[enderilluminatus]

God tier:
One-Punch Man

Legendary tier:
One Piece
Hunter x Hunter
Berserk

Obligation tier:
Bleach
Naruto (RIP)

[TravelerKai]

Monster
Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru
Samurai Champloo
Claymore

Are legendary ones no one has mentioned yet. All of these are seinen and 3 of which have anime series.

[Zero]

My favorite childhood manga just ended, which is Naruto. I read a lot of manga actuall,y my sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts all into anime and manga.

[Robert JS]

There's only one manga that I've read: Lone Wolf and Cub. I haven't read any more because I have not found any that were on the same level.

Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the adventures of a ronin, or masterless samurai, as he travels through feudal Japan pushing his infant son in a baby cart. He has been usurped from his position in the Shogun's court by treacherous enemies . His story elucidates the warrior code of honour and vengeance and the acceptance of a violent death.

The politics and the culture of the period are explored with remarkable detail and insight. Supporting characters are vividly portrayed.

The sparse black and white artwork is a striking and atmospheric of blend of modern techniques and traditional brush painting. The panels have a kinetic, cinematic feel and they bring to mind the storyboard of a Kurosawa film.

There was a film version of Lone Wolf an Cub, but I thought it was very disappointing.

[enderilluminatus]

If you read enough manga that you would appreciate a seinen satire, I cannot recommend One-Punch Man enough. It was originally a massively popular webcomic written and drawn by ONE and is now being remade with Yusuke Murata (of EyeShield 21 fame) as the illustrator for Shonen Jump.

The premise is very simple: a young man named Saitama decides he wants to be a hero and trains so hard that his hair falls out. Now he's so powerful that he wins every fight in one punch. This monstrous strength bores him and he must search for a deeper meaning than his initial goal.

Edit: Also it makes every hypothetical manga/comic book fight hilariously easy. Who would win in a fight where Goku, Superman, and Thor have all teamed up to fight against Saitama? Easy! Saitama would win, the only question is if it takes one, two, or three punches.

[Hades]

I call them graphic novels so people think I'm just a snob if I discuss them, and not a faggot. Nobody likes to hear the word "manga".

(11-29-2014 02:27 PM)enderilluminatus Wrote:  

God tier:
One-Punch Man

Legendary tier:
One Piece
Hunter x Hunter
Berserk

Obligation tier:
Bleach
Naruto (RIP)

I need to get my hands on a set of berserk mangas. I have seen the anime and it was pretty awesome and violent.

[enderilluminatus]

I'm still waiting for a digital release. The online scans are awful and the volumes are tiny. I'm a huge fan of the anime movies but the manga itself blows it away. Plus the anime is slightly censored here and there.

[Avon Barksdale]

(12-07-2014 04:16 AM)Hades Wrote:  

I call them graphic novels so people think I'm just a snob if I discuss them, and not a faggot. Nobody likes to hear the word "manga".

(11-29-2014 02:27 PM)enderilluminatus Wrote:  

God tier:
One-Punch Man

Legendary tier:
One Piece
Hunter x Hunter
Berserk

Obligation tier:
Bleach
Naruto (RIP)

I need to get my hands on a set of berserk mangas. I have seen the anime and it was pretty awesome and violent.

I still think Berserk is G.O.A.T, unfortunately I don't think its ever gonna get finished, Kentaro Miura is having health issues, a lot of the newer chapters are kinda slow.

[TravelerKai]

One punch man is hysterical. I have laughed out loud around people and gave zero fucks how I looked.

The only mangas anywhere near that funny would be a few choice eechi and probably My Balls that hentai ish short series. Desert Punk is another. I don't like hentai or eechi, but every few years a hilarious one will come around causing people to buzz about it telling everyone else to read it.

[enderilluminatus]

Saitama's backstory and power up method are simply brilliant jokes.

Berserk is the best extreme manga I've ever read. There are no rules and it is better for it.

[enderilluminatus]

Is there a way to spoiler parts of your post?

