Dec 17, 2019 12:49 AM
2019 Manga Reading Challenge - Reflection Part 2
Anime Relations:
Moyashimon
So over the last 11 and a half months I’ve been participating in the 2019 Manga Reading Challenge here on MAL. I previously talked about my impressions of the first 25 items I read and now that I’ve FINISHED this Challenge (at the “Intermediate” difficulty level), I’ll now talk about the other 20 things I’ve read. This will follow the same formatting as the previous post, so look at that if you’re curious. But the basics of it is that I’m going to give brief impressions of what I’ve read and what items these things are fulfilling in the Challenge.
For a few general reflections, I will first say that I copped out a bit at the end. I was originally on track to get this finished up rather early, but things happened and I got behind. I was hoping that I’d still be able to pull this off, but I’ve also been trying to get back into working out lately which has made me really tired. The biggest issue for me near the end of the Challenge was getting through Moyashimon. Now, I’ve really been enjoying this series (see the “Bonus” section), but it is rather dense at times, taking far longer for me to read each of its volumes than most other manga. So on the morning of the last day to turn in Challenge entries (15 Dec 2019) with 5 volumes of Moyashimon still needing to be read, I abandoned that item in my Challenge form and replaced it with reading a very quick single-volume gekiga manga. Again, a bit of a cop-out, but whatever. I still legit finished this Challenge and it did help me read a lot more stuff than I otherwise would have this year! So anyway, without further delay, I’ll get on with my impressions:
-Aruku Hito: (I.01) Read a gekiga manga. So as mentioned above, I read this gekiga manga as a last-minute replacement for Moyashimon on the final day of the Challenge. It just happened that this was the first thing listed in the “Manga Relations” section of the Gekiga Club and it was only a single volume with an interesting enough concept. It’s just some dude going for walks. It was an extremely quick read and kind of interesting. The manga was really calm with a bit of an iyashikei feel. It was nice in the end, but didn’t have a particularly large amount of substance to it, getting a simple 7 from me.
-Houkago Play R: (I.04) Read a manga from a magazine with less than 100 titles listed in the database. This entry in the Houkago Play series was rather surprising! Instead of the usual formula of following a couple’s developing relationship with gaming references sprinkled in, we have the original couple from the first Houkago Play book and the couple from Houkago Play 2 acting as players in a tabletop RPG campaign ran by the main girl from Houkago Play 3, using an RPG system that she herself created. It was really cool! Of course, this is coming from someone who is super into tabletop gaming and has enjoyed things like The Gamers series and HarmonQuest. So yeah, it’s pretty much just like the format used in The Gamers, showing the gaming group as their real selves, but then showing the RPG versions of them to show the action of what’s going on in the game. It’s all done rather well, especially considering the restrictions of the 4-koma format. While I ended up giving it the same 8 score that I gave the other entries in the series, I could see this potentially elevating the series as a whole if it continues going in this direction, potentially bringing it back into my Top 100. The “ending” of this volume does hint that they will continue this TRPG theme, but sadly I cannot find any more English scanlations for the series beyond this volume and a few chapters of the Receptacle side-story or whatever. It’s really a shame.
-Kamisama ga Uso wo Tsuku.: (I.05) Read a manga published in the same magazine in which your favorite one was serialized. So this single-volume manga was serialized in Afternoon, the same magazine that published my favorite manga Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. It’s a rather interesting story about a young boy who gets close to a girl from his class who lives alone with her little brother. It’s a sweet little story and had some very strong moments to it, but it did feel like it was missing a few things to really bring it into greatness levels for me. Maybe if it was another volume long? But as it stands, it still got an 8 from me and I do not regret blind-buying the book on recommendation. I can definitely see myself re-reading it later.
-About Death: (I.06) Read a manga published in an online magazine. So I read this mainly because it was given as a suggestion under the MRC Staff’s Challenge list recs in the OP of the MRC Discussion thread. I just took the suggestion because I wasn’t really sure how to fill out the 20 items needed for this Level and didn’t really know what constituted as an “online magazine.” So yeah, I read this on LINE Webtoon. I’m not really into the “Webtoon” format or Korean comics in general, but figured I’d give this a shot since it’s relatively high-rated on MAL. And it was.... “okay”. I gave it a 6. I had originally scored this a 7, but the more I thought about it, the more things started to bug me. I ended up writing a review of About Death if you would like to read my detailed thoughts on the series.
