Looking for a good manga

[yoshi88]

Alright, sorry for the spam (this is my third thread today ) but apart from introducing myself and asking for advice about anime, I'd also like some tips on good manga to start reading. I actually found some manga by accident on the Huffington Post (I never knew they offered manga on their website) and thought it was quite fun.

So please, being a total newb with a (long lost) background in Dragonball and Pokemon, help me out and give me some tips regarding manga that may be suitable for me.

 

Thanks a lot!

[ssjup81]

It would help if you specified what type of genres you like in general. It would make recommending stuff a tad easier, even if you did mention Pokemon and Dragonball.

 

That aside, here are some I made in another thread...

 

Marmalade Boy. Even though the anime, imo, wasn't all that great since it did create some nonexistent drama, I feel the manga is an interesting read and the lead character Miki wasn't constantly insecure, like the anime made her out to be. Much better in the manga, imo, but I do have a slight nostalgia and soft spot for its anime, especially if I hear the opening theme.

 

*clears throat* Here's a short synopsis.

 

 

This story is about a girl named Miki. She's in high school. She has a strange living situation. Her parents ended up swapping partners and remarrying. They now all live together under one roof and with the new couple, was their son, Yuu. Miki starts to have feelings for Yuu, but feels strange about these feelings because they're technically now related, albeit by marriage...but there is a twist to this..

So yeah, not much else I can think of without spoiling it. The story goes up into Miki's adult years (I think university). There are also other characters, like Miki's best female friend who is smart, pretty, and popular, but never accepts dates...but don't want to spoil it.

 

Let's see, what else....oh, how about Fruits Basket?

It's about a selfless girl (this is actually one of her character flaws) named Tohru. Her mother passed away and she didn't want to be a burden on her grandfather and her aunt/cousins so she lived out of a tent in the woods. She's in her first year of high school, iirc (that's where it starts) and she also works a part-time job at an office building to pay for her school things.

 

One day, she returned to her tent to see that it was damaged and that the property she was on, was actually owned by her popular classmate's (Yuki) super rich family. While going through the damage, she passed out from a fever, iirc, and they had no choice but to take her in. Anyway, the family has a curse, and Tohru accidentally discovers it.

 

 

If you don't mind a jousei series, maybe check out Kimi wa Pet.

This is about a woman named Sumire. She's a hardworker and fluent in English. She works at an international publisher, I think it was.

 

Anyway, she finds a boy (well....he's an adult too, but like college-aged) and he has no place to go. He was hurt or something like that pretty badly. She took him in, but they made an arrangement so that he could stay with her. He would act as her pet. No one knows of this set up, 'cept for Sumire's best friend who also has an issue dealing with her husband. Oh and it's not as demeaning as it sounds. It's not like she ties him on a leash and walks him or whatever. lol

 

Sumire is very shielded with her emotions and has trouble expressing them. Being around "Momo", she's able to actually open up over the course of the series

 

 

Oh, Gokusen! That's also an interesting series, imo.

This series is about a woman named Kumiko. She's a recent university graduate. For years, her dream was to become a teacher...but she has a secret life.

 

She's actually the granddaughter of a powerful Yakuza boss and next in line to take everything over. She's been raised in Yakuza fashion all of her life, but knows that if it's ever revealed, it would get in the way of her dream of teaching so she goes to great lengths to hide it.

 

She does get a teaching position, but it's at one of the toughest schools in the area filled with delinquents. An all-boy school where fights are quite common. She becomes the teacher to a really rough group of boys and they give her the nickname "Yankumi". They try to break her, but they realize they can't and start to respect her.

 

One of the students, Shin, is a very bright student and there's a story as to why he's stuck in that school, compared to the other boys as he really isn't much of a delinquent and his grades aren't bad, so it's strange that he's in such a school.

So yeah, I do recommend this one as well. This is also another jousei series, but I love it personally. They also made a live-action drama of this series, but it's different from the manga. I only watched the first. The students she started with graduated and they brought in new characters...so I couldn't fully get into it.

 

There was also a live-action drama of Kimi wa Pet. I couldn't get into that one either, but iroically, the actor/singer who played Shin in Gokusen played Momo in Kimi wa Pet. Just realized it. lol

 

Oh and the other recommendation, +Anima. I highly recommend this underrated series.

It deals with being an outcast, similar to the X-Men I guess or even something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, people fear them or ostracize them because they're "different".

 

This story stars a 12 or 11-year-old boy named Cooro. He is what you call a +Anima. It tends to affect children most, this condition. Usually, if in a bad or life-threatening situation, children tend to gain the abilities or the spirit of an animal of some sort. For Cooro, he's a crow. He's an interesting character, but...you don't actually get inside his head much or know what he's truly feeling about certain things. He's the type that lets people choose their own paths and make up their own minds and never presses matters. He's on a quest to find more +Anima for a reason that's not revealed until later in the story. Cooro is also very open about his +Anima status and doesn't always hide his wings and other "crow" traits. In other words, he's 100% content with being a +Anima and claimed he was "born a +Anima" which is strange.

 

Along the way, he meets up with three others. A boy named Husky (he has a fish +Anima). Cooro sees that he was captured and rescued him and they started to travel together. He's a year younger than Cooro and is very serious with a love for jewels. You discover how he became a fish +Anima and how he seems to know a lot about jewels as the series goes on. One thing Husky does hate, though, is being mistaken for a girl because of his feminine looks. He also hates women and girls, probably because he gets mistaken as one so often and for another reason revealed later on which is connected to how he gained his +Anima.

 

Senri is the next one they meet. He's 16 and is part of a tribe called the Kim-un-kur (sp?) which actually praises +Anima and embraces it if someone becomes one. Roughly based on Native Americans. He has a bear +Anima. The way he got his is very tragic and sad and because of the trauma, he has a very poor memory and doesn't speak very much, but he's super strong and a great cook. You find out more about his story as it goes on. In order for Senri to remember things, he carries around a book and puts pressed flowers into it. It helps to trigger a memory. You find out as the story goes on how he even came to receive that book and how the notion was used to keep things as keepsakes in the book.

 

The last to join the group is Nana, who is the same age as Husky. These two clash at first because of Husky's dislike of girls and because Nana actually stole Husky's pearl necklace he was keeping (in case they needed money). Nana has a bat +Anima. Her story was a sad one too and the ironic thing about Nana is that she doesn't like the dark, despite her having a bat as a +Anima. Husky has a slight fear of water too, despite having a fish +Anima.

 

The group is traveling, trying to find a place to call home. In their world, +Anima are discriminated against and in some parts, are kept as slaves. The kids end up doing odd jobs for money from time to time, but occasionally end up in certain situations.

 

It was said that children to eventually lose their +Anima, when it 's no longer needed for them to "survive".

Can also check out this thread...I made about this series...

 

+Anima

[drill]

I would highly recommend reading:

 

Relife

Owari no Seraph

Pandora Hearts

The World God Only Knows

[Koppain]

I don't know what you are into but I have been reading Fullmetal Alchemist in the last few days. Its also my first manga series.

[FSL29]

suitable, huh.. you didnt specify what genre do you like nor how long the series, so Im just going to list my favorites.

ReLife, Kaminomi (like @drill said)

then Assassination Classroom (Ansatsu kyoushitsu), One Piece, Nisekoi(proceeds with extreme caution because it might cause some anger while reading).

Edited September 29, 2015 by Guest