at first , however I'm glad it got serious at the end, too (showing that Akura-Oh really wasn't any sort of good guy, even under Nanami's influence). Wonder what's going to happen now (or, rather, should I say "what happened next"? ) with Yukiji...


And Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun chapter 37: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Good grief-- Haru and Yuuzan's father is so terrible. Also, LOL at Yamaken's shirt, his mental response to the "cute" comment, and his conversation with Yuuzan (and then when Iyo arrives, it gets even better! Oh man, I seriously cannot get enough of the interaction between her and Yuuzan, bwahaha!). And there were some more interesting little bits of backstory/feelings here, too, particularly developing Yuuzan, which have made me understand him a bit better now, I think. So, yeah, excellent chapter (as always! ).

[SierraLea]

One Piece Vol. 45. Absolute ton of laughs, especially the parts about Luffy's family.

[SierraLea]

I found another barrel of laughs, the last page in the last volume of High School Debut! I rolled on the floor, but the other parts of that ending was so sweet, it wiped the floor with Monkey High!, which I also finished reading recently.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Silver Spoon chapters 64-65

[SierraLea]

Warning: Do not read Bakuman Volume 17 unless you can giggle, squeal, or make whatever sound you use to express happiness. I did it late at night, and could not give my joy full outlet because I would have woken up everyone else. This was one of their best yet, although I feel that way about almost every one of their volumes.

[Atria35]

Little House With An Orange Roof 4-5 - Still adorably cute, but MAN. I forget how tiring the average sitcom situations can be. I mean, if these two actually SAID SOMETHING to each other before rushing off into the night, then half this drama could be avoided >.> I mean really.

Annarasumanara 1-3 (complete) - BY FAR AND LARGE THE BEST THING I"VE READ IN A WHILE. I mean... Whoa. This starts out as a story about the crushing despair of a girl that's poor. Her mom is... gone. Her dad has run off, and she has to scrimp and save every penny she can to afford food for her sister, often going hungry herself to do so. But then she stumbles on an old amusement park that she used to go to and meets a magician, who reminds her of her old dreams to be a magician. From there comes a collision of reality and dreams, romance, and a touch of magic and hope in the world. It's about growing up. It's about keeping dreams alive. It's about how life can absolutely suck at times. I cried. Like, for real.

It was a fabulous manga.

[Neane]

Read 2 volumes of Prism

I wish more yuri manga would be like Prism in that it's about the actual interaction between them as couples and less about the building of the relationship itself (with about 5 billion misunderstandings)

And Started reading YKK, the atmosphere from this manga is very similar to the atmosphere in Dark Souls.

[the_wolfs_howl]

D.Gray-man chapters 122-127
Sooooooo exciting!

[Kaori]

[b]Annarasumanara 1-3 (complete) - BY FAR AND LARGE THE BEST THING I"VE READ IN A WHILE. I mean... Whoa. This starts out as a story about the crushing despair of a girl that's poor. Her mom is... gone. Her dad has run off, and she has to scrimp and save every penny she can to afford food for her sister, often going hungry herself to do so. But then she stumbles on an old amusement park that she used to go to and meets a magician, who reminds her of her old dreams to be a magician. From there comes a collision of reality and dreams, romance, and a touch of magic and hope in the world. It's about growing up. It's about keeping dreams alive. It's about how life can absolutely suck at times. I cried. Like, for real.

It was a fabulous manga.

It's cool that someone else has read this. I guess I never did post anything on CAA about Annarasumanara back when I read it, so here are some of my thoughts on it to supplement what you said:

This manga (using the term loosely) explored the tension between doing one’s duty and being adult-like versus doing what brings one joy; the exploration of this theme in particular came across as being very true to life. I found it well-written and thoughtful; right now I'd probably put it at #4 or #5 in my list of favorite manga. Visually, it's beautiful and has one of the most unique art styles I've seen. To begin with, it was originally published in webcomic format with extremely long vertical pages that continue sometimes for several times the length of an ordinary manga page (some pages have a length that is 15 times or more the width). It also features skillful blending of drawings with photographs, black-and-white with color, realistic drawings with stylized--and these switches are meaningful to the story. I can post some samples of the artwork of this manwha, because that's much easier than trying to explain it, but even so this is just a small sample and doesn't really even begin to get at the variety and ingenuity of the artistic techniques that were used.









Now that I've thinking about it, I guess there are a bunch of other manga I've read but haven't posted about.

Shadow of Visions (complete): a girl who is the daughter of a family that carves inkstones meets a “blind” painter (actually not blind) who can foresee the future. He often keeps his eyes covered because he foretells terrible things, and people hate him for it. This was quite depressing for a romance manga, and also much bloodier than I typically expect shoujo to be, but it is pretty understandable that SPOILER: Highlight text to read: the female lead would want to kill the childhood friend who set fire to her manor, killed her family, and then harrassed her throughout the rest of the series. Rather reminiscent of Tess of the D'Urbervilles; it had that sort of tone.

