It's no secret that I love to read comics. I read at least 10 of the damn things online (usually daily), and while my collection may not have the girth that Shawn Kehoe's has (note: a comic book collection is like an extension of a geek's penis!) I'd like to think it's respectable.
I mean, I'd read these damn things all day probably if I could. Now, I've talked about the webcomics I read and I'm sure I've mentioned the Sandman somewhere, but one of the nice things about the internet (to uh, a degree) is that there's tons of manga from Japan being thrown online for consumption. Of course, not all of it belongs there (the general rule is that if it's been licensed to a U.S. publisher, the translating team willfully removes the series from all it's distribution outlets, i.e. mIRC usually.
Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't a love letter to Japan. Fan-translated manga is often poorly edited, with glaring punctuation and spelling mistakes. And well, most of it sucks. But hey, maybe you're bored.
Maybe you're bored, and you want to read some. Somewhat legally. I've mentioned Anime-Source before in here when talking to manga that they host online, and today I'm going to point out 10 manga that they host, why it's good/bad, and whether it'd be worth your time to read it.
(Side note: the word "whether" always looks weird to me, but Mozilla Firefox isn't underlining it, so it must be correct!)
You do need to register to view some of the manga, and I'll note which ones you can view without much trouble, and those which you can hijack my username/password if you're that keen on reading em (Becoming a 'level 3' user is easy, 'level 4' forces you to make some dumbass posts on their message board). Note: If this goes how I think it'll go, my east/west rival known only as "Bo" might night enjoy this.
You can find links to all the manga here.
A Bat in Blue Sky (level 1)
Gist: A fallen ninja named Bat is taken in by a family of kind strangers. Can Bat escape her murderous past and find happiness?
Pros: Short (one chapter). By the author of Full Metal Alchemist.
Cons: Not really breaking any new ground
A simple story, and quite frankly a little boring. Now, after reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, I might have been a little hasty in declaring Hiromu Arakawa (the author) as a genius (to myself, in private). While the Fullmetal Alchemist anime is excellent, the manga is quite frankly, a little boring. Her wiki says that she didn't write the anime, so yeah. Anyway, "A Bat in Blue Sky" isn't offensive. It's just average. As you'll see tho, average really puts you neat the top of this list.
Rating: *** (out of five)
Addicted to Curry (level 1)
Gist: Makito Koenji, a young curry chef, takes over a restaurant to help the owner and of course, get close to his beautiful daughter. The world naturally conspires against this.
Pros: It's a manga about curry! Has recipes scattered through out for budding curry chefs.
Cons: A manga about cooking curry isn't very entertaining.
The problem with "Addicted to Curry," along with all 'cooking/baking/creation' mangas, is while the CONCEPT is interesting, it doesn't lend itself to an ongoing series. There's only so much you can do with curry before as a reader you say to yourself "why don't the guy and girl get together, have babies, and let the author do something productive with his time." I guess the Japanese love for curry is just too great.
Rating: **
Arcana (level 1)
Gist: He was a cop WITH AN ATTIDUDE. She was a medium WHO COULD HELP HIM FIGHT CRIME. TOGETHER, THEY FIGHT CRIME. I think.
Pros: um, I don't remember anything bad about this manga.
Cons: um, I don't remember anything good about this manga.
I guess Curt would like this? Because the girl has amnesia? And he says you can't do a bad movie about amnesia? I don't remember anything about this manga, yet I know I've read it.
Rating: ????? (out of five question marks)
Black Lagoon (level 1)
Gist: A Japanese salaryman is held hostage by a group of pirates named "Black Lagoon." His bosses ditch him, and he decides to join them. Oh yeah, one of them is a crazy motherfucker. I'll let you figure out which one (hint: it's probably the menacing looking girl with the dual handguns on the cover)!
Pros: This manga is a lot of fun. It doesn't break ground, but it knows what it is, a manga about bad guys shooting the hell out of bad guys, and sexy russian mob women with giant burn marks on their face. OH YEAH.