-Omoide Emanon: (I.07) Read a manga of a demographic that can apply to you. Since this is a seinen series and I’m an older male, this fulfilled this items specifications. I’m not exactly sure how I came across this series, but it was pretty interesting. The series follows a character named Emanon (“no name” backwards) who has lived since the beginning of our planet three billion years ago, with her memories transferring from mother to daughter over and over across evolution until our time today. It’s a really cool concept. And this single volume (but not truly standalone) manga was kind of hard to score due to its somewhat disjointed style of storytelling and the fact that the story continues in this and this manga. I’m thinking that I’d love to read the original short stories that came before the manga version, if I can get them in English. But yeah, very interesting and I ended up giving this volume 8 for now, but that could potentially change as I later read more, and maybe re-read this book as well.
-Chicchana Yukitsukai Sugar: (I.08) Read a manga of a demographic that does not apply to you. The Snow Fairy Sugar anime is one of my favorite all-ages series. I’ve had the 3-volume manga version for a while, but I tend to be a little weary of anime-to-manga adaptations. They tend to feel like they just run through the highlights without really fleshing out the story, kind of like watching a really condensed movie version of an anime TV series. For the first half or so of this manga, those worries were 100% confirmed. The first volume especially felt rushed and the relationship development between Saga and Sugar felt like it was missing a LOT of scenes. BUT! The final volume was actually really nice! It did its own original story arc which didn’t happen in the anime and because of that it felt like a much more natural story with good pacing and a nice impact! So yeah, somehow, this little manga pulled a solid 8 out of me.
-Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä: (I.09) Read a manga that started serialization before 1995. Oh boy. This series was some WORK to get through! I tried to read this last year when I first got the super nice 2-book hardcover box set from VIZ, but it was so damn dense that I don’t think I even got through the first volume’s worth of content. But this time, motivated by the Manga Reading Challenge, I was able to get through it!! And honestly, while it was dense as all hell and hard for my slow-reading ass to get through, I still enjoyed it quite a bit and don’t regret having this in my collection (though I don’t know if I’ll ever re-read it). While I could feel the greatness of the series, it did “only” get an 8 from me, with the denseness and Miyazaki-ness of it keeping it from being Top 100 worthy in my book. It also had a few other issues that didn’t sit well for me, mainly a few near-4th-wall-breaking moments when the narrator would explicitly state something like, “now let’s back track to a few moments ago.” Like, did you really need to say stuff like that? Shouldn’t the readers be smart enough to put together the sequence of events themselves? The “and the story continues” ending also had a bit of that self-aware-style narration. I mean, it didn’t completely ruin the series for me, but it was kind of annoying.
-Strobe Edge: (I.10) Read a manga that has been adapted to drama CD. When I came out of my July-through-October reading slump and finished off the Haruhi Anthology (see below), I kind of came back with a vengeance when I read Strobe Edge! I just couldn’t put this series down and read all 10 volumes over two days! So yeah, this was a very delightful shoujo series. It is a sweet love story with loveable characters, but also has a healthy amount of drama. I found it to be a nice medium between the super fluffy goodness of Kimi ni Todoke and the nearly oppressive and harsh teen melodrama of Bokura ga Ita. However, while I loved the series, it didn’t quite hit the heights of those two other manga which I’m arbitrarily comparing it to. The main things that brought it down was a bit of a drag around volume 7 and/or 8 and the fact that it went the typical shoujo route of (minor spoiler) not having the main romance solidify until pretty much the very end of the series. But again, I did still love it quite a bit in the end, giving it a 9 and currently having it ranked at #52 on my working Top 100. Definitely a nice read and I’m looking forward to reading Ao Haru Ride when I have a chance. It’d be nice if Ninako and Ren’s relationship is touched on a bit in that series since they’re shown as supporting characters for that series on MAL....
-Boogiepop wa Warawanai: (I.11) Read a manga adapted from light novel, video game or original anime. Well this was rather surprising! I’ve had the first volume of this 2-volume adaptation of the Boogiepop light novel series for a while and recently had to buy a used copy of volume 2 since it is now out of print. But yeah, I really liked this! I thought the manga flowed really well and did a great job of telling the first core story in the series (adapting the first light novel, Boogiepop and Others). I remember Boogiepop Phantom fondly and really enjoyed the 2019 Boogiepop anime. This felt very similar to the new anime and is essentially the first three episodes of that series. I gave it a 9 just like I gave the two anime because I honestly think it’s on par with them. Good stuff!
-Yoki, Koto, Kiku.: (I.13) Read a manga ranked BELOW 7,000. So this was a thing. I don’t remember when or why I bought this manga. It was probably on sale at some point and I figured “what the hell”? I don’t know. It’s been on my shelf for a while though and I’m a little surprised that I never sold it off. I guess I figured I’d go ahead and read it some day and probably wouldn’t get a lot of money off of it.... ANYWAY! This little manga had its moments, but it only got a 6 from me in the end. The gag of the triplets trying to kill each other got a bit repetitive, although there were a few more interesting elements added in. I particularly liked the Shinigami. If it had a better ending instead of the cheap “we’re just going to continue trying to kill each other!” ending that was used, maybe it could have squeaked by with a 7. But oh well. It’s not the worst thing I’ve read.
