Manga Digest: Eye Candy
Cute girls are what I look for in manga.
When I originally applied to Metanorn, I had the hope of making a lot of manga posts to plug all of the awesome series that I love. Obviously, I haven’t actually done that, but after some subtle prodding from Kyokai (eg. “You should do a manga post”) I decided to get off my lazy ass and make it happen. I definitely read way more manga than the average person here, and having too much time on my hands is not the reason why. While it’s sometimes fresh to read the manga that an anime was based off of, it’s rare that I’ll bother to take the time to read the same story multiple times. Nor will I recommend any manga to you here if the anime has already been covered. There are cases where I’ll get so attached to characters that I think it’s worth it (eg. Bungaku Shoujo), but the real reason that I want you guys to read manga is more obvious. There is just way more manga out there than there is anime, and there are many great series that never make it to TV. If you don’t dive into the world of manga, you are missing out. But you knew that, right?
Hoshi’s been doing a great job with her recommendations, and you should definitely check out her posts if you haven’t already. I particularly like the dark series that she highlights because that’s the kind of stuff I’m into, and I’m actually going to pretty much copy her format here. What I want to do right now, though, is twofold. First, I want to provide a guy’s perspective on manga. Yeah, guys, we can’t let the manga section get dominated by girls. So far it’s been kanzeon, Ryuuko, and Hoshi. Incidentally, I think my tastes actually match pretty closely with kanzeon’s, but eww she has cooties. It’s time to add some testosterone to the mix. Second, I am going to try to focus on series that are easy to get into. I promise you that they will have good art, great stories, and less than 453891 chapters. Pinky promise.
While I’m tempted to spam you all with horror manga, that might not be the best way to suck you guys in. Also, the best ones have already been covered, but that’s just a minor detail. My theme today is going to be “pleasing art.” They aren’t necessarily the most detailed artwork, but, to me, they’re all very fun to look at. Nothing will ever bother you about the way these manga are drawn. I love the stories, too, but top notch art is the most important factor to me for a first impression, so I won’t expect anything less from your critical eyes.
Tasogare Otome X Amnesia
Author: Maybe
Genre(s): mystery, supernatural, horror, school life, romance
Status: Ongoing
Volumes: 4
Year: 2008
Summary: A young woman, by some strange occurrence, was left to die alone in the former building of the Academy for Sincere Teachings. Mysteriously, there is one person who can see her in ghost form: Niiya Teiichi, a freshman. Now they both seek to find out the reasoning behind her death, and what could have caused it.
Thoughts: Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to spam you with horror manga, but trust me on this, this series is AMAZING. While I initially got into the series because of the horror tag, the only horror about it is that the female lead is a ghost. No gore, no blood (not much, if any), nothing really scary. The series carries on like a school life supernatural mystery, where Teiichi is trying to learn about Yuuko’s (the ghost) death by investigating the ghost stories and rumors that make their way around the school. The chapters start from 0, which is usually a one-shot, but in this case it’s actually the beginning of the story. Right off the bat, Teiichi gets drafted into Yuuko’s spontaneously created, unofficial Paranormal Investigations Club. This sets the scene for the rest of the series, and they waste no time getting right to work on the first mystery, introduced in chapter 0. The story doesn’t move slowly in any way, likely because this is a monthly publication. Unfortunately, this also means that we only get one chapter a month… because it’s monthly.
My favorite part about this series, besides the art, is the way Teiichi and Yuuko interact. Yuuko pretty much acts like any normal girl, aside from being unusually bold towards Teiichi, and she takes every chance she can to play jokes on Teiichi or make him uncomfortable. If you think about the loneliness that she must have experienced during her time as a ghost, and you can understand why she can’t help but mess around with Teiichi. And these silly moments are mingled within a more serious question, the answer of which seems to be getting closer and closer, yet always just out of reach: why is Yuuko here? This question hangs above everything the two investigate, but each story arc is unique and interesting enough that you sometimes forget about it until it’s over.
Guys, this is my favorite ongoing manga by a huge margin. If you only ever read one thing that I recommend, let it be Tasogare Otome X Amnesia – The Twilight Maiden of Amnesia.
Sankarea
Author: Hattori Mitsuru
Genre(s): comedy, ecchi, romance, supernatural
Status: Ongoing
Volumes: 2
Year: 2009
Summary: Furuya’s obsessed with zombies. He collects any figurines, watches any movie, and plays any game with the living dead, and is even only interested in zombie girls. When his cat dies, Furuya begins trying to raise it from the dead using an ancient book of the occult he bought from a shop. But what will happen when he sees the idol of a nearby all girl’s school walking close to where he conducts his experiment, wishing to die and be reborn as a different person?
Thoughts: I thought this series was originally tagged with the horror genre, but it seems to have vanished. No matter, though, as it’s not really a horror manga anyway. The summary isn’t entirely accurate, as it makes it sound like the eponymous heroine Sanka Rea is suicidal or something, but I won’t spoil the details for you. I will say that, like in Tasogare Otome, the story picks up very quickly in the first three chapters, so it never feels like there’s a lull in the story or anything like that. Again, I think that’s the double-edged sword of monthly publications.