Cons: It sometimes sounds like the author is trying to have a conscious.
Do you like action? Pirates? Ridiculous characters? Here!
Rating: ****
Crossover (level 1)
Gist: An amazing basketball player joins a loser team, and together they try and take the high school basketball world by storm. Oh Coach Bombay! Where are you when a team needs you?
Pros: I hate sports manga.
Cons: Fuck, this is a sports manga.
You know how some people say, "If you're a fan of 'X', you'll like this, otherwise you won't?" Okay here goes: If you're a fan of basketball, you'll hate this manga as much as the rest.
Rating: *
Devil & Devil (level 1)
Gist: While in battle, a demon and an angel fall in battle, and their spirits enter the bodies of two human brothers. The devil lands in a wuss, the angel lands in the body of a delinquent. (Oh god).
Pros: As far as shonen (boys) manga goes, you could do worse.
Cons: I don't know what's worse. The fact that this book makes allowances for um, two "Satan's," or that the Angel is totally ripping off FF7's Sephiroth. At least steal from something good!
Devil is strong. Meets someone stronger. Devil becomes stronger and wins. Devil meets someone stronger. Devil becomes stronger and wins. Devil meets someone stronger... This is Japan pissing on Christianity for the umpteenth time.
Rating: **
Elfen Lied (level 3)
Gist: A murderous mutant with the ability to psychically tear to pieces people and things within a short radius around her loses her memory and becomes a harmless girl who loves breasts. I had the same idea in high school! Damnit!
Pros: The author decided to not stretch out the weak 'romance' thread in the series.
Cons: Okay, seriously, there's a character in the book who is constantly pissing herself. What the fuck? Oh yeah, the art is terrible.
I can sort of see why people are drawn to this manga. I mean, Elfin Lied's author tackles some serious shit here, but he's just not talented to pull it off, pulling back from what could be a violent, but satisfying read, and instead intertwining the moments of horror with panty shots and girls who have bladder problems. Seriously, there are adult diapers people!
Rating: **
Record of Fallen Vampire (level 1)
Gist: The king of vampires is searching for his queen, who has been imprisoned. A group of vampire hunters try to stop him.
Pros: Actually a somewhat entertaining read. There are enough twists to keep a reader interested.
Cons: Art style definitely has this 'gothic lolita' thing going on with it.
I initially disliked "Record of Fallen Vampire," but while it's plot is somewhat slow, it turns into something that isn't terrible. It's biggest problem is that the author knows where he's going with this, but the viewer doesn't always follow.
Rating: ***
Girl Saurus (level 2)
Gist: a huge (re: fat) woman declares her love to a gentlemen named Shingo. His shock at her confession causes her to beat the shit out of him, putting him in the hospital, with multiple scars, broken bones, and worse: he's now afraid of women (I was too lazy to look up what the phobia was called. Gynaphobia?)
Pros: Hilarious. A complete reversal of the traditional 'boy attracts women, can't choose.' Instead, 'Girl Saurus' is, 'boy attracts women, shits his pants in fear when they come close.'
Cons: HEAVY fanservice (re: panties and side-boobs).
This is one of my guilty pleasures. Look, there are plenty of manga out there with boobs and stuff, but damnit, this is the only one I find genuinely funny instead of 'oh ha ha, that crazy teacher and his crazy sneezes which blow the clothes of his students!'
Rating: ****
Hot Milk (level 1)
Gist: A beautiful girl puts a glass of milk into a microwave. Watch out little girl! Your bodyguard can't save you if you drink that! Get it? Because it'd be 'hot milk?' And hot milk sucks amiright? Yeah, I'm right. This is basically "Baby's Day Out" except with a teenager.
Pros: Short, mildly amusing.
Cons: I could only think that it was short and mildly amusing as positives.
