What manga are you currently reading?

[Kinokokao]

[noodles]

[Kinokokao]

[Illuminage]

Speaking of which...I need moar yaoi titles to read...any recommendations, Kino? :3

[Illuminage]

FFF, YES, I GOT MY HANDS ON MAIDEN ROSE. THANKS FOR THE RECOMMENDATION, FUJOSHI-TAN~ /caps

You know who you are. ♥

[noodles]

[Kinokokao]

Definitely not Kino.

With my recent acquisitions, I need to make space. I also ended up with redundancies in my DVD collection :3

Anyway, I've been reading through my backlog to judge what I do and do not want to keep.

Yesterday I read "Love Hurts" by Suzuki Tanaka. I'm a big fan of her art, and Menkui! is an adorable series (which, I believe, I have reviewed before). Love Hurts is a collection of short stories, and I must admit I wasn't too impressed. They're very dark; the first story opens with a corpse, and the second is about an abusive relationship. The last story is actually a het romance. The middle two stories, however, were really impressive. I wish there was an entire series about the characters!

The premise is that villagers in a certain remote area are all born with superpowers. The main character has such powers, but lives a rather low-key life as a 22-year-old office worker. On the side, however, he tries to fight crime, specifically the kind caused by the demon tribe, who also are born with superpowers. His long-time childhood friend comes to Tokyo for a surprise visit, just in time to rescue him from a fight with a demon gone wrong.

It's just two short stories, but a lot of promise -- which, due to length, sadly falls short. Tanaka's art shines, and her writing is topnotch, but I just have such a love/hate relationship with short stories. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure if the book is worth hanging on to. This would be the ideal book to check out from the library or borrow from a friend, but with the $13 price tag BLU gives their titles, you're better off holding out for something else.

I also re-read "You Will Fall in Love" because I just acquired "You Will Drown in Love 2" -- which is a sequel to the sequel. It's Hinako Takanaga, who I'm sure you've heard me gush over enough, and I'm also pretty sure I've reviewed this particular title in the past. It's good, very sweet. I'll re-read You Will Drown in Love so I can start the sequel.

On my "to read" list next is Banana Fish, which I'm a little hesitant to start since I have the first 7 volumes (out of, like, 18) and volume 8, from what I understand, is way fucking out of print. I checked with both Ingram and PubEasy at work (Ingram is our main distributor, PubEasy is a way to check status with all the major publishers; Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, RandomHouse, etc). -- Anyway, impossible to get new. I don't want to sink a bunch of money into the series unless I know I like it, but I'd hate to end on a cliff-hanger.

[Kinokokao]

Well, slow day at work and no internet, so I did quite a bit of reading.

First I re-read You Will Drown in Love and then the sequel, which was new to me (just came out in May I believe).

Hinako Takanaga's work, as usual, is top-notch. Reiichiro's eyes I find especially appealing; there's just something about the way she's outlined them...



This a bad example, of course, but it was the first image I was able to find easily.

Anyway, the story is quite cute, and Reiichiro is just one of those characters that I like. He's the eldest son of a rich company president, but it rather naive and lacks common sense from his sheltered upbringing. He comes across as rather cool; perfectly polite, but not very deep -- but he's far more than a pretty face, and has a rather intense sensitive side. I adore the way that he'll do some tiny reaction, and Jinnai (the love match) will think "Ah, he's upset" or "Oh, his feelings were hurt"

Slight spoiler for You Will Fall in Love: [hide]Reiichiro's side of the Haru/Tsukasa love story from Fall in Love is rendered nicely here. We get enough of a set-up so that we're able to follow the story, but[/hide] I definitely recommend reading Fall in Love before starting Drown in Love, even if the two aren't technically direct sequels [hide]Reiichiro's flip from being the "seme" to being the uke here in Drown in Love is a nice dynamic, and we get to see fully more of his character from the rival attitude held by Tsukasa and the painful idolization of Haru.[/hide]

The author's note indicates there will be a third volume, so I'm excited for that. Her pacing and writing are as excellent as always, and some of the love scenes are just... delicious. Anyway, nothing new here except, duh, Hinako Takanaga.



I also read the first seven volumes of Boy Princess. Which, by the way, with its title and premise was a series I absolutely had to try. As you can see, it's manwha, and the art is, meh. The writing, fortunately, is strong enough to forgive the wonky heads and bizarro-land lips, and its at times stunningly gorgeous and adorably silly.

