The Manga Thread: Unlimited

[ghosttaster]

Glaeolia 2 is out. My recommendation is: grab it up ASAP. Huge collection of modern alternative manga, wonderfully curated and insanely diverse.

The first issue was neck-n'-neck with Comics Underground Japan for greatest English manga anthology and sold out quick. Leap on this one.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

You ever get what you think as the entire series of a manga where you bought a bunch around the same time? Happened twice. I bought a bunch of used Nodame Cantable only to find it had two volume fives and no number two. Then I recently found that I accidentally bought Monster Vol 4 twice and was missing volume 5. Both where my fault but I'm curious if anyone had a similar experience ever?

 

[JBear]

No, but is this a bad time to mention that I think I own all of the Nodame Catabile manga and you could have just borrowed it? They're still in the Amazon box they shipped in years ago; never been read.

 

[Rosewood]

In my continuing journey of buying manga a second time if I liked it years ago and it now has a fancy edition, the first three volumes of Saiyuki in hardcover, and the first boxed set of Magic Knight Rayearth (also hardcover) now grace my shelves.

 

[Mightyblue]

I haven't bought physical comics of any kind in yeeeears. No space to keep them in, so I went the digital route.

 

[Rosewood]

Yeah, MB, I'm definitely at the point that space considerations are an issue. Over time I'm getting rid of the second tier and keeping only things that I know for a fact will be read again several times. The "used bookstore" pile is getting pretty big but no way am I indulging in trivial retail like that right now.

 

[ghosttaster]

Listen, if there's no paper aspect what am I supposed to fetishize here?!

 

[Mightyblue]

If I understand the internet correctly, I believe the art that used to go on that paper.

 

[ghosttaster]

I just can't bear to go all-digital, though I've considered it. My weird need for the object is way too conflated with my enjoyment of the actual content.

Space is a real concern though- Ive turned just about every surface into a shelf at this point. I was planning to sell off a chunk of my C-list this year but never got around to it. That said, if someone wants a run of the old Viz Crying Freeman TPBs, or most of the recent eds. of Leiji Matsumoto stuff, hit me up I guess...

 

[Rosewood]

There is commodity fetishism involved on my part, for sure--my old TP paperbacks of Saiyuki were perfectly serviceable, after all, and would have lasted at least as long as I will. I can't bring myself to go digital for anything that I might want to keep forever, though. It feels too ephemeral. Also I have a hard time reading fiction or comics on a monitor. Brain is stubborn about having things its way, which just happens to be the way it's always done things.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Just wanted to commiserate. Space keeps me from buying comics these days. Especially with something like manga where comics can go on for dozens of volumes and still be nowhere near close to completion. I plan to leave a few boxes of manga and dvds at the local library in the future to clear out the stuff I don’t have space for anymore. Likewise only going to keep around the evergreen titles/things that have a deep emotional bond to. (I’ll never get rid of my incomplete Dark Horse run of 3x3 Eyes!)

 

[Rosewood]

Oh, wow. How long has it been since I've thought about 3x3 Eyes? With the number of titles 30-50 years old that are being translated these days, it could make a comeback too, who knows!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I read most of my manga online through... less than honest means. But series I really like I often like to have in a physical form. It is easier to give it my full attention that way.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I'll always love 3x3 Eyes, way more than it deserves. But I'm actually pretty OK with where it ended in the old Dark Horse run, and actually don't want it getting republished. That's because it's an 80s manga that ran until 2002. A while back, I tracked down scanlations of the rest of the manga and oh boy. The manga that it becomes towards the end of its run has almost nothing to do with what it started out as. Where Dark Horse stopped publishing is actually a pretty good place to jump off and just imagine a "And Their Adventures Continued..." ending, versus the gigantic clusterfuck that 3x3 Eyes turned into*. Especially when that's basically what the real ending ends up being anyways! We also only got like 7 or 8 volumes published here, but the total run is 40, and I just can't be putting that many books on my shelves, or dedicating ~$400 to a single intellectual property. Also, the guy's art style changes significantly over the course of the comic, and by the end it just doesn't look right compared to how gorgeous his illustrations are early on. There's also several spin-off/sequel manga too, but I'll probably never read those and I'm pretty sure I don't want to either after how 3x3 Eyes went.

