Good Manga?

Beck

Sorry if this is asked often, I used the search and couldn't really find anything.

Recently I've been really interested in comics, and I've been reading lots of Alan Moore and Frank Miller. And since I enjoyed comics so much, I thought it might be fun to give Manga a chance, too. So, are there any really worth checking out?

A friend recommended I check out Vagabond, but he also reads Death Note, so I'm not sure I should trust him. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks in advance!

One more thing, anybody know of a good place to purchase manga online, that ships from Canada?

MC Mystery

My advice is avoid fantasy and action manga, they're usually complete shit.

Sci-Fi manga is a mixed bag.

The only problem with most manga is that the artwork is ugly, and is printed on poor quality paper, but you pay about the same for a manga graphic novel as you do a badassedly painted beautiful glossy paper comic book, so be wary of that.

My two favorite manga series would be:

Ranma 1/2

From Wikipedia,
On a training journey in the Bayankala Mountain Range in the Qinghai Province of China, Ranma Saotome and his father Genma fall into the cursed springs at Jusenkyo. When someone falls into a cursed spring, they take the physical form of whatever drowned there hundreds or thousands of years ago whenever they come into contact with cold water. The cursed will revert when exposed to hot water until their next cold water exposure. Genma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Panda while Ranma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Girl.

Upon returning to Japan, the pair settle in the dojo of Genma's old friend Soun Tendo, a fellow practitioner of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū or "Anything-Goes" martial arts which Genma passed on to Ranma. Genma and Soun agreed years ago that their children would marry and carry on the Tendo Dojo. Soun has three teenaged daughters: Kasumi, Nabiki and the hot-tempered, but helpful, martial arts practicing Akane. As Akane is Ranma's age she is appointed for bridal duty by her sisters. Although both initially refuse the engagement having not been consulted on the decision, they are generally treated as betrothed and end up helping or saving each other on numerous occasions. They are frequently found in each other's company and are constantly arguing in their trademark awkward love-hate manner that is a franchise focus.

Great Teacher Onizuka "GTO"

From Wikipedia.
While peeping up girls' skirts at a local shopping mall, Onizuka meets a girl who agrees to go out on a date with him. Onizuka's attempt to sleep with her fails when her current "boyfriend", her teacher, shows up at the love hotel they are in and asks her to return to him. The teacher is old and unattractive, but has enough influence over her that she leaps from a second story window and lands in his arms.

Onizuka, seeing this display of a teacher's power over girls, decides to become one himself. In his quest, he discovers three important things:

1. He has a conscience and a sense of morality. This means taking advantage of impressionable schoolgirls is out... but their unusually attractive mothers are a different matter.
2. He enjoys teaching and most of the time, he teaches life lessons rather than schoolwork.
3. He hates the systems of traditional education, especially when they have grown ignorant and condescending to students and their needs.

With these realizations, he sets out to become the greatest teacher ever, using his own brand of philosophy and the ability to do nearly anything when under enough pressure. He is hired as a long-shot teacher by a privately operated school to tame a class that has driven one teacher to a mysterious death, one to nervous breakdown, and one to joining a cult. He embarks on a mission of self-discovery by breaking through to each student one by one, and helping each student to overcome their problems and learn to genuinely enjoy life.

Technicality

Akira

Mim

Battle Angel Alita, Blade of the Immortal, Akira, and if you don't mind something kinda girl/dramatic "NANA". I have two guy friends and my boyfriend, all three of them LOVE "NANA", even though my boyfriend and one guy friend are into more blood, guts, gore stuff. It's pretty good and you care about the characters after a bit.

MoSiAc

I don't think you'll find something that could really compare to Alan Moore or Frank Miller so its hard to give a recommendation. It really just depends on what stories you like.

DeathNote was really interesting halfway through but the author went a different way than most people probably were hoping/thinking and he ruined it, but for some reason it spun off a book, a couple movies, and tons of stuff in Japan.

Seriously though gonna need a lot more info to even begin giving suggestions. There is hardly anything with the seriousness of story as Alan Moore and Frank Miller write about.

You could try Ghost in the Shell if you're into reading about what is individuality buried in a cop story.

TheFallOfHenryT

My personal favourite would be Hajime no Ippo, it's a boxing manga with impressive fights and colourful characters.



http://www.onemanga.com/ is a good place to start finding and reading manga straight away.

Nova_C

Ranma 1/2 is good, but it gets old after a while. I have the first three graphic novels and I had a subscription to Viz for a while, but really, the jokes got tired.

It's good at the start, though.

Best manga I've ever read is Gunsmith Cats. Seriously, go read it, it's amazing.