-Haruhi Comic Anthology: (I.14) Read a manga with less than 1,000 completed members. The Suzumiya Haruhi series is not only my favorite anime/manga series of all time; it is my favorite entertainment franchise PERIOD, and there is very little hope of it ever being surpassed at this point. With that in mind, I had some very clear biases coming into reading this anthology series. However, even being the huge shameless Haruhi fanboy that I am, the format of 57 one-off chapters over 3 manga volumes, with most stories being between 4 and 8 pages long, made this a bit of an exhausting read. So exhausting in fact that I started reading this in July, but didn’t finish it until October, with nearly a fully three months span when I didn’t read a single chapter of this. Yeah, this manga is largely what triggered a big reading slump during this time, preventing me from finishing my Challenge 2+ months early like I would have liked. Anyway, that’s not to say that I didn’t still enjoy this! While the stories were rather hit-or-miss, some of them hit rather well and I at least appreciated nearly all of them being the big Haruhi fan that I am. Now, I do feel like a lot of the chapters were much more similar to each other than they should have been, as the bulk of them focused almost exclusively on the core 5-character cast. Tsuruya, Kyon’s Sister, Taniguchi, Kunikida, and Arakawa all made very few appearances. Asakura and the Computer Club President were probably the only supporting characters that I felt were used the right amount. Then, I don’t recall Mori, Kimidori, or Shamisen being in the Anthology at all! I also think it would have been cool to have Sasaki and her group used, but they may have been a little too new when these stories were made? I think there MIGHT have been a small cameo from Sasaki in one of the chapters, maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, again, I still enjoyed this and gave it a mostly solid (almost obligatory) 8 score. =P
-Propeller Heaven: (I.17) Read a Sci-Fi or Horror manga. Oh Hitoshi Tomizawa, you wonderful weirdo. I’ve loved Alien 9 and Milk Closet for a while and Yumihari was the main reason that I bought into the short-lived English version of Web Comic GENZO. So when going through my Plan to Read list for possible things to read for this Challenge, I was happy to see that Propeller Heaven FINALLY got a scanlation release sometime last year! So, I didn’t quite love this single-volume work quite as much as Alien 9 and Milk Closet, but I did still like it quite a bit, giving it a respectable 8 in the end. The plot was rather messy, but you eventually find out that there is a good reason for that. And honestly, plot structure had never been a major strength for Tomizawa anyway. But with how this little book ended, I immediately got the urge to re-read it so that is definitely a mark in its favor. I’ll have to look into if the Japanese release of this book is easily obtainable or not. I had to buy Milk Closet off a Japanese Yahoo auction through a proxy back in the day. XD
-Boogiepop Dual: Makeinu-tachi no Circus: (I.18) Read a Psychological or Supernatural manga. Between this and the straight manga adaptation of Boogiepop and Others mentioned above, I definitely consider this the lesser of the two, “only” giving this a 7 compared to the other manga’s 9. That’s not to say that this was a bad manga. It was still rather interesting, but it did have its faults. As opposed to being an adaptation of the original light novels, this is an original story created within the Boogiepop world. And sadly that was kind of noticeable. But again, this wasn’t a slog to get through at all as I was easily able to read it over two nights, getting through one volume each after work. It was a rather engaging story. If I ever get around to reading the original Boogiepop novels, I could see myself re-reading this manga afterwards.
-Now Loading...!: (I.20) Read a manga that has a main character that is a professional in their field. This was a nice light and fluffy single volume yuri manga. It’s kind of like a less interesting version of New Game and probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the 7 that I gave it if it wasn’t for the lesbian romance aspect of it. Really, not much else to say about it. The story and characters were just cute enough to pull it through its short length.
-Kuro: (I.21) Read a manga about angels or demons. Kuro is a very interesting series which takes a simple slice-of-life story about a girl playing with her pet and turns it on its head by making the girl’s cat into a demon(?) and setting the story in a town which is kind of infested with these black monsters. While this is a slice of life series at its core, there is a bizarre mystery in the background that slowly unfolds in a very satisfying way. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of School-Live! in how it subverts the slice of life format. The series is strangely cute and has rather lovely art with the bulk of the manga being done in full color. I enjoyed my read of this quite a bit and it got a very respectful 9, currently ranking at #59 on my working Top 100 Series list. I think what mainly kept the series from ranking higher for me was how choppy the story can feel. During its original serialization, the story was released in extremely short “chapters” which were just 1-4 pages long. At times, the story flows very well despite this, but at other times the transitions are very awkward. Regardless, I loved this series and it currently ranks rather high as a “most wanted manga license” for an English release. Make it happen Seven Seas, Yen Press, or Vertical!! I’d love to have this on my shelf and be able to re-read it more easily.
