Do you read manga or watch anime?

Sai said:

I'm a 90s anime fan too . Have you seen Gurren Lagan? It's a recent anime that recaptures the spirit of a lot of 90s shows. And if you like Miyazaki, you'd probably like Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.

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I tried to watch Gurren...I just found it a little cliche. Maybe I should give it another chance.

BethS said:

Try Death Note.

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I saw it, great concept, makes you think. Love/hate the ending.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

^The manga's much less frustrating. Granted, I didn't get through all of that either, but you get more story for your time, without interruptions.

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This is true.

Though as it goes on... let's just say I've stopped reading Naruto. It's gotten so convoluted and weird and Sasuke-centric, I just can't bring myself to care about the sole reason I started watching—Naruto the underdog himself.

I read Death Note for a while. Then, well, after my favorite character died, I stopped. My sister read it for me.

Tried One Piece. Nope.

Tried Bleach. Definite nope.

I just can't get into those never ending mangas. I'm so glad FMA ended. Same with CBB.

That's the one thing I hate about those serialized mangas. They never fucking end.

I wanted to see if this forum had improved at all. Thanks for answering my question. Jesus Christ.

thebloodfiend said:

Tried One Piece. Nope.

Tried Bleach. Definite nope.

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I dropped Naruto like a bag of bricks and will pick it up when it ends in the next year or so. Same thing with Bleach (though, I do keep up to date with it).

But One Piece. Bottom line, I have no compromise with people who don't want to read it. I'm a absolute fanboy, Oda is a god (despite his spectacular asspulls).
For the first dozen volumes, it is very generic (as standards go today, it was great back in the day), but now there is no match for One Piece. There are dozens of plot lines, amazing thoughts and concepts that are just placed in the story and never brought to light, and there are even little mind-fucking clues to the story throughout the manga. *Head blows up*

The manga, is unquestionably one of the best manga/comics ever created IMO. The anime, is close to shit--Toei does almost close to nothing to bring out the manga's shine.

*Inhales**Exhales*

K, I'm done.

Manga has never done much for me, probably mostly because I've spent a lot of time working in the arena of American comics. I can dig some Lupin III, Cowboy Bebop, Big O, Wolf's Rain, and Witch Hunter Robin, though, but I think I'm one of maybe four people who remember those last two (also Akira!).

Pokemon, Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc. all tend to induce physical pain in me.

I wouldn't know, Will. I stopped reading after the first few volumes. Then I tried to pick it up again when they introduced the MC's brother. I don't really like huge, sprawling stories, tbh. Probably why I can't get into most high fantasy, either. I mean, I used to like Detective Conan, but it's just too long and messy.

I don't disagree that One Piece has a really original concept, though. That's what initially drew me to it.

If anyone can rec a few short, compact (preferably either dark or funny, though not like Mars or Absolute Boyfriend *shudders*) stories—15 volumes or less, I'd be much appreciated. I've already read Eureka 7, FLCL, Love Hina, and Cowboy Bebop and everything by Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai.

My sister tried to get me into D-Gray Man and Fruits Basket. I liked the latter, though I never finished it.

thebloodfiend said:

I wouldn't know, Will. I stopped reading after the first few volumes. Then I tried to pick it up again when they introduced the MC's brother. I don't really like huge, sprawling stories, tbh. Probably why I can't get into most high fantasy, either. I mean, I used to like Detective Conan, but it's just too long and messy.

I don't disagree that One Piece has a really original concept, though. That's what initially drew me to it.

If anyone can rec a few short, compact (preferably either dark or funny, though not like Mars or Absolute Boyfriend *shudders*) stories—15 volumes or less, I'd be much appreciated. I've already read Eureka 7, FLCL, Love Hina, and Cowboy Bebop and everything by Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai.

My sister tried to get me into D-Gray Man and Fruits Basket. I liked the latter, though I never finished it.

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Like I said, you need to dig into One Piece to really get into it. Until you get to the Skypiea arc, everything isn't as good as it can be.

Now Detective Conan, yeah, I won't touch that with a ten foot pole. I get that it's one of the longest running manga of all time, but its really is a never-ending story.

Under 15 volumes?
Dark and/or funny?

If you don't mind some Manhwa, Shin Angyo Onshi -- one of the my all time favorites. Spectacular. Dark in places, funny (Korean slapstick and deadpans all around), though its mostly action/adventure, it's also pretty high fantasy, but nothing too overwhelming.

There's also Freesia, which flat out is the definition of a psychological thriller (to me, and that's saying something). Dark, gritty, insane. Insane. Oh, did I mention INSANE?!

Hellsing -- which is the standard for dark, sometimes a bit overboard though. Vampires and such (before the Twilight era).