I love Mondays and the chance to find out more about Luffy's manly journey to follow his dream.

[godfather dust]

I've always found japanese culture extremely autistic in nature, not into any of it.

[Avon Barksdale]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[CactusCat589]

Berserk, Vinland Saga, and Claymore are all great. Berserk is a masterpiece that stands so far above even the greats of the manga genre. So many nightmarish things and sweeping epic moments.

Vinland Saga is close to Berserk. There are two pages I remember vividly - one of the characters stumbling through the wilderness and encountering an owl that's staring, eyes golden in the dark. The other one is the mosaic artwork of the historical King Arthur, it was such a dignified moment in the series.

And the enemies/Awakened Beings in Claymore are so eerie. They're like the woman in the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer - they're beautifully/sleekly monstrous but there's always that last shred of humanity in their designs. The overarching ontological mystery of the continent is cool too.

Definitely the manga with quasi-European-medieval, dark fantasy, and sci fi, i.e. Western themes and settings, are of higher quality.

Compare them to some of the big-name stuff like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist. These fucking things are too long. There's no way that in a 1000-chapter series all 1000 of them contribute to the plot. I can't read these mangas when they are essentially no different from Pearls Before Swine or Doonesbury comic strips. Especially after Berserk and Vinland Saga, the inferiority of the artwork is what makes it even harder to try and get into them.

It's too hard to try and read a series at the beginning when you know half or two-thirds of the next x-hundred chapters are filler. There are routine fight scenes between random characters taking up 10+ chapters. Get out of here with that.

A problem I see with 90% of the mangas published is that they are formulaic. Not in the genre conventions sense, but in the chapter-to-chapter progression. One week, fight this monster, the next week fight that monster. It's in like every genre I've tried to read.

In horror, take something like Uzumaki - this island is haunted by the concept of spirals itself. Each chapter is just another way spirals can drive people crazy or kill them. Skip to the last chapter - oh, yet another way everyone dies by spirals.

Take a hardboiled detective story like Psycho MD (?), again still the same structure. (But I admit this one is a cool one.)

Horror, adventure, mystery, fighting, whatever it is nearly all the rank-and-file manga manage to have the same structure. It is *that* incredibly pervasive.

My theory is that a lot of them are serialized so a focused narrative would hurt the readership. Well, you're going to have to advance the plot anyway, so you're going to risk people missing those crucial chapters anyway. Why not just cut the filler and deadweight? Why wait till the series is nearly over before advancing the big picture?

[enderilluminatus]

The first two volumes of YuYu Hakusho are on sale for $1.99 through the Viz Media app. I couldn't resist, not even a little bit.

[Mentavious]

This donflamingo arc is wayyyy to long in OP. Now they are going through and showing the battles with all the executives??? Comeon now

I'm going to start reading Berzerk

[enderilluminatus]

(12-28-2014 12:16 AM)CactusCat589 Wrote:  

Berserk is a masterpiece that stands so far above even the greats of the manga genre. So many nightmarish things and sweeping epic moments.

Hunter x Hunter and One-Punch Man are better. Aside from them, I completely agree. I do think you underrate One Piece though. It is a glorious celebration of a man's dreams and his friends and could go on forever and I would be happy. It has hundreds and hundreds of chapters with very few breaks and has yet to have a single bad arc. Even the weaker ones still have moments that deliver an emotional climax and/or shocking twist. Miura never works, he's too busy playing goddamn Idolmaster. Togashi is annoying because he pretends to be sick all of the time but at least he kinda finished one of his series.

Oh god, that's such a nerdy paragraph. I'm honestly surprised I've ever had sex.

[enderilluminatus]

(12-29-2014 04:31 PM)Mentavious Wrote:  

This donflamingo arc is wayyyy to long in OP. Now they are going through and showing the battles with all the executives??? Comeon now

I'm going to start reading Berzerk

I completely disagree. BTW, are we just openly posting spoilers? I read the official releases on Mondays so I might avoid this topic except when I'm current if that is the case. But anyways I honestly think this is the best arc of the entire series. This evil fuck has been hyped up forever and I can't wait to see how Oda resolves it, even if it takes another year or two. We haven't had real fights in forever.