It’s hard for me to write about this manga without spoiling a lot of details, so I’ll just point out that this is not a gag manga or lovey-dovey romance. Nor is it a harem or, despite having the ecchi tag, excessively fanservicey. It actually deals with some fairly serious issues, where Furuya has to play a sort of unlikely, plain guardian, while throwing in jokes and romance whenever the opportunity arises. Furuya himself is a hilarious character – he’s a wisecracking zombie otaku with a sincere side. While he’s somewhat clueless about girls, he’s also not an indecisive idiot. Furuya’s resolve is one of the things that keeps driving the story forward instead of degrading into a pointless love comedy.
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Author: Hirasaka Yomi
Artist: Itachi
Genre(s): comedy, romance, school life
Status: Ongoing
Volumes: 1
Year: 2010
Summary: Hasegawa Kodaka has transferred schools, and he’s having a hard time making friends. It doesn’t help that his blond hair tends to make people think he’s a delinquent. One day, he runs into his bad-tempered solitary classmate Yozora while she’s talking animatedly to her imaginary friend Tomo. Realizing that neither of them have any actual friends, they decide that the best way to alter this situation is to form a club and start recruiting.
That is how “Rinjinbu” was formed, a club specifically designed for people who don’t have very many friends. As other lonely classmates slowly join their little club, they’ll try to learn how to build friendships through cooking together, playing games, and other group activities. But will this group of relationship-challenged misfits really be able to get along?
Thoughts: This is a manga based off of the light novel with the same name. I think the premise itself is pretty cute. The title means “I don’t have many friends,” and they’re literally making a club focused on making friends. While it kind of sounds like one of those self-help seminars designed to “empower” you, keep in mind that none of these people actually have friends. They have no idea what they should do, and their ideas on how to make friends are totally warped. It’s basically the blind leading the blind, and the results are hilarious.
Each character has this glaring character trait that completely explains why they don’t have friends. It differs from person to person, but they range from being pretty realistic to downright ridiculous. And, when you put them all together, you get a lot of amusing interactions between the members. The story isn’t very far yet, though, so only a few of the club members have been introduced after the prologue. These club members are pretty funny in their own right, but I’m hoping to see new ones joining soon. Overall, the atmosphere is light and humorous, though sometimes you can get a glimpse into the characters’ hearts. It really is lonely to have no friends, even if you tell yourself that it’s okay. Yozora is a particularly poignant character to me because, despite her nasty attitude (and I mean NASTY), she’s well aware of her ineptness at relationships and wishes she could, well, make friends.
All of these series are relatively recent and short, so they are easy to catch up on. Tasogare Amnesia is the longest, and I expect it’d take someone around 1-2 hours to read through all of the chapters so far. If you’ve been put off on reading manga because of the sheer number of chapters to go through, now’s your chance to jump into good series without committing a massive amount of time getting yourself up to speed on the chapters. I really hope you all consider it!
About sassy
Follower of both dark and mysterious horrors and funny and pointless comedies. Fascinated with ghosts and the supernatural. Friendly and talkative, but I will kill you if you get between me and Itou Kanae.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular and Bassun-yo~ with 118 comments
http://t.co/NoubMl7
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Rofl
POWUH: Metanorn Regular and Bassun-yo~ with 118 comments
I actually was planning on writing about two of the three manga you wrote here.
Beat me to the punch lol. Oh well, I think I might writer about the zoo manga, it gets surprisingly awesome towards the newer chapters :3
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
I was about to delete that first comment before I realized who/what it was, lol.
I don’t remember how far I got in that zoo one, but I just remember getting bored with the animal characters. It seems like it’s a good action/fantasy manga, it just didn’t really suit my tastes.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular and Bassun-yo~ with 118 comments
Lol it does look like spam. If it was, its the most epic spam in the world.
Anyways, you should keep on reading the zoo manga (after you read ES21). It gets really good, I’m loving it right now
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Sankarea- Yes! awesome manga lol so funny too xD the main girl looks so much like Saten off Railgun <3 it
ES21 NOooooooooooooooo!! JKJK ill look at it Bass I swear…
As for the other two! I shall add them to the read list xD
POWUH: Metanorn Regular and Bassun-yo~ with 118 comments
Good man 🙂
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Good, I am holding you to your word.
POWUH: iLurker with 17 comments
I know all these series 🙂 All of them are very interesting!
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Yeah, I tried to pick three of my favorites here 😀
POWUH: Meta Resident and Metanorn's Hime-chan~ with 1758 comments
I’ve been really lazy lately……. T____T
A lot of good manga to check out, but…..
It’s adding up! *0*
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
It won’t take you very long to get through all three of these series!