So the bodyguard see? He's super tough, and he's got to protect this girl because she's the daughter of a mob guy, and they'll kill him if he doesn't! Ah, just like back in high school.
Rating: **
- Eddie
I mean, I'd read these damn things all day probably if I could. Now, I've talked about the webcomics I read and I'm sure I've mentioned the Sandman somewhere, but one of the nice things about the internet (to uh, a degree) is that there's tons of manga from Japan being thrown online for consumption. Of course, not all of it belongs there (the general rule is that if it's been licensed to a U.S. publisher, the translating team willfully removes the series from all it's distribution outlets, i.e. mIRC usually.
Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't a love letter to Japan. Fan-translated manga is often poorly edited, with glaring punctuation and spelling mistakes. And well, most of it sucks. But hey, maybe you're bored.
Maybe you're bored, and you want to read some. Somewhat legally. I've mentioned Anime-Source before in here when talking to manga that they host online, and today I'm going to point out 10 manga that they host, why it's good/bad, and whether it'd be worth your time to read it.
(Side note: the word "whether" always looks weird to me, but Mozilla Firefox isn't underlining it, so it must be correct!)
You do need to register to view some of the manga, and I'll note which ones you can view without much trouble, and those which you can hijack my username/password if you're that keen on reading em (Becoming a 'level 3' user is easy, 'level 4' forces you to make some dumbass posts on their message board). Note: If this goes how I think it'll go, my east/west rival known only as "Bo" might night enjoy this.
You can find links to all the manga here.
A Bat in Blue Sky (level 1)Gist: A fallen ninja named Bat is taken in by a family of kind strangers. Can Bat escape her murderous past and find happiness?
Pros: Short (one chapter). By the author of Full Metal Alchemist.
Cons: Not really breaking any new ground
A simple story, and quite frankly a little boring. Now, after reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, I might have been a little hasty in declaring Hiromu Arakawa (the author) as a genius (to myself, in private). While the Fullmetal Alchemist anime is excellent, the manga is quite frankly, a little boring. Her wiki says that she didn't write the anime, so yeah. Anyway, "A Bat in Blue Sky" isn't offensive. It's just average. As you'll see tho, average really puts you neat the top of this list.
Rating: *** (out of five)
Addicted to Curry (level 1)Gist: Makito Koenji, a young curry chef, takes over a restaurant to help the owner and of course, get close to his beautiful daughter. The world naturally conspires against this.
Pros: It's a manga about curry! Has recipes scattered through out for budding curry chefs.
Cons: A manga about cooking curry isn't very entertaining.
The problem with "Addicted to Curry," along with all 'cooking/baking/creation' mangas, is while the CONCEPT is interesting, it doesn't lend itself to an ongoing series. There's only so much you can do with curry before as a reader you say to yourself "why don't the guy and girl get together, have babies, and let the author do something productive with his time." I guess the Japanese love for curry is just too great.
Rating: **
Arcana (level 1)Gist: He was a cop WITH AN ATTIDUDE. She was a medium WHO COULD HELP HIM FIGHT CRIME. TOGETHER, THEY FIGHT CRIME. I think.
Pros: um, I don't remember anything bad about this manga.
Cons: um, I don't remember anything good about this manga.
I guess Curt would like this? Because the girl has amnesia? And he says you can't do a bad movie about amnesia? I don't remember anything about this manga, yet I know I've read it.
Rating: ????? (out of five question marks)
Black Lagoon (level 1)Gist: A Japanese salaryman is held hostage by a group of pirates named "Black Lagoon." His bosses ditch him, and he decides to join them. Oh yeah, one of them is a crazy motherfucker. I'll let you figure out which one (hint: it's probably the menacing looking girl with the dual handguns on the cover)!
Pros: This manga is a lot of fun. It doesn't break ground, but it knows what it is, a manga about bad guys shooting the hell out of bad guys, and sexy russian mob women with giant burn marks on their face. OH YEAH.
Cons: It sometimes sounds like the author is trying to have a conscious.