I would recommend going to Barnes & Noble or the library for the Berserk volumes if you can, instead of the online scans. They're garbage.

[Libertas]

(12-28-2014 12:16 AM)CactusCat589 Wrote:  

And the enemies/Awakened Beings in Claymore are so eerie. They're like the woman in the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer - they're beautifully/sleekly monstrous but there's always that last shred of humanity in their designs. The overarching ontological mystery of the continent is cool too.

Claymore was very good up to the War in the North. It began to decline after the time skip, and then after the deaths of the original Abyssals it became something of a clusterfuck. Good thing it ended because it was in decline for a while, though I'm glad it brought back the best character to kill off the worst.

Quote:

Definitely the manga with quasi-European-medieval, dark fantasy, and sci fi, i.e. Western themes and settings, are of higher quality.

Agreed.

[Mentavious]

(12-29-2014 04:37 PM)enderilluminatus Wrote:  

(12-29-2014 04:31 PM)Mentavious Wrote:  

This donflamingo arc is wayyyy to long in OP. Now they are going through and showing the battles with all the executives??? Comeon now

I'm going to start reading Berzerk

I completely disagree. BTW, are we just openly posting spoilers? I read the official releases on Mondays so I might avoid this topic except when I'm current if that is the case. But anyways I honestly think this is the best arc of the entire series. This evil fuck has been hyped up forever and I can't wait to see how Oda resolves it, even if it takes another year or two. We haven't had real fights in forever.

I would recommend going to Barnes & Noble or the library for the Berserk volumes if you can, instead of the online scans. They're garbage.

It's going to take another 2 months to resolve ever battle other than Luffy/Law vs Mingo and that does not including the holiday breaks in Japan. After that, I expect another 4-5 weeks for the main fight.

No spoilers though please

I know the Barrier fruit guy will join the group but who else you think might be a permanent member?

[Fortis]

Blade of the Immortal and Shigirui were both my fucking jams. I'm really into comics and graphic novels. I've read some of berserker, but I didn't get far. Full-metal alchemist was also my shit.

[enderilluminatus]

(12-30-2014 10:49 AM)Mentavious Wrote:  

It's going to take another 2 months to resolve ever battle other than Luffy/Law vs Mingo and that does not including the holiday breaks in Japan. After that, I expect another 4-5 weeks for the main fight.

Good. We haven't seen actual fights for each crewmember in years. The Fishman Island Arc was just an excuse for everyone to show off their new powers. The Zolo fight alone is worth it. He is uninjured and hasn't won yet. We haven't seen him get serious yet.

(12-30-2014 10:49 AM)Mentavious Wrote:  

No spoilers though please

Excellent. If anyone complains we can just make a new thread or private message. So keep in mind if you read from a scanlation site that I won't read that chapter until the next Monday.

(12-30-2014 10:49 AM)Mentavious Wrote:  

I know the Barrier fruit guy will join the group but who else you think might be a permanent member?

Bartolomeo would be a great addition to the crew. His ability is fascinating and his personality is hilarious. Rebecca and Viola both seem unlikely to me. Sabo is absolutely not joining. Same with Law. I think no new crew members, just a lot of affiliated pirate crews who act as his global support system.

[enderilluminatus]

Downloaded three more volumes of YuYu Hakusho. It couldn't be helped.

[Mentavious]

anyone keeping up with one piece?

Thoughts on how Luffy will beat Mingo?

[Honorable Man]

I have no idea, Doffy seems to be on a whole different level from everyone else. But this chapter's development was very interesting, Law is easily one of my favorite characters in the entire series. I'm definitely worried about him dying.

Also, I just bought a 3rd generation iPad and I've started reading my weekly Shonen Jump on it using the Viz Media app. It looks so gorgeous and I can zoom in to see every single detail. I would recommend doing the same for everyone who reads One Piece.