-Hanayome wa Motodanshi.: (I.24) Read a manga from the ones listed under manga relations in the Hidden Gems of Manga club. The Bride Was a Boy is a single-volume autobiographical manga about a trans woman which documents her transition from being born and raised as a boy, to realizing her gender identity, coming out to her family, getting a serious boyfriend, coming out to him, and eventually getting married after physically and legally transitioning to a female (something that is required for a trans woman to marry a man in Japan). While I didn’t quite love this as much as the Lesbian Experience series, it was still a very nice book which can be very education on general transgender issues and also how they specifically relate to people living in Japan. It is lighter in tone than Lesbian Experience and a nice read. I gave it a solid 8.
-Octave: (I.26) Read a featured manga. And speaking of LGBTQ+ related manga, this 6-volume yuri manga is featured in the article 10 Faithful Representations of Queer Characters in Yuri Manga and I largely agree with what was written there. I found this to be a rather nice read. There were a few times when Yukino annoyed me a bit, especially near the end when it would have seemed that she had gotten past some of her hang-ups, but in the end it was a really good series which I gave a solid 8. I’d consider buying it if someone released it in English. (Seven Seas??)
-Jumyou wo Kaitotte Moratta. Ichinen ni Tsuki, Ichimanen de.: (I.28) Read a manga that has 6 or more words in its title. I think I use the word “interesting” a little too often, but this was a pretty interesting story. I think I found this series by just checking out the top-rated manga on MAL as it’s currently ranked at #34, but in the end I “only” gave the series an 8. Yeah, so while an 8 is a very respectable score for me, it is below the MAL average. The main issue that kept the manga from scoring higher with me is that the flow of the series felt rather off, especially early on. It made it difficult for me to connect with the story and characters. The earlier parts of the series also felt like it was largely just wallowing in quite misery. The series does pull through later, and I think the third volume in particular was rather great. In a way, it reminded me a bit of a movie called Lars and the Real Girl, although the girl actually was real in this manga. And I don’t know. Maybe if I re-read this at some point, maybe I’ll enjoy it more. I’m also curious if the original novel might work a little better.
-Clover: (I.29) Read a manga with a one word title. When I was buying MUCH more anime and manga during my Air Force days, I was really into CLAMP manga and was buying pretty much every series that came out by them. However, after a while I felt like I was largely collecting their stuff just for the sake of collecting it, so I ended up selling off most of their stuff when I was purging a lot of my collection to lighten the load and make some money. My Dark Horse omnibus release of Clover was one of the few CLAMP books to stay on my shelf (Suki is their only other major release that I’ve kept). However, I’d never gotten around to reading all the way through Clover until now. I think I might have read a few pages around when I first bought the book. But anyway, now I’ve read it! And it was.... “cool”. The series got a 7 from me, mostly just on style. The series does have a few neat story elements; the way each major arc is told in reverse order actually works pretty well. But the art is really the main draw. Again, it’s just really cool. I’ll likely be keeping the series on my shelf just for that, even though I’m not sure if I’ll ever re-read it.
-Owari Nochi, Asanagi-kurashi.: (I.31) Read any manga recommended to your Favorite Manga listed in profile. I read this because it has been Recommended to my favorite manga, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. The series does have a similar post-apocalyptic iyashikei feel to it as YKK, though I’d say that the similarities mostly end there. I wasn’t even thinking of trying to measure this series against my favorite manga of all time, though; that wouldn’t have been fair. Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale is a cute little series about a girl who befriends a big spider-like creature and does some cooking. I’ve actually never read a cooking manga before, though I have watched some anime adaptations of such series (like Sweetness & Lightning and Yumeiro Patissiere). This series was a rather delightful read as Nagi and Asa are very adorable. While there are a few dramatic moments, this series is mostly light fluffy fun which I gave a solid 8. Probably my biggest strike against the series would be that there is a cooking segment in pretty much every single chapter and this sometimes feels very out of place, at times undercutting some of those sparse dramatic moments. Other than that, it was very nice series!
BONUS!!
Just one bonus item for me to talk about this time around....
-Moyashimon: So as mentioned above, this was originally part of my item line-up for this block of the Challenge, but I ran out of time and energy after getting behind on my reading. It was originally going to fulfill: (I.12) Read a manga that is 11 to 15 volumes in length. But yeah, I’ve read the first 8 volumes of the series so far and really like it! Just based on the first season of the anime (which I gave a 9), the series is currently at #75 on my Top 100 and once I finish the manga it will likely also get a 9 and maintain its spot on my list more or less. So yeah, this is a fun series about a guy who goes off to an agricultural college and has the supernatural ability to see microbes. The characters are all a lot of fun and it’s always a nice change of pace when a series takes place in college instead of high school. But man, is this a dense series. Soooo many words! There are major walls of text at times, especially when the professor talks. But still, this is really good stuff and I’m looking forward to continuing to read it, but it’s not something that I can personally binge very well with my slow reading speed.
