Suggest Me Some Seinen (Manga, that is)
This probably isn't the idea forum for such a request, but who has time to post on more than one forum anyway? 
My dilema-- I am a long time anime/manga fan (since 1990) and have kind of reached a point where I just don't seem to get what I want from the official english translation houses these days.
I'm pretty much sick of most shonen stuff... aside from the occasional gem like Death Note, most shonen manga follow the same predictable "Dragon Ball" formula over and over (introduce hero, give him powers, keep the series going for 250+ chapters, eventually add in a team of superpowered friends and make all stories about training/fighting).
I've been trying to get as much seinen (aimed at older males) stuff as I can lately... I *love* Naoki Urasawa's work (Monster, 20th CB, Pluto) and consider him the "gold standard" of the kind of thing I'm looking for. I realize that most of the stuff published in the US is aimed at teen males and females, so I was hoping I could get some suggestions for people as to what, if any, additional seinen stuff I should look for in scanlation.
One caveat-
*I'm not a fan of samurai (eg. LW&C) or yakuza (eg. Crying Freeman) stories (I realize this cuts off most of the seinen stuff already available in the US)
Any help would be appreciated.
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Would Noir (Nowaru?) fall into this category?
MaxShrek .. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doing it.
Horror Vacui
You already read Hajime no Ippo right?
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Yeah. I read all 82 volumes earlier this spring/summer... it really sucks being caught up and having to wait for the weekly releases. Even though I love this manga, it's starting to give me the same feeling as some of those others... it's just one more super-powerful guy after another. This current Gedo storyline has been particularly annoying.
Other manga I've read in the last month or two-- Battle Royale, Yotsuba&!, most of Tezuka's adult stuff (Adolf, Buddha, Ode to Kirihito), Suzuka...
Another caveat to add to the list:
*I'm not really into gratuitous hentai stuff
I got a few other scanlation titles today that I'm going to try, but there aren't many volumes of most of these:
*Gantz-- I saw the first... I dunno... 14-15 episodes of the anime, and dug it. Haven't read the manga yet
*Bitter Virgin #1
*King of Thorns #1
*Takehiko Inoue's REAL
*Emma #1 (seriously... this is published in a seinen mag? erk)
not sure... I've seen some of the Noir anime... is this the same thing?
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The Gantz manga is so much better than the show that aired on TV. The uncensored Gantz DVD was closer to the original manga than the aired show. Check out Tenjou Tenge, that was very enjoyable.
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because of my aversion to hentai, I didn't mind the "edited for TV" version of the first season of Gantz. I also saw like 24 or so eps of the TT anime, and so haven't bothered with the manga (again, from what I understand, it gets kinda freaky hentai).
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It was freaky hentai to begin with. Remember in one of the first few episodes at the laundromat that the white guy tried to rape the black guy's girlfriend? That happened and it was shown in the manga. The show was far more censored than the manga was.
How about Berserk? There's a good 15 years of manga to read right there.
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yeah, that's what I'd heard. The anime itself was both cool (some of the fight scenes) and embarassing (severe jiggle-fest). I read about how DC was editing the hell out of the US manga, and I saw a few samples of the things that were "controversial." I certainly don't need to see that kind of stuff.
actually, never read it, never saw it. Don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of "Fist of the Northstar" kind of stuff, and this always sort of reminded me of that for some reason. I'll check out the first volume.
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Never read or seen Fist of the Northstar. Berserk was an excellent anime but was flawed because it started on volume 15 of the manga and ended after only a bit while the manga started in 1989 and is still going.
Dark Horse does the american version but I have no clue how it is, I have always read the fan translations.
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Read or Die. The title says it all. I only have the first volume, but the OVA based on it was quite enjoyable, I thought.
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Just want to chime in on my own thread and say that I read all 6 volumes of Takehiko Inoue's REAL and it is a frigging AMAZING book. I liked it so much, in fact, that I spent the last few hours adding to the wikipedia page.
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I watch tons of anime but i've only just started getting into manga. Berserk is excellent IMHO and so is Battle Angel Alita if you haven't read that. That's pretty much all I've read that might fall into that category.
Right now I'm in the middle of 20th Century Boys and I'm definitely enjoying it so there's something in common.
Try to secure a copy of IGWP by Iro Ishida and Sena Aritou. It was published stateside by DMP, and It's not terribly long but pretty decent. Touches on some of the subjects: Illegal immigration, racial bigotry and prejudice, drug addiction, emotional manipulation, revenge, childhood loves lost, poontang, prostitution, street fighting.. without being uber preachy.