Though, I have no idea about official English translations (I can read Japanese and Korean pretty well).

I love manga and anime, it I also read a lot of light novels (in Japanese, to practice the language). My all-time favorite manga would be Aoi Hana (which also has a nice anime adaptation), and I love anything by Yoshitoshi ABe and Amano Kozue.

MacAllister said:

By all means, don't let the door hit you on your way out, then.

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Ditto!

Hydrogen said:

I wanted to see if this forum had improved at all. Thanks for answering my question. Jesus Christ.

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I'm sure you'll find a forum crawling with like-minded misanthropes in some other, less welcoming corner of the internet. Honestly, all of your posts drip cynicism.

WillSauger said:

But One Piece. Bottom line, I have no compromise with people who don't want to read it. I'm a absolute fanboy, Oda is a god (despite his spectacular asspulls).
For the first dozen volumes, it is very generic (as standards go today, it was great back in the day), but now there is no match for One Piece. There are dozens of plot lines, amazing thoughts and concepts that are just placed in the story and never brought to light, and there are even little mind-fucking clues to the story throughout the manga. *Head blows up*

The manga, is unquestionably one of the best manga/comics ever created IMO. The anime, is close to shit--Toei does almost close to nothing to bring out the manga's shine.

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AGREED. The first few volumes don't do it justice. It took my friends a couple years to convince me to follow it, but trust me, it doesn't earn Oda millions for no reason. The story balloons out into this huge thing with countless subplots and events that visibly ripple across the story world.

It zooms in enough that you care about what's happening to the characters, but remains far out enough that you're wondering how one faction is going to react to what another faction has done. And the secrets. There are so many threads to debate about it's crazy. I'd say it blows Harry Potter out of the water in terms of scope and complexity.

You really have to read it to understand what makes it so interesting. And yeah, I don't like the way it's animated (another reason why I stick to the manga), but it makes sense considering the sheer amount of episodes. There's no way to maintain a high level of quality without employees dying of exhaustion xD

phantasy said:

I should watch those old ones. But the newer ones you mentioned don't sound very interesting. I looked them up, not really into magical girl.

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Your loss.

Nothing I posted are series you can judge by their descriptions, old ones included.

MacAllister said:

By all means, don't let the door hit you on your way out, then.

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ROFL

I watch a ton of anime. I read manga, but not as much as I watch anime.


I also wish there was a general option, since I watch a broad swath of genres. (So I voted "...edible?")


I, too, have had some difficulty getting into the stuff that's come out in the last 5 years. 90s and naughts are definitely the period I enjoy the most.

I tend to shy away from the longer running shounen series like One Piece or Bleach or Naruto. Not necessarily because I think they're bad, but mostly because of length. (I don't like Naruto, but Bleach is watchable, and One Piece is something I enjoy watching in a group.)

WillSauger said:

Like I said, you need to dig into One Piece to really get into it. Until you get to the Skypiea arc, everything isn't as good as it can be.

Now Detective Conan, yeah, I won't touch that with a ten foot pole. I get that it's one of the longest running manga of all time, but its really is a never-ending story.

Under 15 volumes?
Dark and/or funny?

If you don't mind some Manhwa, Shin Angyo Onshi -- one of the my all time favorites. Spectacular. Dark in places, funny (Korean slapstick and deadpans all around), though its mostly action/adventure, it's also pretty high fantasy, but nothing too overwhelming.

There's also Freesia, which flat out is the definition of a psychological thriller (to me, and that's saying something). Dark, gritty, insane. Insane. Oh, did I mention INSANE?!

Hellsing -- which is the standard for dark, sometimes a bit overboard though. Vampires and such (before the Twilight era).

Though, I have no idea about official English translations (I can read Japanese and Korean pretty well).

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26 volumes is a bit much for me to read to get into something. That almost the entirety of Naruto (not Shippuden) right there. I really wish some writers didn't take so long to get into their stride.

I've never read any Manhwa, but I'd be interested in it.

Freesia sounds like my kind of thing.

And I've heard of Hellsing. Is it similar to Blood +?

thebloodfiend said:

I've never read any Manhwa, but I'd be interested in it.

Freesia sounds like my kind of thing.

And I've heard of Hellsing. Is it similar to Blood +?

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Manhwa can be a bit odd at times. Some great art, but the stories can be confusing. The market is very limited, but growing. The Korean webcomic field exploded years back and is fantastic though.

Freesia is one of my favorites. Jiro Matsumoto (the mangaka) is completely out of his mind too.

Hellsing is not like Blood+. Its vampires and creatures of the night, but darkly different. Think: Vampires are fighting the church and Nazis, and insanity!

Rhoda Nightingale said:

I'd vote "yes" but I don't know what those other words mean. I don't watch/read that much to be honest. Just a handful that I find interesting for one reason or another.

