Manga & Anime Recommendations

Bumping my request for more shounen and seinen manga of decent length with well-written characters/plot.

I think you've probably already read more than just about anyone in this thread can recommend, Lem.

Honestly, I think we all want that. Well, ok, I take well written characters and plot no matter what weird demographic label they stick on it.

Prepare for a Long List: Log Horizon, Zettai Karen Children, Scrapped Princess, Manabi Straight!, Figure17, Dog Days, Kotoura-san, the Slayers franchise, and From the New World.

You've probably read it, but perhaps Parasyte?

@Noa: Maybe, but I put great trust in my fellow tropers' abilities to find rare and obscure works that I won't check out otherwise.

@Ninja: Thank you for your recommendations! Reading From The New World now, and finding it very interesting.

@Majora: Thank you for your recommendation. I hadn't heard of it before and I read about 15 chapters, but I'm afraid it's too much Body Horror for me.

edited 22nd Aug '14 3:11:50 AM by Lemurian

about From the New World: I just finished watching the Animated Adaptation last night, and it makes Puella Magi Madoka Magica look like Teletubbies!

edited 22nd Aug '14 11:01:22 AM by aNinjaWithAIDS

>Bumping my request for more shounen and seinen manga of decent length with well-written characters/plot.

The works of Tsutomu Takahashi don't get anywhere near enough love. Sidooh has some of the best art i've seen in the industry but it doesn't even have a tropes page. Jiraishin and Skyhigh are both great too.

Innocent's plot is decent at best but the art and storytelling makes it worth reading. Again, easily some of the best art in the industry.

Tropical Citron is batshit weird and probably not the thing that would come to most people's minds when thinking about "great characters and storyline" but it's definitely a unique read and (imo) pretty compelling all the same.

Lament of the Lamb/HitsujinoUta was good from what I read of it, though I haven't finished it.

Also I know you asked for "decent length" but Bradherley's Coach is such a well-drawn and well-written short story collection that I have to recommend it anyway. I should probably warn you that it's pretty fucked up though.

You might also be interested in this: http://madthejoint.wordpress.com/

guy regularly updates this blog when new chapters of little known (and sometimes well-known) seinen. i found some cool stuff through it, for example i didn't know Boichi was working on something other than Sun-Ken Rock until I found that blog.

edited 22nd Aug '14 2:39:27 PM by wehrmacht

^^ Yeah, I hear the Anime is a bit different from the manga, so I'll be sure to check that out later as well.

^ Thanks for your recommendations, both series and blog. However, I'm very averse to rape and related subjects in my fiction, so I'll be skipping Bradherly's Coach. If there's any of that in the others you've recommended, please let me know.

edited 22nd Aug '14 5:13:20 PM by Lemurian

Oh, I see. Unfortunately Tsutomu Takahashi's works usually tend to have some sort of sexual assault present as part of the dark nature of his stories, so you probably don't want to read most of them. One of the few that didn't have any that I can recall is Hito Hitori Futari (which was good from what i read), but I didn't finish reading it.

I don't remember Tropical Citron all THAT well but I believe it also has similar subject matter so you might want to err on the side of caution and not read it.

edited 22nd Aug '14 6:26:21 PM by wehrmacht

Oh, I see. Thanks anyway.

I finally watched Kiki's Delivery Service for the first time, and I really enjoyed the music and scenery for the film. But I also felt sad watching this movie, and remembering it was Phil Hartman's final film role before his tragic murder in 1998. Making the scene where Kiki loses her powers and can no longer hear Jiji talk to her very eerie to watch. The credits especially got me the most, especially the In Memoriam part for Hartman. Please tell me I'm not the only one that felt like this when watching the movie.

So I really want to start watching more anime/reading more manga. Mainly reading more manga because I'm not sure how my Southern Baptist father would react to a Japanese cartoon playing on his TV, but I'm unsure where to start. So I'm asking TV Tropes for help.

These are the criteria for the manga I want to start reading:

-Has to be set in the real world. This is a must for me. Whether it's in the present, in the past, in the future, in the post-apocalyptic future, I don't care. It just has to be set in some form of the world I live in, or I won't be able to connect with the story.

-Focus on the story. This is another big one. A manga with graphic illustrations of samurai battles might be good for five minutes, but without any kind of storyline it will get boring for me.