For a few general reflections, I will first say that I copped out a bit at the end. I was originally on track to get this finished up rather early, but things happened and I got behind. I was hoping that I’d still be able to pull this off, but I’ve also been trying to get back into working out lately which has made me really tired. The biggest issue for me near the end of the Challenge was getting through Moyashimon. Now, I’ve really been enjoying this series (see the “Bonus” section), but it is rather dense at times, taking far longer for me to read each of its volumes than most other manga. So on the morning of the last day to turn in Challenge entries (15 Dec 2019) with 5 volumes of Moyashimon still needing to be read, I abandoned that item in my Challenge form and replaced it with reading a very quick single-volume gekiga manga. Again, a bit of a cop-out, but whatever. I still legit finished this Challenge and it did help me read a lot more stuff than I otherwise would have this year! So anyway, without further delay, I’ll get on with my impressions:
-Aruku Hito: (I.01) Read a gekiga manga. So as mentioned above, I read this gekiga manga as a last-minute replacement for Moyashimon on the final day of the Challenge. It just happened that this was the first thing listed in the “Manga Relations” section of the Gekiga Club and it was only a single volume with an interesting enough concept. It’s just some dude going for walks. It was an extremely quick read and kind of interesting. The manga was really calm with a bit of an iyashikei feel. It was nice in the end, but didn’t have a particularly large amount of substance to it, getting a simple 7 from me.
-Houkago Play R: (I.04) Read a manga from a magazine with less than 100 titles listed in the database. This entry in the Houkago Play series was rather surprising! Instead of the usual formula of following a couple’s developing relationship with gaming references sprinkled in, we have the original couple from the first Houkago Play book and the couple from Houkago Play 2 acting as players in a tabletop RPG campaign ran by the main girl from Houkago Play 3, using an RPG system that she herself created. It was really cool! Of course, this is coming from someone who is super into tabletop gaming and has enjoyed things like The Gamers series and HarmonQuest. So yeah, it’s pretty much just like the format used in The Gamers, showing the gaming group as their real selves, but then showing the RPG versions of them to show the action of what’s going on in the game. It’s all done rather well, especially considering the restrictions of the 4-koma format. While I ended up giving it the same 8 score that I gave the other entries in the series, I could see this potentially elevating the series as a whole if it continues going in this direction, potentially bringing it back into my Top 100. The “ending” of this volume does hint that they will continue this TRPG theme, but sadly I cannot find any more English scanlations for the series beyond this volume and a few chapters of the Receptacle side-story or whatever. It’s really a shame.
-Kamisama ga Uso wo Tsuku.: (I.05) Read a manga published in the same magazine in which your favorite one was serialized. So this single-volume manga was serialized in Afternoon, the same magazine that published my favorite manga Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. It’s a rather interesting story about a young boy who gets close to a girl from his class who lives alone with her little brother. It’s a sweet little story and had some very strong moments to it, but it did feel like it was missing a few things to really bring it into greatness levels for me. Maybe if it was another volume long? But as it stands, it still got an 8 from me and I do not regret blind-buying the book on recommendation. I can definitely see myself re-reading it later.
-About Death: (I.06) Read a manga published in an online magazine. So I read this mainly because it was given as a suggestion under the MRC Staff’s Challenge list recs in the OP of the MRC Discussion thread. I just took the suggestion because I wasn’t really sure how to fill out the 20 items needed for this Level and didn’t really know what constituted as an “online magazine.” So yeah, I read this on LINE Webtoon. I’m not really into the “Webtoon” format or Korean comics in general, but figured I’d give this a shot since it’s relatively high-rated on MAL. And it was.... “okay”. I gave it a 6. I had originally scored this a 7, but the more I thought about it, the more things started to bug me. I ended up writing a review of About Death if you would like to read my detailed thoughts on the series.
-Omoide Emanon: (I.07) Read a manga of a demographic that can apply to you. Since this is a seinen series and I’m an older male, this fulfilled this items specifications. I’m not exactly sure how I came across this series, but it was pretty interesting. The series follows a character named Emanon (“no name” backwards) who has lived since the beginning of our planet three billion years ago, with her memories transferring from mother to daughter over and over across evolution until our time today. It’s a really cool concept. And this single volume (but not truly standalone) manga was kind of hard to score due to its somewhat disjointed style of storytelling and the fact that the story continues in this and this manga. I’m thinking that I’d love to read the original short stories that came before the manga version, if I can get them in English. But yeah, very interesting and I ended up giving this volume 8 for now, but that could potentially change as I later read more, and maybe re-read this book as well.