Do you like action? Pirates? Ridiculous characters? Here!
Rating: ****
Crossover (level 1)Gist: An amazing basketball player joins a loser team, and together they try and take the high school basketball world by storm. Oh Coach Bombay! Where are you when a team needs you?
Pros: I hate sports manga.
Cons: Fuck, this is a sports manga.
You know how some people say, "If you're a fan of 'X', you'll like this, otherwise you won't?" Okay here goes: If you're a fan of basketball, you'll hate this manga as much as the rest.
Rating: *
Devil & Devil (level 1)Gist: While in battle, a demon and an angel fall in battle, and their spirits enter the bodies of two human brothers. The devil lands in a wuss, the angel lands in the body of a delinquent. (Oh god).
Pros: As far as shonen (boys) manga goes, you could do worse.
Cons: I don't know what's worse. The fact that this book makes allowances for um, two "Satan's," or that the Angel is totally ripping off FF7's Sephiroth. At least steal from something good!
Devil is strong. Meets someone stronger. Devil becomes stronger and wins. Devil meets someone stronger. Devil becomes stronger and wins. Devil meets someone stronger... This is Japan pissing on Christianity for the umpteenth time.
Rating: **
Elfen Lied (level 3)Gist: A murderous mutant with the ability to psychically tear to pieces people and things within a short radius around her loses her memory and becomes a harmless girl who loves breasts. I had the same idea in high school! Damnit!
Pros: The author decided to not stretch out the weak 'romance' thread in the series.
Cons: Okay, seriously, there's a character in the book who is constantly pissing herself. What the fuck? Oh yeah, the art is terrible.
I can sort of see why people are drawn to this manga. I mean, Elfin Lied's author tackles some serious shit here, but he's just not talented to pull it off, pulling back from what could be a violent, but satisfying read, and instead intertwining the moments of horror with panty shots and girls who have bladder problems. Seriously, there are adult diapers people!
Rating: **
Record of Fallen Vampire (level 1)Gist: The king of vampires is searching for his queen, who has been imprisoned. A group of vampire hunters try to stop him.
Pros: Actually a somewhat entertaining read. There are enough twists to keep a reader interested.
Cons: Art style definitely has this 'gothic lolita' thing going on with it.
I initially disliked "Record of Fallen Vampire," but while it's plot is somewhat slow, it turns into something that isn't terrible. It's biggest problem is that the author knows where he's going with this, but the viewer doesn't always follow.
Rating: ***
Girl Saurus (level 2) Gist: a huge (re: fat) woman declares her love to a gentlemen named Shingo. His shock at her confession causes her to beat the shit out of him, putting him in the hospital, with multiple scars, broken bones, and worse: he's now afraid of women (I was too lazy to look up what the phobia was called. Gynaphobia?)
Pros: Hilarious. A complete reversal of the traditional 'boy attracts women, can't choose.' Instead, 'Girl Saurus' is, 'boy attracts women, shits his pants in fear when they come close.'
Cons: HEAVY fanservice (re: panties and side-boobs).
This is one of my guilty pleasures. Look, there are plenty of manga out there with boobs and stuff, but damnit, this is the only one I find genuinely funny instead of 'oh ha ha, that crazy teacher and his crazy sneezes which blow the clothes of his students!'
Rating: ****
Hot Milk (level 1)Gist: A beautiful girl puts a glass of milk into a microwave. Watch out little girl! Your bodyguard can't save you if you drink that! Get it? Because it'd be 'hot milk?' And hot milk sucks amiright? Yeah, I'm right. This is basically "Baby's Day Out" except with a teenager.
Pros: Short, mildly amusing.
Cons: I could only think that it was short and mildly amusing as positives.
So the bodyguard see? He's super tough, and he's got to protect this girl because she's the daughter of a mob guy, and they'll kill him if he doesn't! Ah, just like back in high school.
Rating: **
- Eddie