Zeromus

Speaking as someone who doesn't really enjoy manga, I would wholeheartedly recommend Akira, Gantz, Gyo, GTO, and Neon Genesis Evangelion (which is a lot better than the TV show, in my opinion).

reminderGTO

OK so you want serious:

Monster:
The series follows Dr. Kenzo Tenma (天馬 賢三, Tenma Kenzo?) as he pursues a young psychopath/sociopath named Johan, whose life Tenma once saved. The story rapidly progresses through a number of locations: it starts in Düsseldorf, Germany, passes through Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Wiesbaden, cities in the Czech Republic such as Prague, and other cities and villages.




20th Century Boys
Kenji and his old friends are slowly being drawn into a mysterious conspiracy that could threaten the world. Who is the mysterious "Friend" and how does he tie into Kenji's youth? Why are there disappearances and deaths tied into Ochanomizu University? Their memories hold the keys to the puzzle, but time and age have clouded their minds.

The strange occurrences and the reach of the "Friend" conspiracy grow by the day. It will all culminate on New Year's Eve 2000. Will Kenji and the others be able to put together the puzzle and save the world?



Quite possibly as serious as it gets with manga. Very highly recommended.




Yeah also if you could narrow your tastes some more I could probably give you more recommendations. But those two are universally recommended as top tier manga.

ceres

Second for Battle Angel Alita. It is beautiful and deep and was one of the first (if not the first) manga I read.

Beyond that, what kind of story do you like? Manga is a medium, not a genre, and you can find any genre your little heart desires expressed through manga.

MushroomStick

Gantz
Battle Royale
Basilisk
Berserk
Liar Game

I guess I should probably note that most of these don't have english releases yet, so you'd have to go somewhere like onemanga.com to read them.

Toefoo

You WILL like Gantz, I guarantee you. Unfortunately you have to wait for volume 2 to be localized in September, but you can get volume 1 right now (Dark Horse is publishing it).

I also echo GTO, great read. If you fancy street racing, Initial D is pretty much awesome. I know I couldn't put it down.

Also, Berserk. Its about a guy with a big ass sword who...well, thats all you need to know to get into it. Needless to say it is also very awesome

Edit: Claymore is good too.

myvillain

Akira and GTO.

Vagabond is pretty cliche, and death note is pretty good, but a bit too "talky" for my tastes.

Ranma 1/2 is for hardcore japan-o-philes. Definitely not something you want to start on.

subedii

I'll thrown in my vote for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

KVW

Yotsubat&! gets my vote.

Satanic Jesus

Beck wrote: »

Sorry if this is asked often, I used the search and couldn't really find anything.

Recently I've been really interested in comics, and I've been reading lots of Alan Moore and Frank Miller. And since I enjoyed comics so much, I thought it might be fun to give Manga a chance, too. So, are there any really worth checking out?

A friend recommended I check out Vagabond, but he also reads Death Note, so I'm not sure I should trust him. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks in advance!

One more thing, anybody know of a good place to purchase manga online, that ships from Canada?

Ones I've enjoyed (can't guarentee they're actually that good or what you're looking for)

Ragnarok
Comic Party
Trigun
Bleach
Naruto
Death Note
Excel Saga
Shutterbox

Dark Shroud

Berserk is just too damn awesome not to read.

And since I haven't seen them listed Claymore and History's Strongest Disciple Kenchi.

Treeloot

reminderGTO wrote: »

OK so you want serious:

Monster:
The series follows Dr. Kenzo Tenma (天馬 賢三, Tenma Kenzo?) as he pursues a young psychopath/sociopath named Johan, whose life Tenma once saved. The story rapidly progresses through a number of locations: it starts in Düsseldorf, Germany, passes through Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Wiesbaden, cities in the Czech Republic such as Prague, and other cities and villages.

Monster is far and away my favorite manga.

Incenjucar

Avoiding shonen is the first step. Plenty of it is pretty decent, of course, but it's for younger, more easily marketed-to audiences.

From what I've heard (not much personal experience) the non-standard manga tend to be the more interesting ones, such as Princess Nine (about a girl who plays baseball) and some manga about a dude who is a fire fighter.

There's an interesting one called Parasyte out there, too, with a bit of blood and crude humor, but mostly it's humorously trippy.

Djiem

KVW wrote: »

Yotsubat&! gets my vote.

Limed for truth.

Also, if you like giant walls of text (very funny text), you should read Cromartie High School.

Beck

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. Regarding genres I'm interested in, it doesn't matter, I like them all.

elevature

I'm generally not a fan of manga at all, but there are two series that I really enjoy.