-Chicchana Yukitsukai Sugar: (I.08) Read a manga of a demographic that does not apply to you. The Snow Fairy Sugar anime is one of my favorite all-ages series. I’ve had the 3-volume manga version for a while, but I tend to be a little weary of anime-to-manga adaptations. They tend to feel like they just run through the highlights without really fleshing out the story, kind of like watching a really condensed movie version of an anime TV series. For the first half or so of this manga, those worries were 100% confirmed. The first volume especially felt rushed and the relationship development between Saga and Sugar felt like it was missing a LOT of scenes. BUT! The final volume was actually really nice! It did its own original story arc which didn’t happen in the anime and because of that it felt like a much more natural story with good pacing and a nice impact! So yeah, somehow, this little manga pulled a solid 8 out of me.
-Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä: (I.09) Read a manga that started serialization before 1995. Oh boy. This series was some WORK to get through! I tried to read this last year when I first got the super nice 2-book hardcover box set from VIZ, but it was so damn dense that I don’t think I even got through the first volume’s worth of content. But this time, motivated by the Manga Reading Challenge, I was able to get through it!! And honestly, while it was dense as all hell and hard for my slow-reading ass to get through, I still enjoyed it quite a bit and don’t regret having this in my collection (though I don’t know if I’ll ever re-read it). While I could feel the greatness of the series, it did “only” get an 8 from me, with the denseness and Miyazaki-ness of it keeping it from being Top 100 worthy in my book. It also had a few other issues that didn’t sit well for me, mainly a few near-4th-wall-breaking moments when the narrator would explicitly state something like, “now let’s back track to a few moments ago.” Like, did you really need to say stuff like that? Shouldn’t the readers be smart enough to put together the sequence of events themselves? The “and the story continues” ending also had a bit of that self-aware-style narration. I mean, it didn’t completely ruin the series for me, but it was kind of annoying.
-Strobe Edge: (I.10) Read a manga that has been adapted to drama CD. When I came out of my July-through-October reading slump and finished off the Haruhi Anthology (see below), I kind of came back with a vengeance when I read Strobe Edge! I just couldn’t put this series down and read all 10 volumes over two days! So yeah, this was a very delightful shoujo series. It is a sweet love story with loveable characters, but also has a healthy amount of drama. I found it to be a nice medium between the super fluffy goodness of Kimi ni Todoke and the nearly oppressive and harsh teen melodrama of Bokura ga Ita. However, while I loved the series, it didn’t quite hit the heights of those two other manga which I’m arbitrarily comparing it to. The main things that brought it down was a bit of a drag around volume 7 and/or 8 and the fact that it went the typical shoujo route of (minor spoiler) not having the main romance solidify until pretty much the very end of the series. But again, I did still love it quite a bit in the end, giving it a 9 and currently having it ranked at #52 on my working Top 100. Definitely a nice read and I’m looking forward to reading Ao Haru Ride when I have a chance. It’d be nice if Ninako and Ren’s relationship is touched on a bit in that series since they’re shown as supporting characters for that series on MAL....
-Boogiepop wa Warawanai: (I.11) Read a manga adapted from light novel, video game or original anime. Well this was rather surprising! I’ve had the first volume of this 2-volume adaptation of the Boogiepop light novel series for a while and recently had to buy a used copy of volume 2 since it is now out of print. But yeah, I really liked this! I thought the manga flowed really well and did a great job of telling the first core story in the series (adapting the first light novel, Boogiepop and Others). I remember Boogiepop Phantom fondly and really enjoyed the 2019 Boogiepop anime. This felt very similar to the new anime and is essentially the first three episodes of that series. I gave it a 9 just like I gave the two anime because I honestly think it’s on par with them. Good stuff!
-Yoki, Koto, Kiku.: (I.13) Read a manga ranked BELOW 7,000. So this was a thing. I don’t remember when or why I bought this manga. It was probably on sale at some point and I figured “what the hell”? I don’t know. It’s been on my shelf for a while though and I’m a little surprised that I never sold it off. I guess I figured I’d go ahead and read it some day and probably wouldn’t get a lot of money off of it.... ANYWAY! This little manga had its moments, but it only got a 6 from me in the end. The gag of the triplets trying to kill each other got a bit repetitive, although there were a few more interesting elements added in. I particularly liked the Shinigami. If it had a better ending instead of the cheap “we’re just going to continue trying to kill each other!” ending that was used, maybe it could have squeaked by with a 7. But oh well. It’s not the worst thing I’ve read.