The premise is that, two before her arranged marriage, the Princess Elena elopes with a stableboy. The marriage is between a small mountain kingdom and a much more powerful kingdom, so the crown prince and his younger brother hatch a scheme to send the youngest prince, Nicole, in Elena's stead. They throw their little brother in a wig and a dress, and cart him off to marry the fearsome Prince Jed.

"Princess Elena" soon finds the royal family to be rife with treachery and drama, unlike his own rather idyllic and happy relationship with his older brothers. The ruse is soon discovered by Prince Jed but, surprise, Prince Jed "isn't all that interested in women anyway." There's numerous plot points related to the interpolitics of the royal family; a scheming Mother-in-Law, a deranged Crown Prince who has a fierce rivalry with Jed (the Crown Prince is eldest, but illegitimate, and is determined to kill Jed), and Jed's bratty sister to whom he is fiercely devoted and anxious to protect. There's the rumor that Jed's mother, the Queen, was poisoned by the King's Mistress (the crown prince's mother) and a strange apothecary of a herbalist tribe with a beautiful, haunted face, who is the Crown Prince's reluctant lover.

There's a large cast of characters and sometimes they tend to look alike, so I've caught myself losing track of who is who in certain scenes. Also for some bizarre reason we don't even find out character's names until way late in the story. I didn't know the prince's name was Nicole until mid-way through book 2! The story moves quickly but at a rather lush pace nevertheless; it doesn't feel rushed, and it never gets bogged down uselessly. There's actually 9 volumes total, and volume 7 ended on a major cliffhanger, so I'm a bit distressed by that!



The romance could be better. It moves slow, almost frustratingly so, with lots of misunderstandings and insecurities, but it's ultimately worth it. I found myself much more excited about the early parts when we, the reader, first start getting hints that Jed's inclinations mean he's rather pleased with Nicole's true gender. Nicole's "omg am I gay?" is less exciting and rather dull, but, after you've read a bajillion yaoi manga with a gay seme and a "what? another dude?" uke ... yeah. Been there done that. But the plot is strong, super strong, and there's a wide variety of characters and intrigue and it's all very original.

Here be spoilers! [hide]There's even an awesome twist with the apothecary's tribe in which we discover that they have no true gender. Rather, they view themselves as those who can bear children and those who cannot. All are born with male sex organs, and some, when they come of age and first have intercourse with a female outsider, develop female sex organs and the ability to be pregnant. Their first child retains the DNA of the female outsider.[/hide]

Anyway, I liked it. :3

[Apolloncrash]

I haven't actually read manga for a long time. I have always prefered anime as a medium, so if I find a series that looks good I'll usually just watch the anime. Then I read Death Note and nothing will ever come close to even touching that manga's perfection. I since bought the anime (hated it) and the live action movies (vomit inducingly bad). I also bought the spin-off novel, which was actually pretty good (although the weird-ass names really broke any kind of immersion for me), and has an awesome twist at the end.

My second favourite manga is Black Cat, but I loathe the official translation. The anime sucks really bad as well, so I'm stuck reading scanlations and raws of one of my favourite mangas of all time, which really sucks.

[Illuminage]

[zamisk]

[IceMage88]

[scy]

[Weeaboolits]

No one's gonna hassle a girl for liking shounen crap, whether you'll get hassled for reading shoujo crap depends on the company you keep and whether or not it's got a bright pink cover.

I say if it's good, keep reading it regardless. Princess Tutu was a good series.

[Maxine MagicFox]

The classifications of shoujo and shounen aren't necessarily about "this is for boys or this is for girls" anymore.

Shoujo - typically a relationship drama. Less focus on fighting(if any at all), more focus on the characters. Usual some sex drama involved. Usually has an enthralling story attached.

Shounen - typically all about the fighting, mecha, and OMG IT'S VOLUME 50 AND THERE'S STILL NO SIGN OF A STORYLINE~ ..... *cough* sorry, I didn't mean for that to come out.

Seriously, shoujo is WAY better. :3
You have Kimi ni Todoke, Vampire Knight, Angel Sanctuary, Rozen Maiden

Shounen:
Shana, Dragonball, Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto


...........

Maybe a girl is not the best one to answer this, though. :\ Maybe I did more harm than good. ^_^ However, Scy has handed me off several great anime to watch. I still have to repay him for Allison to Lillia <3
And I KNOW quite a few members are going to be hyped up on the fact that Kimi ni Todoke season 2 is airing.... *shivers with anticipation* I'm checking my RSS feed every day to see if the first ep has been released yet.