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Manga The big manga thread

As someone who merely dabbles in art, I've been thinking about how amazing some of the artists in the manga world are and I wanted to give a quick shout out to a few of my favourites.

Commonly known as the author and artist of "Vinland Saga. Whilst everything is good, the level of detail that goes into the characters in particular is my favourite, especially whenever there's a close for dramatic effect.

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I like to call her an "art masochist" because hot damn, the level of detail that goes into the fabrics of the clothes and furniture of her "Otoyomegatari" series set in the Silk Road is mind boggling.

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Or really known as Ogure Ito, (in)famous for the fanservice-y nature of his works, it was only when he started doing collabs with other authors, particularly the -Monogatari series that I started to appreciate his art as he couldn't alter the pre-existing character designs to draw big busty women, so instead he embraced the surrealism aspect of the series and got to show off his talent in other ways.

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Whether it's Eyeshield 21 or the more recent One Punch Man manga adaptation, Murata is amazing and sometimes borders on crazy eccentric like when he drew Metal Knight's entrance in the OPM manga in a Phénakisticope style for no particular reason other than he could.

Unfortunately I can't copy paste the gif of Metal Knight so I'll just have to link it instead.

Last one is Takehiko Inoue who is best known for his "Vagabond" manga that adapts the life of famous samurai Miyamoto Musashi and is downright gorgeous. I swear every panel looks like it be hung up on somebody's wall.

 
Currently reading Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope) which is absolutely fantastic so far.

After this I am planning to read Planetes by Vinland Saga's author Makoto Yukimura. Looking forward to that since Vinland Saga is easily one of my Top 3 favorite manga.
 
The last couple of days I have been reading Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (Insomniacs After School), absolutely loved reading it. If you're into slice-of-life and romance manga I highly recommend it. Recently it was announced that there is also an anime adaptation coming in the near future and now I can't wait to watch that.
 
So like, I couldn't stand waiting for the next episode of Chainsaw Man (this is why I dislike watching things weekly) and so I spent the day binging the entire manga to get caught up...

Damn, that was one hell of a trip, so many emotions that it's hard to describe. One thing I do know is that I'm not sure how to feel about Part 2, it's giving me major "Tokyo Ghoul: RE" vibes. Hopefully I'll come to love it just as much as Part 1.
 
I suddenly remembered that you can buy manga on Kindle as well so I dropped a few bucks and picked up all five volumes of "Yu-Gi-Oh: R" - the interquel penned by Takahashi's assistant, although the author's notes states that it was actually based on a scrapped arc intended to be in the original manga which is why I gave it a read despite my usual insistence on "if it isn't by the original author then it's non-canon and I don't care."

I mentioned it was an interquel (taking place just after Battle City but before the Shadow RPG), because hoo boy if you haven't read the original manga then you would be so lost as R explains virtually nothing and just takes it for granted that you're up to speed. So Pegasus' never before mentioned student Yako Tenma abducts Anzu and tells Yugi if he wants to save her then he has to duke it out with 13 of the world's best Duelists as he makes his way up the KaibaCorp building. For better or worse that is the complete gist as the plot really is one giant gauntlet for Yugi and Jonouchi to go through, with each enemy getting one or two chapters to strut their stuff before being one-and-done opponents as the heroes move on. It's fast paced and fun, but I can see why it was scrapped as it ultimately didn't add much to the overall story, but to it's credit the author mentioned R just exists for people who wanted a bit more of Yugi and friends after Takahashi was done with the original manga.

Given how the real life game has evolved, there are some things in R that are kinda hilarious in hindsight such as the characters freaking out that Summoner Monk lets you summon two monsters in a single turn instead of the usual one - when you watch a tournament match and people are basically just playing solitaire and summoning something like twenty monsters on the first turn. Similarly, Willa Mete mocks Kaiba for having a Normal Monster as his ace card as Effect Monsters are the new hotness...I recall Jack Atlas saying something similar in the 5D's anime which is doubly hilarious that nowadays "Normal" has been changed to an official Monster Type and because of GenWun nostalgia the creators have been printing cards that specifically target and boost Normal monsters to make old school classics like Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes viable again.