*Turns out the Sanjiyan are secretly aliens from outer space, and Humans are descended from the Sanjiyan, and Kai Yan Wang pulls a Human Instrumentality Project and initiates Third Impact which destroys the vast majority of humanity.

 

[Mightyblue]

Senzu beans and LCL fluid make for an interesting flavor profile

 

[MarcAlan]

Sakamoto Days reminds me of Way of the Househusband and I love Way of the Househusband.

 

[Nich]

Picked up Remina, Junji Ito's cosmic horror book, and it escalates quickly even for him. We're talking a shift from "everything is normal" to "throngs of people in the streets screaming for blood" inside of 30 pages--the books opens in medias res and takes way less time than you'd think to get there.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

How it’s going/How it started

 

[Zef]

Remina is my favorite Itomanga if only because the imagery of the out-of-control spin is straight out of some of my weirder nightmares. It just fills me with the same melancholy and sense of inevitability of the various "end of the world" dreams I used to have some time ago, especially the ending, which no other work of his has accomplished.

Everything that happens to the actual characters, though, is plain horrific and brutal--and, as par for the course, it is horror perpetrated by other humans, not by the supernatural event du Junji.

 

[ghosttaster]

The Hellstar was inside us all along

 

[ghosttaster]

Viz is doing Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater as a single volume. They're really killing it lately man! My list of grails shrinks all the time

 

[Sarcasmorator]

We're doing our best!

 

[Zef]

We're doing our best!

The latest Urusei Yatsura and Mermaid Saga 2 released this week! My comic book shop subscription folder is going to burst before I get there.

 

[Rosewood]

A new translation of MI in a lovely edition, UY, Mermaid Saga. We Takahashi fans are so spoiled! I'm not a huge fan of either Rumic Theater or One Pound Gospel, but a run of Rin-ne as two-in-one books would be most welcome.

 

[Zef]

Delicious in Dungeon: Come for the "haha, DnD campaign where the central premise is cooking and eating monsters" concept, stay for the wonderful characters and their relationships, go holy fuuuuuuu-- whenever the plot peeks out through the cracks.

Vol. 9 pulled... two? Three? Major, major twists that left me literally agape. I'm frantically going through previous volumes to see how Kui has been weaving it all together, and she really does deserve much more recognition than she gets.

 

[Balrog]

Delicious in Dungeon: Come for the "haha, DnD campaign where the central premise is cooking and eating monsters" concept, stay for the wonderful characters and their relationships, go holy fuuuuuuu-- whenever the plot peeks out through the cracks.

Vol. 9 pulled... two? Three? Major, major twists that left me literally agape. I'm frantically going through previous volumes to see how Kui has been weaving it all together, and she really does deserve much more recognition than she gets.

It's so great! I love how seamless the transitions from lighthearted to deadly serious are.

 

[ghosttaster]

Denpa is doing the complete They Were Eleven by Hagio. I'm not real fond of Fantagraphics' Hagio editions so this is pretty cool news IMO

 

[ghosttaster]

When did Jump become Afternoon for kids? Their titles are getting weirder and weirder (which is of course awesome)

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Aside from Chainsaw Man, are there any other series that you have in mind for weirdness, because that is the only one I'm specifically aware of.

 

[ghosttaster]

I'm mostly thinking of the recently-debuted Tatsu Yukinobu's Dandadan. It's not mind blowing but it's pretty graphically enticing.

The Jump of my own youth (when Naruto and Bleach were huge and HxH wasn't really running) seems really sanitary by comparison to some of the stuff coming out these days.