-Haruhi Comic Anthology: (I.14) Read a manga with less than 1,000 completed members. The Suzumiya Haruhi series is not only my favorite anime/manga series of all time; it is my favorite entertainment franchise PERIOD, and there is very little hope of it ever being surpassed at this point. With that in mind, I had some very clear biases coming into reading this anthology series. However, even being the huge shameless Haruhi fanboy that I am, the format of 57 one-off chapters over 3 manga volumes, with most stories being between 4 and 8 pages long, made this a bit of an exhausting read. So exhausting in fact that I started reading this in July, but didn’t finish it until October, with nearly a fully three months span when I didn’t read a single chapter of this. Yeah, this manga is largely what triggered a big reading slump during this time, preventing me from finishing my Challenge 2+ months early like I would have liked. Anyway, that’s not to say that I didn’t still enjoy this! While the stories were rather hit-or-miss, some of them hit rather well and I at least appreciated nearly all of them being the big Haruhi fan that I am. Now, I do feel like a lot of the chapters were much more similar to each other than they should have been, as the bulk of them focused almost exclusively on the core 5-character cast. Tsuruya, Kyon’s Sister, Taniguchi, Kunikida, and Arakawa all made very few appearances. Asakura and the Computer Club President were probably the only supporting characters that I felt were used the right amount. Then, I don’t recall Mori, Kimidori, or Shamisen being in the Anthology at all! I also think it would have been cool to have Sasaki and her group used, but they may have been a little too new when these stories were made? I think there MIGHT have been a small cameo from Sasaki in one of the chapters, maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, again, I still enjoyed this and gave it a mostly solid (almost obligatory) 8 score. =P
-Propeller Heaven: (I.17) Read a Sci-Fi or Horror manga. Oh Hitoshi Tomizawa, you wonderful weirdo. I’ve loved Alien 9 and Milk Closet for a while and Yumihari was the main reason that I bought into the short-lived English version of Web Comic GENZO. So when going through my Plan to Read list for possible things to read for this Challenge, I was happy to see that Propeller Heaven FINALLY got a scanlation release sometime last year! So, I didn’t quite love this single-volume work quite as much as Alien 9 and Milk Closet, but I did still like it quite a bit, giving it a respectable 8 in the end. The plot was rather messy, but you eventually find out that there is a good reason for that. And honestly, plot structure had never been a major strength for Tomizawa anyway. But with how this little book ended, I immediately got the urge to re-read it so that is definitely a mark in its favor. I’ll have to look into if the Japanese release of this book is easily obtainable or not. I had to buy Milk Closet off a Japanese Yahoo auction through a proxy back in the day. XD
-Boogiepop Dual: Makeinu-tachi no Circus: (I.18) Read a Psychological or Supernatural manga. Between this and the straight manga adaptation of Boogiepop and Others mentioned above, I definitely consider this the lesser of the two, “only” giving this a 7 compared to the other manga’s 9. That’s not to say that this was a bad manga. It was still rather interesting, but it did have its faults. As opposed to being an adaptation of the original light novels, this is an original story created within the Boogiepop world. And sadly that was kind of noticeable. But again, this wasn’t a slog to get through at all as I was easily able to read it over two nights, getting through one volume each after work. It was a rather engaging story. If I ever get around to reading the original Boogiepop novels, I could see myself re-reading this manga afterwards.
-Now Loading...!: (I.20) Read a manga that has a main character that is a professional in their field. This was a nice light and fluffy single volume yuri manga. It’s kind of like a less interesting version of New Game and probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the 7 that I gave it if it wasn’t for the lesbian romance aspect of it. Really, not much else to say about it. The story and characters were just cute enough to pull it through its short length.
-Kuro: (I.21) Read a manga about angels or demons. Kuro is a very interesting series which takes a simple slice-of-life story about a girl playing with her pet and turns it on its head by making the girl’s cat into a demon(?) and setting the story in a town which is kind of infested with these black monsters. While this is a slice of life series at its core, there is a bizarre mystery in the background that slowly unfolds in a very satisfying way. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of School-Live! in how it subverts the slice of life format. The series is strangely cute and has rather lovely art with the bulk of the manga being done in full color. I enjoyed my read of this quite a bit and it got a very respectful 9, currently ranking at #59 on my working Top 100 Series list. I think what mainly kept the series from ranking higher for me was how choppy the story can feel. During its original serialization, the story was released in extremely short “chapters” which were just 1-4 pages long. At times, the story flows very well despite this, but at other times the transitions are very awkward. Regardless, I loved this series and it currently ranks rather high as a “most wanted manga license” for an English release. Make it happen Seven Seas, Yen Press, or Vertical!! I’d love to have this on my shelf and be able to re-read it more easily.