The first is Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. The wiki description is pretty poorly written but it gives you an idea of what it's about:

Yukio, known by his friends as "Koyuki", is a regular 14-year-old Japanese boy who enters junior high school with two childhood acquaintances. One is now a useless pervert, and ironically the other is a highly sought after female student. Koyuki's boring life is changed when he saves an odd-looking dog, named Beck, from some kids. Beck's owner turns out to be an emerging rock musician, Ryûsuke Minami, who soon influences Koyuki to start playing the guitar, and even gives one to him.

The story focuses on the trials and tribulations of their punk and rapcore band named BECK, and an important plot that deals with Koyuki's relationship with Ryûsuke's sister, Maho.

Koyuki, who was plagued by his boring existence, gradually matured through experiences with the band and began to discover who he really was.

Edit: the School Library Journal description is a little better:

Grade 10 Up–Yukio, 14, alternately worships his dream girl, Izumi, from afar and curses his general meekness. Enter Beck, a hybrid dog with stitched-together fur–the only fantastical element in this enjoyable book–and Beck's owner, a sullen, street-fighting, American-raised teen who plays in a rock band. Conveniently, the band has recently lost its lead guitarist. Although the setup is pretty clear, the story lines are engrossing enough to make readers forget how long it may take Yukio to realize his rock 'n' roll dream. With hard-edged scenes of drunken American GIs wandering Tokyo streets and encountering the resentful Japanese, references to both Japanese and American music, and a refusal to use standard manga devices like magical beings or juvenile artwork, Beck stands out. The treatment of male friendship is also fresh, and Izumi seems poised to be one of the classic manga heroines. If John Hughes wrote manga, he'd have written Beck.

The second series is called Uzumaki. It's only three volumes, but it is the most disturbing, disgusting, and awesome thing I've ever read.

You really should just see for yourself.

MoSiAc

Uzumaki was turned into a fairly good movie as well, but yeah great story to read.

MC Mystery

Dark Shroud wrote: »

Berserk is just too damn awesome not to read.

And since I haven't seen them listed Claymore and History's Strongest Disciple Kenchi.

Berserk's ending almost makes it not worth it imo.

Kreutz

Priest is Manhua but ti's still one of my favorite graphic novel series.

EDIT: NVM, it's Manhwa, from Korea.

khain

MC Mystery wrote: »

Dark Shroud wrote: »

Berserk is just too damn awesome not to read.

And since I haven't seen them listed Claymore and History's Strongest Disciple Kenchi.

Berserk's ending almost makes it not worth it imo.

Berserk hasn't ended.


Is there a preference for finished manga or are never ending ones fine as well?

brandotheninjamaster

Dark Shroud wrote: »

Berserk is just too damn awesome not to read.

And since I haven't seen them listed Claymore and History's Strongest Disciple Kenchi.

Man...Berserk. I read through like thirteen books and watched the anime. It really just depressed the hell out of me. Plus the crazy amounts of crazy ass sex and the like just creeped me out a little too much to enjoy the series. If they were to make a movie incorporating everything that was in the manga, it would be NC-17 (or whatever the strongest movie rating for not porn would be in Canada) easy. Although the violence is pure win.

Also I suggest Beet the Vandal Buster. Kinda lighthearted, but a fun read none the less. Also I enjoyed Sandlad from shonen jump. Yu-Yu Hakusho was good as well.

jot

Most of those have been mentioned already:

Priest

Priest (Hangul: 프리스트) is an ongoing manhwa (Korean comic) series created by Hyung Min-woo. It fuses the Western genre with supernatural horror and is notable for its unusual, angular art style. An interview with Hyung in Priest: Volume 3 states that the comic was inspired by the computer game Blood, which featured a similar horror-Western aesthetic and undead protagonist.

Spaghetti western meets gothic horror. I really like the art style. Also, there are lots of zombies and sawed-off shotguns and demons with chainsaw and a black mute guy who carries a gatling gun around.

Blade of the Immortal

Blade of the Immortal follows the deeds of Manji, a skilled samurai who has a decisive advantage: no wound can kill him, except for a rare poison. In the past, his criminal actions led to the death of 100 other samurai (including his sister's husband). He becomes immortal at the hand of a 800-year-old nun named Yaobikuni, and is compelled by the death of his sister to accept the quest that will end his agelessness. He has vowed to make amends by killing 1000 evil men, and until he does Manji will be kept alive by kessen-chū (血仙蟲 "sacred bloodworms"), remarkable creatures that allow him to survive nearly any injury and reattach severed limbs even after hours of separation. They work by sacrificing themselves to seal the wound - they're worms that were bred to be as close in their chemical and physical make-up to humans as you can get without being human. They cannot handle regrowth on a large scale, but, for example, can reattach a severed limb or seal a hole in the brain.