Lastly, I never let a chance to trash talk Viz slide and I wanted to mention that reading the manga was painful at times because of two things Viz did. The first being inconsistent naming conventions such as them flip flopping between translations of what Yako's new god cards are called. Some volumes called them "Jashin" which is just a straight romanization of their JPN names while other volumes used the TCG's name of "Wicked Gods" instead. The more egregious problem was that the Yugioh manga iconically has the card of an important monster flash up on-screen whenever they are summoned, and R is no different. But when translating the card text, Viz elected to ignore what was directly written and word it based on how the real life TCG works instead...which creates an obvious problem when that starts contradicting what the audience is seeing happen on-screen, since y'know the TCG had to be actually balanced to be playable and follow a different set of rules compared to the original manga.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention but I really did enjoy R and if they were to do anything involving the original cast for the franchise's 30th anniversary, I would prefer them to adapt R into an OVA series or something rather than a "Yu-Gi-Oh Kai" or another crossover movie.
 
currenty reading this really cute romcom manga i found, the story between a dumb prefect and a high school girl with an inappropriate skirt length (yes i know the title sounds really weird), and i've been really enjoying it so far! i've fallen out of manga and anime for a while and i'm trying to get back into it. i've also been rereading toilet bound hanako-kun for like, the 5th time.
 
I felt like reading something cozy to get me through the day so I bought the first volume of Otoyomegatari on Kindle and started re-reading the series.

Man, I can never get enough of Kaoru Mori's incredible art, the amount of detail and hard work she puts into it is awe-inspiring compared to a crummy artist like myself. The story is also very sweet and heartwarming, full of loveable characters and whatnot. :bulbaLove:

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Got a bit of a minor manga haul from Barnes & Noble and a yard sale today (also a few extra goodies that are more anime merch related, but that's neither here nor there itt).

At B&N, picked up the recent release of the two-in-one Tokyo Revengers vol. 13 and 14, as well as volume 3 of Chainsaw Man, and volume 1 of Blue Lock. I wished B&N sold the single volumes for Tokyo Revengers though, and not have it digital, it's a bit more expensive for the combined volumes; plus, a few cover arts for some volumes are amazing and I'm saddened that I can't collect those as single volumes (but I'll just power through for my physical re-read lol). For the latter two series, I'm debating on either just continuing to read online or if I should just wait and buy a few more physical volumes and read that way.

At the yard sale, I was super lucky to find two boxes of both Great Teacher Onizuka and Kuroko's Basketball, all complete volumes in English for only ten dollars for both. Guy selling them didn't even know what they were and just took them off a friend's hands, apparently. So happy with this as I was unable to find any volumes of Kuroko at the time they were first being released, and later had to resort to reading it online alongside the anime before dropping it then finishing it; unfortunately, this one is also the two-in-one versions, but at least I finally have this series in my collection. GTO is a pretty great anime, so I'm excited to read the manga as well, so that's a new one on my reading list currently.

For other series, currently awaiting until the final physical volume of Fire Force is released to finish up the series and complete the set finally. For manga I'm reading online, going through Karneval, One Room of Happiness, and the spin-off Tokyo Revengers: A Letter from Keisuke Baji. (also CSM and Blue Lock, but again, thinking of switching over to physical reading for these two)

Next week I'm planning to go back to B&N to buy the first three deluxe edition volumes of Killing Stalking, my all time favorite Korean manhwa. I obsessively read this series online as it was being translated, and to see them being released in physical format here finally made me ecstatic. I think another re-read of it is in order once I get my hands on them.
 
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I've been reading more Initial D lately. It's been a while since I finished the anime but never really picked up the manga until last year or so, but it's just as good as it's anime adaptation. Read up to ch.630 today, and I know I'm nearing it's end, so it'll be weird finishing it soon; I just know it'll leave an empty hole as I adore this series even more now. Hopefully I can find physical copies, even if it's Japanese, to add to my collection. Also thinking of reading MF Ghost afterwards, the first season of the anime was pretty good, though not as great as it's parent (the former, for those unaware), but not sure if I should go physical or digital for it (probably the latter, I think it might be one of those hard to find in the wild both in store and online to buy physically).

Speaking of original Japanese versions of manga, I'm thinking of either outright buying Tokyo Revengers in Japanese just so I can collect the single volumes (still pissed it's not single volumes here in the US except digital, what gives?), or possibly buying single volumes with covers I really like the most and display them only; specifically, volumes 19 (Ran and Rindou), 22 (Takemichi time leaping), 24 (Bonten Mikey), 27 (Senju), 28 (Benkei and Wakasa), 29 (Sanzu), and 31 (Takemichi and Mikey). The former is appealing because I'll get all Japanese volumes plus with it being unedited compared to other releases, it works great for a complete collection; the latter is also appealing because those specific volumes are my top favorites cover wise and would look amazing displaying the covers on my bookshelf alongside my figures and merch from said series, plus it's a bit cheaper too. Not too sure just yet though, I'll probably have to rearrange some stuff first before I make a final decision.
 
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