Also, have you ever seen Ray, Now(manwha), or read the Monster mangas? The monster series is epicly long.
neither lesbian nor kitten!
Is the Monster manga worth reading if you've seen the series? How bout Full Metal Alchemist? I know the Berserk one was because so much is missing from the anime and it's insanely well drawn.
I've read everything that Naoki Urasawa has done, and MONSTER is a good series. Not "epicly" long though... it's only 18 volumes
Hajime no ippo is "epic" (82 volumes)...
I haven't seen every episode of the Monster anime, but what i DID see seemed pretty much spot on with the manga.
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How can I forget that Ghost in the Shell mangas and Akira. Akira because it is so much better than the movie ever was.
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The Berserk manga is fantastic. The beginning is weird because the first three volumes take place in present, followed by twelve volumes of backstory, then back to present day. Gantz is also fantastic. It takes an urealistic premise like all sci-fi manga does, but unlike the others it adds a high mortality rate. I.E. fish out of water tend to die. If you like some horror manga, try High School of the Dead. Not too many volumes out, but everybody loves a good Zombie apocalypse.
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Never been a big fan of either of those series...
you know, I like Gantz... like the anime, like the concept. But wow, is the manga a fast read. I blew through 200 pages in volume 7 in about 20 minutes.
I LOVE 20th Century Boys... but only up until the end of the "bloody new years eve" chapter. That first arc is just so solid, so awesome... yet it seems like Urasawa had no idea what to do with the book after that. I've just read up through the end of volume 22, and the series just doesn't make much sense and hasn't made much sense in a long time. PLUTO is still pretty great.
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They are quite different from the shows. Download or check it out at the library. I found them vastly superior to the show/movies.
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I tried reading the first volume of Akira last month... just didn't click with me.
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One of the manga series I remember from when I lived in Japan was a series called Outer Zone. I believe it was a serial manga in Jump and then collected in books. It was inspired by the Twilight Zone, but the stories were original and each book included several. I think the main character was led through the various mysterious and occult adventures by a tiny spirit called Mystery. It definitely broke from the typical hero with growing power formula, with the main character surviving by wit or luck during each tale. Often he wasnt even the focus of the stories, but one player among others. My wife and I had great fun with the series, the writing and artistic style was solid. I'm unsure if it was ever translated into English though.
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Let's see.. you don't want anything hentai-ish.. don't want anything DBZ shounen style...
xxxHolic: It's CLAMP at it's finest. It crosses over with Tsubasa, but that's easily skipped unless you really want to know why Yuuko is passing stuff over to them and what they're using it for. It's pretty dark in parts.
Legal Drug: More CLAMP. It's about two guys running a drugstore, and there's more to it than that, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.\
Beyond that, I've got not much.. just about everything I read fairly regularly is mid-late teens in nature, so I'm not really grounded in honest to goodness Seinen manga.
Coldstream wrote:
Where do you guys buy most of this stuff? I've seen some manga in Chapters, the big bookstore chain in Canada. They don't seem to have a very large selection though.
Most of the stuff I'm talking about is only available in "scanlation" (i.e. fan translated and posted online), but otherwise, I'd suggest looking at Amazon. Barnes & Noble/Borders in the US seems to have a pretty big selection, and many comic book stores stock manga as well.
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http://us.yesasia.com/en/index.aspx
http://www.animenation.com/
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/
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I prefer http://rightstuf.com to animenation, but that's mostly for the sales.
Coldstream wrote:
How could I forget about them. Yea use rightstuf too.
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If you don't like downloading (i.e. you read a lot instead of working like you should) there are a few sites up with decent to good selection where you can just view them. I like mangarun.com and mangavolume.com. If you're desperate, check out groups.msn.com. Most are in foreign languages or just fanpics, but some sites are good. Great sites for Naruto and Berserk there.
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I found another somewhat crazy seinen series-- SHAMO.
(apparently, "shamo" is the japanese word for a fighting gamecock)
the manga starts with a seemingly perfect 16 year old student snapping, killing his parents with a knife. He gets sent to a prison for minors, gets raped, beat up, etc., the usual stuff you've seen before on OZ or SHAWSHANK. The staff are, of course, sadistic bastards who allow just about anything to happen to the kids... the director of the place brings in another convict to teach a karate class, and through this, our "hero" Ryo builds himself up from a wimp to a total ass kicker. He survives his two years until he's released, and then is let loose into the world.
I'm on volume 3 right now, and it's pretty crazy. Violence, sex... everything you'd expect from a seinen series.
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There are some good things in ROBOT. Not really worth the price tag, though.
don't you wonder sometimes...