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Same here.

PSA

For the confused who weren't sure what they meant, the terms used in the poll, shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei are demographics (not genres), much like YA is for novels.

Shounen is aimed at boys, shoujo at girls, seinen at young men, and josei at young women.

They each tend to have recognizable differences in art style, but all span multiple genres.

Shounen is the most widely known, consisting of mostly action, including the "big three" works of Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. Many harem comedies are also shounen. The most influential shounen work is probably Neon Genesis Evangelion, which ultimately became a cultural phenomenon beyond its target demographic, and is one of the most influential anime of all time, if not the most. Hideaki Anno deconstructs many of the popular shounen tropes, and Eva probably alluded to by other anime even more than Gundam.

Shoujo is often associated with romance, but there are also non-romantic shoujo anime and manga. Its pivotal work is probably Revolutionary Girl Utena, directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, who also worked on Sailor Moon. Heavily inspired by Eva, it also attempts to deconstruct many of the tropes popular in shoujo manga.

Seinen is what a lot of people point to when they talk about "mature" anime. It includes anime like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. What catches a lot of people off-guard is lots of slice-of-life shows like K-On! and Azumanga Daioh are also seinen. If it's a show about cute girls doing cute things, it's probably aimed at young men. A quintessential of seinen anime is Serial Experiments Lain with character designs by the great Yoshitoshi ABe, which is to seinen anime what Evangelion is to shounen.

Josei is pretty much a wildcard in terms of genres, but they do tend to be more contemporary than seinen shows. Honey and Clover is probably the most well-known example of Josei. It also includes works like Nodame Cantabile. Many josei shows like the two just mentioned are set in college or university, but some like Usagi Drop and Space Brothers are about middle-aged characters and beyond.

I cannot believe no one has mentioned Tokyo Godfathers yet!

Also, I picked josei but would have liked the choice for 'yes, no preferred demographic'. I dropped Naruto and Bleach because they have gone on too long. I tried to get in One piece but I couldn't forgive the art.
I enjoyed the wallflower, skip beat, hellsing, yu yu hasukura, defense devil and many, many more. I find that I enjoy adventure/action manga and animes of the slower moving plots (like Natsume Yujin cho)


(Fun fact: The rights of Perfect Blue were brought by Darren Aronofsky for a single scene in requiem for a dream. The plot is almost identical to black swan. I like to point that out to people for feel that anime is inferior to other forms of cinema.)

Anyone into Korean webtoons? I found one recently called 'diamond dust' that has a neat little bit of code that plays music when you scroll to a certain part. I think it could be something that ebooks could be doing in a few years.

Question said:

After a question I asked a few days ago, I felt I needed to gauge how well received anime/manga is, and it seems it's a lot more popular than I thought. I don't expect the percentages to carry over exactly, but it's light years better than guessing

I guess that at this rate, the acceptance of strongly manga/anime influenced books (that may previously have been thought of as weird rather than new or inventive) likely isn't as distant a dream as I'd feared. Thanks to everyone who's voted or answered

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You've got some strong self-selection bias going, though. People who don't watch anime or read manga are much less likely to even bother answering a poll about anime and manga.

I always get confused when I hear about "anime/manga-inspired" fiction, since I have no idea what it means, despite being an anime fan. There are so many kinds of manga and anime that to me it's about as meaningless as saying "live action-inspired" fiction.

I guess there are some tropes specific to the medium, but tropes alone don't make for inspiration.

For example, I doubt anyone would ever have thought of Requiem for a Dream or Black Swan as anime-inspired despite Satoshi Kon's influence on the director.

I guess the anime influences might be more obvious in a film like The Matrix.

But what does it mean for a novel? What does it mean for you?

Evan Henry said:

Manga has never done much for me, probably mostly because I've spent a lot of time working in the arena of American comics. I can dig some Lupin III, Cowboy Bebop, Big O, Wolf's Rain, and Witch Hunter Robin, though, but I think I'm one of maybe four people who remember those last two (also Akira!).

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The last two were broadcast on adult swim with the rest of them, I really doubt people have forgotten them. Probably just overshadowed by the others, especially Bebop. I'm rewatching it now and am more impressed than ever. Also, who can forget Robin's handlebar hair things?

Mushishi got me started with both anime and manga. I've watched Trigun, Ghost Hunt, Bleach, One Piece to name a few. I like Bleach and One Piece better in manga. Still haven't found anything I like quite as much as Mushishi though...

I got into anime because of my husband. I am obsessed with Dragon Ball Z (could Vegeta get any sexier) and absolutely love Trigun (could Vash get any sexier). I'm actually reading the Trigun manga which is my first forary into manga. Lots of fun.