POWUH: Meta Resident and Metanorn's Hime-chan~ with 1758 comments
Yeah, I know ^^
But out of these 3 I think I’ll most likely check out only Tasogare Otome X Amnesia…… ))
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I always say “Yeah, I’ll read those!” but never do. I hope I actually go out and read manga, because as you mentioned, a lot of manga never make it to TV. I need to read more @_@
Awesome post Sassy~ Adding some Y chromosome to the manga posts~
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
I think reading manga is easy because you can do it quickly. In the time it takes you to watch 2 episodes of anime, you could get through 5-10 chapters of a manga. So think about that next time you have an urge to start a random anime series!
POWUH: Meta Team and Ringleader Extraordinaire~ with 6433 comments
Ooh me likey~ <3
Will definitely check some out.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Then you should hit Tasogare Otome first! It’s the best IMO.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 107 comments
I’m rather familiar with Tasogare Otome X Amnesia & Sankarea, since I often see it in mangaupdate release 😀
Already set my eyes for those two, but don’t know when I’m going to read it :p
As for Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, I’ll check it first 🙂
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Boku wa Tomodachi is the quickest one to get through, but I highly recommend reading them all because I love them all.
POWUH: iLurker with 15 comments
Tosogare Otome x Amnesia is the only one of these i’m actually reading.
Did you know the writer/artist, Maybe, used to do Hentai manga? >_>
Yeah, i read a few works.
But uh, ya, back to that mango there, it’s got a really interesting story, despite the fact that Teiichi’s younger than i imagined… 12-13 i believe. Too young. Too much Sexual Tension between him and hot ghost Yuuko.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Yeah I know, I saw them when I was looking for more of his works. I don’t think I read anything explicit though, just some very suggestive one shots.
Teiichi should be indeed 12-13 since he’s a 1st year middle schooler, but everyone knows that manga characters are either 5 years more mature or 5 years less mature than their actual ages ;D
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 339 comments
Oh! I was looking at ‘Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai’ earlier, but passed it for some reason. Guess I’ll need to read it now, looks good 😀
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Good, I don’t think you’ll regret it 🙂
POWUH: 800-899 and Self-proclaimed Manga Queen with 874 comments
~Oh I see how it is, copying my style now sassy?? Hahaha I’m just kidding. You’re right, there needs to be a boys opinion on manga once in a while because no matter how much I try, there’s always some girlie aspect to my manga posts x’D
Nice selection! Can’t go wrong with some eye candy. I think I’ll mainly read the first one though because I need some more horror/mystery to read~.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Yeah, no need to reinvent the wheel, so I just stole your format because it’s good :p
I’m hesitant to call Tasogare a horror, as there’s nothing really scary about it. I like the mystery aspect of it, though. The main mystery is about Yuuko, but in day to day activities they don’t “solve” mysteries per se… more like… they “resolve” them… if you get what I mean. Well, you will.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Yōko Fanboy with 1246 comments
Dude… Sassy… I took one look at the header pictures and I mistakened the girl on the right for Mio Akiyama from K-ON x3 I’m SOOOO reading these, especially the last one, comedy? check, romance? check, and school life? double check~ ^^
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
I think everyone looks like Mio to you, lol.
That character in the header is Yozora, but I think it’d be a funny exercise for you to pretend that she actually is Mio.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Yōko Fanboy with 1246 comments
I swear she looks like Mio! xP But yes it would be a funny exercise wouldn’t it? But I don’t think I’ll ignore the fact that she is still Yozora, I’ll just keep saying in my mind that Yozora looks like Mio~ x3
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Critique with 1024 comments
While cute girls arent what I look for in a manga, I probably should read some of these. I’m so out of sync with manga today, sad times.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
The one liner was kind of a joke, as shounen/seinen manga are pretty much all required to have cute girls in them. I picked these because I was so drawn to their art, and I also thought they’re a good place to start for people who just want to try out manga casually.
But I guarantee satisfaction! 100%!
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 322 comments
I READ TASOGARE OTOME X AMNESIA!!
IT’S SOOOOOO GOOD!!!
I LOVE IT!!! >W<
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 234 comments
Hell yeah, high five.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 88 comments
Geez there’s so much romance, are you sure this is a manga post from the guy’s prospective? lol jkjk. These girls are very cute indeed :3 (They’re all kind of similar though, long black hair + straightish-cut bangs, dark eyes…) I like Tasogare Otome X Amnesia!
The third one sounds interesting, so I think I’ll try that one out! A club for loners lulz
POWUH: Beginner (20-35) with 22 comments
BLACK HAIRED GIRLS FTW
:3 well I REALLY DO LOVE BOKU WA TOMODACHI SUKUNAI XD I would like to see it on anime ! owo
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
This is gonna be my first post, but man oh man this manga digest was EPIC!!!
All 3 of the mangas you suggested had long haired heroines and thats automatically a win~ so time to get readin~
Can’t wait till ur next manga digest post !!! keep up the good work 🙂 🙂 🙂