Manga recommendations

Taishi

Im new to manga and was wondering if anyone could recommend a good series to start with!

mayordenis

films or books?

Taishi

books

mayordenis

just check out http://www.tokyopop.com/ they are probably the biggest producer of books i know of and have a lot of big series' check out a few yourself not sure what you'd be into.

Edit// Can't go far wrong with cowboy bebop its on that site

Taishi

tanks

sharingan

its also important to consider where you buy or expect to buy your manga

The greatest range is import only or online only really. Some of the best are rapidly going out of priunt too

omegoku

Blade of the Immortal from DarkHorse is an excellent manga, bit expensive though. Basically a samurai manga
3x3 Eyes. Good fantasy manga set in modern(1980s) Asia. Monsters and science collide.
Love Hina by Tokyopop is another good manga, I picked it up on a whim and found myself possessed until I got to the end of this manga.
Dragonball by VIZ. ppl either love or hate DB and DBZ. personally I love the manga, because its the anime without the endless powering up and with a suprisingly complex story, also the older Dragonball series is hilarious.
Excel Saga by VIZ is a funny manga that started out as a doujin. Crazy stuff.
Neon Genisis Evangelion by VIZ is a retelling of the anime with noticable changes. Unfortunatly it takes ages for new ones to come out but its vital for any Eva fan
Mahoramatic by Tokyopop is the story about a combat android come maid, its funny in most places but has a interesting story underlying it all.

These are just some of the manga I would recommend to start off with..enjoy

Ramses

I second Blade of the Immortal. I've checked out numerous manga but Blade of the Immortal is, by far, my favourite. The quality is top notch and always consistent (in story, characters, action and, of course, artwork). Definately worth checking out.

Only other manga I bother to collect these days is Hellsing. It's stylish and has likeable characters and action but is not as good as the former recommendation. If you came across the tv series for this don't worry because the manga is much better.

carbonkid

Was looking through the tokyopop website and i seen alot of stuff i liked but does anyone know of anywhere cheaper to buy them?

omegoku

carbonkid wrote:

Was looking through the tokyopop website and i seen alot of stuff i liked but does anyone know of anywhere cheaper to buy them?

you can get tokyopop stuff in Easons, Vibes and Scribes, Other Realms, Forbidden Planet or you can import them from animenation.com

sharingan

The cheapest online option I have found to be United Publications http://www.up1.co.uk for import titles, or play.com for domestically available titles. However there is a limited number of publishers: Tokyopop, ADV, Gollanz (Viz) Dark Horse, CMX? and a couple of specialists (Last Gasp for Barefoot Gen etc.). The catalogs are often limited too (Tokyopop maintain a smaller catalog for UK/IRL and their titles are usually 6-12 months behind the american schedule).

My favourites would be:
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Viz) and outstanding manga. Watch the anime first and then immerse yourself in this fantastically detailed world.

Gunsmith Cats (Dark Horse) - I pimp this to death. Buy it if you can (its rapidly going out of print).

Cannon God Exaxxion (Dark Horse) - console yourselves with the lack of GSG by reading Kenichi Sonada's next work, where he visits sci-fi & mecha manga. Much like GSG, what starts out as somethign like a tribute work, transcends what came before.

Battle Angel Alita (and Last Order) (Viz) - this is great stuff. Thankfully easier to get now with the 2nd Ed reprints. This is fight manga super-sized. The art work is stunning and its ability to depict movement in action is the best I have ever seen, and this is for characters who can move supersonically. If I had to nitpick, the series loses points for phasing out critical characters as it develops. It never loses its power to shock however, still with it well into the second series.

Blade of the Immortal (Dark Horse) - great stuff.

Remote (Tokyopop) - I can't say why I like this so much. On the outside, the art isn't up there with the other titles I mentioned, the fanservicey nature of it would appear to lessen it (I thought the whole undercover aspect was going to be subverted into some cosplay thing for a while), but its up to the job of depicting the seedier side of this detective thriller. I guess the author *really* knows how to craft tension, and the principle characters are very well done and more importantly develop well. While I often have to make time for reading a lot of my manga (even the really good stuff). New volumes of Remote get read within 24 hours of delivery.

Immortal Rain (Tokyopop) - one of the first I got, and I am a fan all the way. Pretty much a sci-fi story about a young assasin and her immortal quarry. Vols 1 & 2 are good, but the hook is in vol.3 (Rain's backstory). For a fight series, the fight sequences are very clean and easy to follow (possibly the artist does more shoujo work?).

Mahoromatic (Tokyopop) - good stuff, and the last volume is out too.

Planetes (Tokyopop) - I felt the last volumes were a let down, and the anime is better, building and developing on the short stories of the life of a group of space workers. But this is good stuff.

Appleseed (Dark Horse) - the best thing Shirow has ever done. I just wish he would finish it.

Gunslinger Girl (ADV) - this series has gotten really interesting now that it is developing onward from the end of the anime. Shame its lost in the whole ADV Manga thing.