-Hanayome wa Motodanshi.: (I.24) Read a manga from the ones listed under manga relations in the Hidden Gems of Manga club. The Bride Was a Boy is a single-volume autobiographical manga about a trans woman which documents her transition from being born and raised as a boy, to realizing her gender identity, coming out to her family, getting a serious boyfriend, coming out to him, and eventually getting married after physically and legally transitioning to a female (something that is required for a trans woman to marry a man in Japan). While I didn’t quite love this as much as the Lesbian Experience series, it was still a very nice book which can be very education on general transgender issues and also how they specifically relate to people living in Japan. It is lighter in tone than Lesbian Experience and a nice read. I gave it a solid 8.
-Octave: (I.26) Read a featured manga. And speaking of LGBTQ+ related manga, this 6-volume yuri manga is featured in the article 10 Faithful Representations of Queer Characters in Yuri Manga and I largely agree with what was written there. I found this to be a rather nice read. There were a few times when Yukino annoyed me a bit, especially near the end when it would have seemed that she had gotten past some of her hang-ups, but in the end it was a really good series which I gave a solid 8. I’d consider buying it if someone released it in English. (Seven Seas??)
-Jumyou wo Kaitotte Moratta. Ichinen ni Tsuki, Ichimanen de.: (I.28) Read a manga that has 6 or more words in its title. I think I use the word “interesting” a little too often, but this was a pretty interesting story. I think I found this series by just checking out the top-rated manga on MAL as it’s currently ranked at #34, but in the end I “only” gave the series an 8. Yeah, so while an 8 is a very respectable score for me, it is below the MAL average. The main issue that kept the manga from scoring higher with me is that the flow of the series felt rather off, especially early on. It made it difficult for me to connect with the story and characters. The earlier parts of the series also felt like it was largely just wallowing in quite misery. The series does pull through later, and I think the third volume in particular was rather great. In a way, it reminded me a bit of a movie called Lars and the Real Girl, although the girl actually was real in this manga. And I don’t know. Maybe if I re-read this at some point, maybe I’ll enjoy it more. I’m also curious if the original novel might work a little better.
-Clover: (I.29) Read a manga with a one word title. When I was buying MUCH more anime and manga during my Air Force days, I was really into CLAMP manga and was buying pretty much every series that came out by them. However, after a while I felt like I was largely collecting their stuff just for the sake of collecting it, so I ended up selling off most of their stuff when I was purging a lot of my collection to lighten the load and make some money. My Dark Horse omnibus release of Clover was one of the few CLAMP books to stay on my shelf (Suki is their only other major release that I’ve kept). However, I’d never gotten around to reading all the way through Clover until now. I think I might have read a few pages around when I first bought the book. But anyway, now I’ve read it! And it was.... “cool”. The series got a 7 from me, mostly just on style. The series does have a few neat story elements; the way each major arc is told in reverse order actually works pretty well. But the art is really the main draw. Again, it’s just really cool. I’ll likely be keeping the series on my shelf just for that, even though I’m not sure if I’ll ever re-read it.
-Owari Nochi, Asanagi-kurashi.: (I.31) Read any manga recommended to your Favorite Manga listed in profile. I read this because it has been Recommended to my favorite manga, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. The series does have a similar post-apocalyptic iyashikei feel to it as YKK, though I’d say that the similarities mostly end there. I wasn’t even thinking of trying to measure this series against my favorite manga of all time, though; that wouldn’t have been fair. Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale is a cute little series about a girl who befriends a big spider-like creature and does some cooking. I’ve actually never read a cooking manga before, though I have watched some anime adaptations of such series (like Sweetness & Lightning and Yumeiro Patissiere). This series was a rather delightful read as Nagi and Asa are very adorable. While there are a few dramatic moments, this series is mostly light fluffy fun which I gave a solid 8. Probably my biggest strike against the series would be that there is a cooking segment in pretty much every single chapter and this sometimes feels very out of place, at times undercutting some of those sparse dramatic moments. Other than that, it was very nice series!
BONUS!!
Just one bonus item for me to talk about this time around....
-Moyashimon: So as mentioned above, this was originally part of my item line-up for this block of the Challenge, but I ran out of time and energy after getting behind on my reading. It was originally going to fulfill: (I.12) Read a manga that is 11 to 15 volumes in length. But yeah, I’ve read the first 8 volumes of the series so far and really like it! Just based on the first season of the anime (which I gave a 9), the series is currently at #75 on my Top 100 and once I finish the manga it will likely also get a 9 and maintain its spot on my list more or less. So yeah, this is a fun series about a guy who goes off to an agricultural college and has the supernatural ability to see microbes. The characters are all a lot of fun and it’s always a nice change of pace when a series takes place in college instead of high school. But man, is this a dense series. Soooo many words! There are major walls of text at times, especially when the professor talks. But still, this is really good stuff and I’m looking forward to continuing to read it, but it’s not something that I can personally binge very well with my slow reading speed.
Posted by
pluvia33
| Dec 17, 2019 12:49 AM |
Add a comment