I LOVED Koko wa  Greenwood, partially because it was my big translation project in high school. But it is a fabulous off beat series, and wonderful. I've always liked Erika Sakurawazawa's stuff, as well as Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss -I can see dollface digging that one with me. dolly, seriously, you should cosplay as Caroline/Yukari. You're both tall, slender, and gorgeous.

And so far, I love Tramps Like Us. I can't reccommend it enough. It's got a strong, well rounded main female character and some fabulous characterizations. I'll write more when I don't have such a shitty keyboard.

Cerise wrote:

I'm currently reading Kare Kano, although admittedly I'm having to put it on hold until I get more volumes.  I'm through the second volume, and found it to be fun and charming.

Its a great series, I got all 21 volumes at home, the Arima Arc takes on a very serious tone.

MissMocha wrote:

I LOVED Koko wa Greenwood, partially because it was my big translation project in high school. But it is a fabulous off beat series, and wonderful.

Its very very random but I loved it, I only wished I had the last 2 volumes thou.

MissMocha wrote:

I've always liked Erika Sakurawazawa's stuff, as well as Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss -I can see dollface digging that one with me. dolly, seriously, you should cosplay as Caroline/Yukari. You're both tall, slender, and gorgeous.

Ooo, I love the five volumes of Sakurazawa works I've read (the ones brought over by Tokyopop).  I also loved ParaKiss, which was quite the treat given that I didn't particularly like the anime much at all.  The only thing the anime really did well, in my opinion, was Isabella.  It just felt like she had more depth in the anime than she did in the manga.

And so far, I love Tramps Like Us. I can't reccommend it enough. It's got a strong, well rounded main female character and some fabulous characterizations. I'll write more when I don't have such a shitty keyboard.

I've got the first 11 volumes of that one, but I haven't had the chance to start it just yet, I'm really looking forward to it though.

Great thread idea! I actually read manga moreso than watch anime, mostly because it's portable and cheap.

At the moment I'm working through Death note, but I also have some Loveless and Count Cain volumes which I have to read. Count Cain is fun, but not quite as refined as Angel Sanctary. Kaori Yuki uses the Victorian setting well, though.

I hope to start reading nana soon, once I borrow it from a friend. And I've been trying to get through my Fruits Basket manga for months. I loved the series more than I could say, but sort of overestimated my understanding of Japanese and bought a very cheap 19 vol manga set from eBay. It was an amazing deal - $30 for 19 volumes and the entire series on DVD. But it takes me two hours to read one volume.

I read the Kare Kano manga a couple years ago and really enjoyed it, but I think the anime is a much better adaption of the story.(it has that 'gainax' feel to it.)

BlackRoseVixen wrote:

Now...onto something that is NOT yaoi. I found this amazing manga last year and have been in love with it ever since. It's called Bizenghast. It tells the story of a lonely little girl named Dinah who lost her parents in a car crash. Ever since then, she's been able to see ghosts and spirits. They torment her, and the only person who brings her peace and happiness is her best friend, a boy named Vincent. After getting roped into a contract where she has to set free the unresting spirits of the dead, Dinah and her town of Bizenghast are never going to be the same. Macob and mystery lie ahead for Dinah and Vincent. Can the two come out of this deal alive? They just have to keep one thing in mind: Not Every Lost Soul Is A Lost Cause.

I've considered Bizenghast before, but I'm a bit of a snob and have avoided "world manga" to this point because Dramacon is the only one I've seen a good review on.

Since you seem to read a lot of yaoi, have you read Eerie Queerie?  I recently received it from a friend, and have no idea what I'm about to get myself into.  Should be...weird...given that I'm more of a yuri fan (heck, there are very few het relationships I can stand in manga/anime--I think it's adding the boy to the equation.)

I'm much, much more of a manga buyer than that of anime. I must admit though, I cheat sometimes and get scanlations sometimes when I get impatient. I buy the awaiting volume eventually. The American releases are so slow to translate sometimes!

Here's the stuff I read:

NANA - Because we already agreed that it's flippin' sweet!

Ouran High School Host Club - I cheat on this because Viz is too slow! Still, I'm addicted to this series. I'm not liking how it's dragging at the moment though. It's getting interesting though because certain things are developing. Volume 11 and 12 will definately explain what I'm talking about. I hate it when shoujo manga gets too long though. This series better not pull off a Fruits Basket because the plot's been going around in circles. Like I said though, things are definately moving forward.

Someday's Dreamers - This one is all right. It's very touching and heartwarming. There are acutally two different ones: the original and a new arc called Spellbound. The latter is a lot more interesting but you'd have to read both to understand. The final volume of Spellbound should be out in a couple days.

And my favorites:

Kodomo no Omocha - The anime was full of spaz. I didn't like it that much. However, the manga is just beautiful to read and I cried a bunch of times while pouring through the ten volumes. It's quite good.

Chobits - CLAMP's manga are usually always better than the anime counterparts. This one especially. It was one of the early works where they used that new, simplified art style. I remember I got the box for this when the last volume came out. Yes, with the figure!

Planet Ladder - Josei manga. I don't know why I liked this one so much. Probably because it was Josei.