Full Metal Panic! (ADV) - not much on action (watch the anime instead) but you gotta love FMP! in all its forms. Still being released by ADV, but they have caught up with the japanese side of things. Worth flicking through to see Sousuke in 'serious' mode, complete with scary 1000-yard stare.

Popocan (Infinity Studios) - this is a riot! Complete parody of nearly everything game related (and Ah My Goddess/Video Girl Ai to boot). Don't drink anything while reading if you want to preserve the book. Only one volume out and its coming out slowly.

Tokyo Babylon (Tokyopop) - forget all this new Clamp Tsubasa stuff. If you want a reason why they are popular read this instead.

Chobits (Tokyopop) - a more modern reason to like Clamp. Pretty good it is too. More consistent and better developed than the anime.

Genshiken (Del Rey) - the anime builds on the humour better I think, but the source material is solid gold. Really interesting heavy-on-the-detail art style. Saki is more of a hottie in the manga too.

Nodame Catabile (Del Rey) - read volume 1 of this about a chalk & cheese relationship between two music students. I like. Apparently the japanese do too ...

Scratch Acid

sharingan wrote:

Genshiken (Del Rey) - the anime builds on the humour better I think, but the source material is solid gold. Really interesting heavy-on-the-detail art style. Saki is more of a hottie in the manga too.

Nodame Catabile (Del Rey) - read volume 1 of this about a chalk & cheese relationship between two music students. I like. Apparently the japanese do too ...

Word. These are two of my absolute favourite titles at the moment, they're both superb. The wait between volumes is rather nasty though.

sharingan

Scratch Acid wrote:

Word. These are two of my absolute favourite titles at the moment, they're both superb. The wait between volumes is rather nasty though.

Aye its painful. Del Rey's 3-4 month release cycles are torture. Its a bit much with Nodame too ... the Japanese volume 11 is out. I can understand the delays with xxxHolic - its being released slowly in Japan (Clamp are 100% behind Tsubasa), but Del Rey seem committed to slow release cycles.

While anyone who watched a piece of the anime will realise why Genshiken is so good, Nodame is a bit more different. What I really liked was that it never resorted to super-deformed moments (in a way that I wish the excellent Cheeky Angel didn't), despite the fact that Megumi (Nodame) has a catalog of funny expressions whenever she is concentrating. Nice role reversal to have a well kept male lead and slobbish female lead and I find the whole musical aspect to work well too (the technical nature of performances etc, and its accessible to me too).

Finding Genshiken interesting now that its covering new ground (Kanji gets a PC "I want to play an Iro-game that has a sex scene in the first 5 minutes" and then Madarame sets him up ... class).

Scratch Acid

The 2nd panel of page 106 in volume 2 of Genshiken is possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen. In fact that whole puyopop cosplay scene was beautiful.

I pretty much agree with what you said about Nodame. I haven't read Cheeky Angel yet though I've really wanted to start on it. I read parts of another series by the same guy which was sehr gut. Back to Nodame: One thing that kinda annoys me is that Chiaki sometimes seems like a bit of a c*nt. Although I guess if he was a nice guy the series wouldn't be all that interesting.

Edit: Yeah, the 3rd volume of Genshiken was actually the best for me I think. The beach scene, Sasahara's sister, the cleaning up of the club-room, ah the whole damn thing pretty much. New volumes of both series on the 31st of this month!

More Edit Madness: While I'm here, has anyone else noticed that Forbidden Planet in town haven't gotten any new manga releases since half-way through December, apart from the occasional release from Dark Horse and ADV?

sharingan

Loving them both, but I rationed my Nodame to just the first volume. (Del Rey releases can be a bit sluggish).

Well, I loved the Cheeky Angel anime, and love the manga as a result. Same story, bit more of it in the manga, lots of fun stuff like Genzou having 'inner-Genzou' moments that are class (no good and bad Genzou, just one slightly good Genzou and a whole lot of lecherous violent villains).

Nicely, Viz seem to be the best releases overall there schedule is very prompt and snappy.

As for december releases, I found that online places were very delayed gettign the new releases through december - pretty much January was where everything came into stock. It may not be an FP thing.

With the exeception of ADV manga like you mention ... you think they are totally dead and then Ray volume 3 appears like a winning lotto ticket pinned to a notice board. Trust them to have zero activity forever and then pipe up when noone else is deliverying stock.

Scratch Acid

sharingan wrote:

As for december releases, I found that online places were very delayed gettign the new releases through december - pretty much January was where everything came into stock. It may not be an FP thing.

Mmmm, I'd figured as much and that FP would get a huge glut of new stuff in but it hasn't happened yet. I've missed lots of tokyopop stuff as a result too. Dragonhead, Beck, Blame...argh.

sharingan

I think Tokyopop has missed a lot of Tokyopop stuff, its mostly their stuff that spilled over into January.

Del Rey releases are always a bit funny anyway.

Scratch Acid

Holy sh*t, Forbidden Planet have a great manga sale on at the moment. They've basically got all their ancient copies of old Viz releases and some other assorted stuff and priced it all at €4.00.