Vahlia no Hanamuko is a collection of four short stories written by the same mangaka whose current series is Akagami no Shirayuki-hime. Not bad but not great; the title story was the best of the lot. I've found that collections of the early short stories by mangaka who later publish longer series tend to be not as good as their later work, and this is no exception.

Galaxy Express 999 v. 12 was pretty average. There was a story in which the characters meet another Maetel, another conductor, and another young boy who is not Tetsurou riding the 999 at some point in the future; that was the most interesting chapter in this volume. There was also yet another story which involved some life-forms that forced their way onto the 999 only to (minor and unimportant spoiler) SPOILER: Highlight text to read: die due to the fact that they are only able to survive in the atmospheric conditions on their own home planet. This is now the second or third time that Matsumoto Leiji has used this particular plot, and I do wish that he had not reused ideas like this.

[MangaRocks!]

(Whoops, haven't posted in this thread for a while again... And I've been reading a lot, too!)


Gin no Saji, a.k.a. Silver Spoon, chapters 65-66: Aw. That was super sweet. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: (LOL though at the interruption at the end of their conversation + their ensuing reactions. ) Also: CRAB.


Kamisama Hajimemashita, a.k.a. Kamisama Kiss, chapter 90: All I can say is, great cliffhanger!


Zetsuen no Tempest chapter 23: SPOILER: Highlight text to read: LOL-- okay, just imagine me saying "Oh dear, poor Hanemura... " in my comments for every chapter from now on. Also, I really liked the fact that Hakaze just frankly spelled out her feelings and her concerns about them to Yoshino, and that Yoshino finally revealed his secret to her in return. I'm looking forward to the rest of that conversation...


Dengeki Daisy vol. 11: Awesome as usual. (Gah, Teru and Kurosaki's relationship is so good! I can't get enough of it. ) SPOILER: Highlight text to read: And aha, I *thought* Kiyoshi was falling for Rena-- and yep, seems like this volume pretty much confirmed that. I really hope they become a couple, too. First, though, comes Rena's rescue and the stopping of the distribution of the new virus (next volume)-- which I am greatly looking forward to!


The Indignation Of Haruhi Suzumiya (novel #8): You know, I really like how in this series little details from past books are referenced/expanded upon in the later ones. For example, just in this volume we had SPOILER: Highlight text to read: a previous short-story character showing up again in a whole new light; Kyon's middle-school story finally being told; the revelation of where exactly the basics of the time-travel theory came from in the first place; snippets of at-the-time seemingly-unimportant dialogue being referenced again in a new context; and etc. (Also, the clever re-use of locations-- even having Kyon himself point it out. ) As for new details set up in this volume, I have to say that the story that Yuki wrote for the club was fascinating, and I hope that it's expanded upon a bit more later. Also, I've been getting this feeling for a while, but now I am completely convinced that either there *is* going to be something special revealed about Kyon at some point, or the author is excellent at subtle red herrings. (Not that I mind either way-- it's great writing, for sure!) Oh, and speaking of Kyon, I also really liked his acknowledgment again (even more explicitly this time) that he was no longer jealous of 'normal' life. That was quite a satisfying way to end the book.


Finally, Nodame Cantabile + Nodame Cantabile Encore: Opera-hen vol.'s 1-25 (complete): This was excellent! At turns hilarious and serious, with a great romance, and also an especially inspirational treat for readers who are musicians themselves-- I loved it.

[wildpurplechild]

I'm currently reading
Kare Kano vol 1: So far it's ok, but I think i'd like the live action version better.
The Infernal Devices Manga, vol 1 Clockwork Angel: I liked the novel better than the manga adaption. Somehow, it doesn't grip me like the book did.

[SierraLea]

My current Bookshelf is
Bakuman 17. I was so inspired by this volume that I tried to storyboard a story I'd written. I failed miserably.
Dragon Knights 1-4. I'm a total sucker for fantasy. This one's art is very unrealistic, but the story is so tangled that I can't wait to see what happenes next.
Neon Genesis Evangelion 3-6. I'm not sure if I want to keep reading this one, but I'll hold out a little longer. I do wish they'd have more fighting and less drama.
One Piece 52-53. I am loving this one right now, but I wish Luffy looked older.
Wicked Lovely 1-3. I'm not sure if this is a manga or not, but I like the main characters and think Jayce is really sweet.
Zatch Bell! 21-23. Kiyo really got to shine in these volumes, which I love since He's my favorite character. And is it just me, or has the art gotten better and less annoying?

[Atria35]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 3-6. I'm not sure if I want to keep reading this one, but I'll hold out a little longer. I do wish they'd have more fighting and less drama.

You miiight be missing the point of NGE - it's all about the psychological issues and trauma of the characters, and exploring the meaning of humanity and self. The shounen fighting scenes are merely the window dressing. See the anime for clarification.

Gyo - That was weird. And rather pointless.