You wouldn't recognize it from the summary, but Blade of the Immortal features not only lots of over-the-top swordfights, but also a great storyline. It also includes a cast of really memorable characters including Shira, one of the most disturbing villains I've ever seen. I won't even start talking about the art style, because it's just too realistic and detailled and fucking beatiful. Motherfucker should do paintings.

Azumanga Daio

Azumanga Daioh chronicles everyday life in an unnamed Japanese high school in Tokyo,following the trials and triumphs of six girls: reserved Sakaki's obsession with cute animals, Chiyo's struggle to fit in with girls five years older, Osaka's spacey nature and skewed perspective on the world, Yomi's aggravation at an annoying best friend, Tomo, whose energy is rivaled only by her lack of sense, and Kagura's efforts in sports and school. The story covers three years of tests, culture festivals, and athletic events at school, after-school life at the nearby shopping district, at Chiyo's large house, vacations spent at Chiyo's summer home on the beach and at Magical Land, a theme park. It is generally realistic in tone, marked by occasional bursts of surrealism and absurdity, such as Osaka's bizarre imaginings and an episode featuring the characters' New Year's dreams.

Umm - just check it out. It's weird. In a good way.

Djiem

I like Azumanga Daioh, but I find Yotsuba&! to be pretty similar, except better (funnier and more interesting to read).

Also, it's not really a manga, but I always loved Same Difference and other stories, by Derek Kirk Kim.

Godfather

Hey you should probably read One Piece.

It's kinda long though, and doesn't really pick up till the Arlong arc, but other than that it's pretty good.

Hexmage-PA

The only manga I still buy is Sgt. Frog (aka Keroro Gunsou). It's about an alien named Sergeant Keroro who was sent to invade Earth, but was discovered by two siblings named Natsumi and Fuyuki. Now, he and the four other members of the Keroro Platoon continue to try and invade the Earth, but constantly fail either to interference from Natsumi, unforeseen complications caused by their plans, or Keroro's own short-sightedness and general incompetence as a leader.

The world that the manga takes place in is also practically a kitchen sink for every weird thing you can imagine. For example, one of the main characters, a girl named Angol Moa, is the Lord of Terror that was prophesied by Nostradamus (BTW, Angol Fear from Soul Calibur IV was designed by the creator of this manga, and is based on Angol Moa). If that's not enough, in one chapter the Keroro Platoon fights the chupacabra, in another Fuyuki encounters a mermaid while at the beach, and in one of the most recent chapters the platoon does battle with an evil spirit sealed on Easter Island. Did I mention that two important characters are ninjas?



15 volumes have been released in the US so far, and you can get a compilation of the first 3 volumes now for the same price as one of the regular volumes.

khain

Mature Action: I recommend Berserk as others have mentioned because Guts is badass and the story line is extremely good. Blade of the Immortal is also pretty good, but the story felt somewhat forced to me.

Never Ending Action Adventure: The three most popular are Naruto, Bleach and One Piece and in my opinion One Piece is by the far best. Oda manages to pack a ton of material in every chapter and the story always feels like its actually going somewhere. Fairy Tail, though not as popular, is also pretty good. The main story line is about a guild of mages that are somewhat reckless and amusing.

Sports: Hajime no Ippo is a great anime about a kid, Ippo, who gets picked on at school and wants to learn what it means to be strong. He randomly meets a professional boxer and then starts boxing. The story line is engaging and the fights are really good. I don't know jack about boxing so I may be totally wrong, but the fights seem to be at least somewhat realistic which puts it a step above other sports manga. Eyeshield 21 is another good manga about football (American) that is more comedic than the average sports manga.

Robots: I don't normally read manga with robots, but Full Metal Panic is pretty good.

Mystery: A murder occurs without a trace of any humans being and a mysterious message is left, yet a robot hasn't committed murder in the last 8 years. This follows a robot named Gesicht as he attempts to find out who is committing a series of murders.

Comedy: Great Teacher Onizuka is an amazing manga about 22 year old ex biker that wants to be the greatest teacher in the world. The manga follows him and his class full of bullies, blackmailers, and scheming sadists.

Serious: Team Medical Dragon focuses around a genius surgeon, Asada Ryutaro, who's methods have made him a bit of a renegade in the eyes of Japanese doctors. The manga exposes the "illness" of the Japanese hospitals and how their system is not designed to care for the patient.

History: Historie takes place in ancient Greece and follows the life of Eumenes and his childhood, who would later in his life grow up to be the secretary and general to Alexander the Great.

revolutionary bean

TheFallOfHenryT wrote: »

My personal favourite would be Hajime no Ippo, it's a boxing manga with impressive fights and colourful characters.



http://www.onemanga.com/ is a good place to start finding and reading manga straight away.

Man, that comic has a huge quantity of fugly.