I picked up
Grey V.1
Grey V.2
Black and White V.2
Icaro V.1
Icaro V.2
and
Strain V.2
for a grand total of 24 euro! If I'd bought these books three weeks ago it would have cost me around 115 euro.

F*ck yes.

(The only bad thing is someone beat me to Strain 3-5. Bastard.:v: )

Edit: They also have all the volumes of FMA in, aswell as one of the novels, if anyone's been looking out for them.

honru

Cool, thanks for the heads up.

Must give them a timely visit tomorrow.

Miss Shelly

There is a new Manga publisher..(*snort* theres a couple of dozen new manga publishers)...Called Net Comics that have started producing a wide range of titles, most of which are Korean Manhwa.
Personally i'll be keeping track of Let Dai.

Another new manga publisher is Go! Media.

Scratch Acid

Miss Shelly wrote:

Another new manga publisher is Go! Media.

Go Comi's initial releases have been recieved pretty well. I'm looking forward to when they start putting out some shonen/seinen.

sharingan

Scratch Acid wrote:

Holy sh*t, Forbidden Planet have a great manga sale on at the moment. They've basically got all their ancient copies of old Viz releases and some other assorted stuff and priced it all at €4.00.

I picked up
Grey V.1
Grey V.2
Black and White V.2

Double sh*t. Grey 1&2 are out of print and out of stock. B&W2 is close. Now I really want to get there.

Scratch Acid

Both volumes of Grey are listed as available at amazon.co.uk and viz's online store, as far as I can see.

There's still some worthwhile stuff in the sale: the whole run of Astro Boy, most of Shadow Star....

Also, while I'm praising FP, there is an offer on manga at the moment; any 3 books for €25, which is a pretty sweet deal.

Alllllso: They are actually getting in a fair amount of new releases from Viz which is unprecedented! Latest volumes of Hikaru No Go, Dr. Slump, Eyeshield 21 (before I bought them ), Death Note, Prince of Tennis, Shaman King, Bleach, Naruto, Ultimate Muscle, a couple of Shojo Beat GNs... (Not 'Nana', unfortunately)

And lastly: They are back on track with (some) TP and (most) Del Rey releases.

Fair play!

Eva24

Fp must be clearing out the back catalogue. They had all the Viz reprints of Rumiko Takahashi, you know, where they reduce the physical size to about that of the average tokyopop volume and knock a tenner off the previous price
They had one of the older prints of Maison Ikkoku which was priced cheaper than the editions we're getting now

sharingan

Scratch Acid wrote:

Alllllso: They are actually getting in a fair amount of new releases from Viz which is unprecedented!

Might be due to Viz having a lot of releases recently. Viz stuff is good and popular, perhaps they have realised that they should buy in more than one volume at a time

Latest volumes of Hikaru No Go, Dr. Slump, Eyeshield 21 (before I bought them ), Death Note, Prince of Tennis, Shaman King, Bleach, Naruto, Ultimate Muscle, a couple of Shojo Beat GNs... (Not 'Nana', unfortunately)

The Shojo Beat stuff was probably Full Moon o Saga****e & Baby and Me (wish I could get the anime for that). Nana is only just out I believe.

And lastly: They are back on track with (some) TP and (most) Del Rey releases.

Fair play!

January was a bumper month - a whole pile of stuff got released that was delayed since December (especially Tokyopop, but Del Rey stuff to an extent as well).

honru

bedlam wrote:

It's a bit misleading. I asked one of the staff about what was included in the 3 for 25 and was told it was only books that were marked as such.

The sale is for any manga situated on the large middle shelves in the right compartment (states that on one of the signs), so the books on the corner shelves are excluded. Obviously you've noticed that by now; at the time I knew getting high-priced manga for little money would be too good to be true. :v:

Has anyone read the Prince of Tennis manga? Is it considered better than the anime?

Scratch Acid

bedlam wrote:

It's a bit misleading. I asked one of the staff about what was included in the 3 for 25 and was told it was only books that were marked as such.

I'm fairly sure it includes everything in the main shelves in the center of the floor, but not the shelves above the €4 books.

sharingan wrote:

The Shojo Beat stuff was probably Full Moon o Saga****e & Baby and Me (wish I could get the anime for that). Nana is only just out I believe.

It was Crimson Hero and Ultra Maniac I think. I think you may be confusing Baby & Me and Nana, the first volume of the former is just out and the first volume of the latter came out in December.

Sorry for being pedantic, I can't help myself.

Edit: Beaten on the first point. Booo.

peterwilson

Anyone know is the older version of Appleseed better than the new one?
Thanks
pw

carbonkid

peterwilson wrote:

Anyone know is the older version of Appleseed better than the new one?
Thanks
pw

I know loads of ppl will argue this but imho - appleseed whether old or done up in CGI sucks ass ¬_¬

omegoku

The Appleseed manga was very good, but it was left unfinished.. which really sucks..
The old anime sucked imo..
The new CGI movie was really cool and blew Advent Children out of the water