Fruits Basket - I used to despise this because of the popularity. However, it's amazing that it's been going for eight years and four months and 23 volumes. I cheated on this one too. In my opinion, it only gets good halfway through when Tohru isn't quite the airhead she seems to be. That's also the point where the fluffiness seems to end (thank goodness). Very nice and tear-jerking end though.

Ayashi no Ceres - Love this! I think I've been a huge fan ever since it came to the States! Beautiful art by Yuu Watase. I think My art style might have been mostly impred by her (I think the way I draw hair). This one is good. It's got everything everyone on the forum would like.

There are others but I can't seem to remember them all! I have too many in my possession. Scanlations are all right too, however, I'm sure that's a controversial thing like the fansubs. I don't think they're as much of a problem since manga is getting cheaper and cheaper. I think the lowest price I've seen is around $7. That's what most regular books cost nowadays. Remember when manga was nowhere under $10? Remember Viz used to charge $15 for their releases (ie Utena)? I liked the binding on those though. They last a long time.

Rae wrote:

Kodomo no Omocha - The anime was full of spaz. I didn't like it that much. However, the manga is just beautiful to read and I cried a bunch of times while pouring through the ten volumes. It's quite good.

I read Kodocha this past autumn, and right now I'm working on the anime.  Yeah, the spazzing in the anime just doesn't seem right to me.  The manga was so funny and yet so touching, whereas the anime can still be touching, but it's not particularly amusing to me when it comes to its 'humor.'  The only thing I have against the manga is that final arc.  I really disliked it, felt it was overblown, unbelievable, etc.  I found myself trudging through the last two volumes, just wanting that arc to end.  It's really a shame, because the rest of the series completely blew me away.

Anyway, today I was in the stacks pulling materials that had been requested via interlibrary loan.  I had just picked up a book, and when I turned around, what do I find?  A small collection of manga.  I grabbed the first 3 volumes of Buddha, all the volumes of Imadoki!, The Push Man, and I think something else, but maybe not.  They also have some of The Wallflower which works well for me, as I don't like it well enough to buy, but at the same time kind of want to finish it to see if it improves.  There's not much else there, but I was very happy to find Buddha (too bad volume 6 wasn't there, or I would have gotten volumes 1-8.)

Adrasteia wrote:

! It sounds like you have the exact same job as me - I retrieve books in the university's library to send away to storage/other districts of the school.

Until recently I didn't actually retrieve the books, but they had mercy on me after 6 months of setting up deflections in WorldCat and now let me do 'active' things like retrieving books for an hour, scanning, etc. before I work on deflections.  So merciful--setting up deflections was a tedious, repetitive, and absolutely mind-numbing task (although very important for interlibrary loan.)

Er, sorry, back on topic now.  Sounds like Eerie Queerie will be a hoot, which is nice to know.  I enjoy light-hearted fare almost as much as the stuff with real meat to it.

Imaginary Bad BugI bought [i wrote:

Chobits[/i] as it was released; that's a great series too. It's a lot more detailed than the anime, and also it crosses over with Angelic Layer. (as a side note for the uninitiated, the Chobits manga is a quasi-sequel to the Angelic Layer manga.  However, virtually none of the connections made it into the respective anime for each.)

I did too! I think those were some of the first mangas that were released in the original Japanese format? I know Viz did this with DBZ before that though. Oh! Speaking of those first releases from Tokyopop ...

Mars. I can't believe I forgot to list this one!

Rae wrote:

Mars. I can't believe I forgot to list this one!

Is that one as good as it sounds?  I've been considering picking it up, but haven't yet.

Anyway, I've started Imadoki!.  Not sure if it's just halting translation or what, but volume one had a lot of problems with being very jerky and not flowing well, but it seems interesting enough, I suppose.  Very Boys over Flowers.

Cerise: Yes, Mars is good. I haven't finished it yet though.

I see that a lot here like josei (women's) manga. One other one you might want to read is Planet Ladder. It's pretty interesting.

I think that there should be more English releases of one-shot (single volume) manga. One weird one I read was Dolis. It's colored and the artwork is pretty. It's pretty weird though.

Maarika wrote:

Seconded. The manga is rather good, I haven't seen the OVA yet, but I heard they are following the manga more, so here's hoping that it's better than the series was.
And it has suits/uniforms in large quantities. And vampires. And Integra!

Frankly, I prefer the series. The OVA is a perfect example for why following the manga too closely will make anime bad. The only good thing about it is manga-Integra. The animation looks both expensive and crappy, the "funny" SD scenes that work well enough in a comic book completely break the mood of the anime and finally, the plot suffers horribly when the events of comic book format get translated almost directly into animation. And the music that was original and created an excellent mood in the series has been turned into boring and generic in the OVA. I can't understand whose brilliant idea it was to put the only memorable piece in the end credits.

In manga, I recommend almost anything made by Masamune Shirow, though be warned that especially his newer work, like the Man-Machine Interface will take several readings and a great deal of trouble to understand.

In comedy, Rikdo Koshi's Excel Saga wins in all accounts. Unlike the anime, which was hilarious in itself, the manga has a plot and the characters are more than just walking jokes; at times Excel even comes off as intelligent and dryly insightful! It still hasn't lost the funny, either and new characters (i.e. those who didn't make it to the anime) complement the old ones magnificently. For example, you can't appreciate Excel's level-headed side (yes, you read right) before you've been introduced with Elgala.