-Geared towards men. Since I'm a guy, the manga I want to read should preferably be built for the male side of the reader spectrum (seinen or shonen). Just not too little kiddish. This is not a must for me, I can tolerate a girls' manga so long as there is not a lot of high school romancing.

Based on these criteria, which mangas/animes do you Tropers think are the best for me to start reading/watching?

Also, do you guys think that Viz's English translation of Weekly Shonen Jump is ok to read or too bowdlerised?

Thanks for helping!

edited 25th Aug '14 6:33:01 AM by MrConcreteDonkey

With your specifications in mind, here's some recommendations:

- Bokurano

- Sidooh

- 20th Century Boys

- Me and the Devil Blues

- Blade of the Immortal

- Oyasumi Punpun

- Memories of Emanon

- Sun-Ken Rock

- Zetman

- Lament of the Lamb

- Skyhigh

- Jiraishin

- Innocent

there are a few more i could recommend but i think this is enough for now.

edited 25th Aug '14 10:09:17 AM by wehrmacht

I can speak to that last one—the online Shonen Jump is not overly bowdlerized. On the other hand, it usually avoids the more ecchi manga to begin with, and the print edition was known to drop series that suddenly veered into controversial territory. At most you might get slightly more steam/bright light blockage.

Overall, the online Shonen Jump is good value for money if you live in the U.S. (Not so great if you live in one of the no-access areas.)

I will definitely look into those. And I will probably get a subscription to online Shonen Jump.

• Liar Game
• Monster

Gunslinger Girl.

Zettai Karen Children. It's deals with serious Real Life issues seriously, yet it's hilarious and endearing at times too and the characters are all too fun.

<—— My current avatar here is from this series by the way.

edited 26th Aug '14 2:29:53 AM by aNinjaWithAIDS

Well, I forgot the name of one of mangas I had been following. I know the details, but I can't remember the name. I got a new computer and onyl now I realized I had lost the RSS feed to updates on that manga.

So, can anyone tell me what was it's name? It had the Hero and Demon Queen, who set out to end the war between demons and humans in non-violent way. Lots of economic and political talk. No-one is given a real name, they all use titles given to them. There is a love triangle between Demon Queen, Female Knight and the Hero. Last I remember what happened, is that they just beat the shit out of the "Seal King" who tried to have Demon Queen killed and usurp her position.

Sounds a lot like Maoyuu Maou Yuusha.

edited 29th Aug '14 5:07:37 AM by Lemurian

Yeah, that's it. Thanks.

So...

Something strange, dark, well-written and thematically deep is what I am looking for, preferably with a really engaging or unusual visual aesthetic. I am already quite familiar with or planning on watching a good number of shows in this vein, but I'm kind of looking for something out of left field. Something older with these qualities would be particularly interesting—contemporaneous with Serial Experiments Lain or earlier; not enough love for that period—but something newer would be just peachy.

On a slightly different note, I am desperately in need of a genuinely intelligent comedy show. In this arena, understated is good, although the tone can be anything from pitch-black to light as a feather. I am not keen on the moe-moe school of slice-of-life, but if it's done well enough then I'll take it; same goes for reference heavy humour, assuming it's used interestingly (e.g. Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei). For point of reference, The Tatami Galaxy may be my favourite television show ever, so this is not a low bar.

Well, for anime in the "deep, dark and themey" category, there's Flowers of Evil, with its unusual rotoscoped aesthetic. The manga it's based off of is great as well. By the same author, I've recently been enjoying Inside Mari - I made a thread for it today.

As for intelligent comedies, it's hard to beat Tatami Galaxy, and I have to admit that my anime knowledge in that area is basically none, but Nichijou gets tossed around frequently as one of the best moe comedies out there. Some fairly dark humour included:

edited 2nd Sep '14 8:46:43 PM by majoraoftime

To JHM:

For your dark and thematically deep anime, I would highly recommend From the New World and Scrapped Princess.

I don't have any pure intelligent comedies per se, but I do know of 3 shows that blend it well with the dark themes you're looking for; they are Kotoura-san, Log Horizon, and Zettai Karen Children.

I hope this helps.

edited 2nd Sep '14 9:14:17 PM by aNinjaWithAIDS