What is the best manga you've ever read?

Luscaarmstrong said:
What is the best manga you've ever read?

I want to take some getting some to read.

zawa113 said:
I have a pretty long list of favs, but my top of the heap:

Banana Fish
Basara
Please Save My Earth
From Far Away
Real (Takehiko Inoue)
NG Life
Yona of the Dawn
Noragami
Afterschool Nightmare

Stripes said:
Boku no Hero Academia or One Piece.

Swagernator said:

Can you share the reasons why those two are your favorites ? If it is not a bother.

Stripes said:


Boku no Hero Academia:

- Brass tacks the systematic conventions of a Superhero world actually being used in political, social, and everyday life is amazingly put to detail in here. I find it difficult in even modern superhero comics that the world is pretty much the same just "add superhero" to the mix. Even in something like XMEN, nothing is really done in pocket of changing things to fit with the world of having "mutants" or "quirks"; other then to outlaw them but that's just lol.

- Taking note from Superhero stigma, every quirk in BNHA has upsides and downsides. And that sounds so basic. Like of course they should. But you see how most comics don't take into effect that superpowers should take toll on body or have obstacles to overcome; this applies to battle shounen too, there's a quick training arc to get over certain "issues" with the power you're obtaining or

- Deku is the best main character for a series I've ever seen and people can rail my ass all day about this but I stand to it, he's very grounded, he multifaceted, his emotions are justified and he doesn't have a tragic backstory to make him pitiful, he's just relatable. And honestly the whole "he cries too much aspect" is so fucking obtuse, a boy whose able to cry openly in this type of series is so genuine and doesn't have this farce of "you shouldn't" and I think there are really subtle nuances to it; there are a few times All Might tells Deku that he shouldn't cry but during the emotional climax of S3 with them both on the beach. they both breakdown, a small aspect of All Might and Deku is that AM is from an older generation and how AM was also one to not shed or show emotional face because he was suppose to be the symbol of peace and how Deku is breaking that down by being more open and not hiding away (there's also a line later where Deku says "Heroes shouldn't cry" while in tears while his friend affirms that "No they should") . Not to mention he has a hobby, ticks, habits, and flaws, Deku flaws are miniscule to the point people find it endearing but I think they're super important once you note them; he's hypocritical in the fact that he wants to be a hero in the beginning of the story but he's more in a dream like state of just admiring and noting them as a hobby which does help him but his entire aspiration of wanting to become one makes it where he isn't training or finding new solutions to doing it while quirkless (something Horikoshi was planning on doing in the drafts) and there are lots of moments where Deku is very unapologetic about his moral even with his friends.

- Despite Deku being a "Chosen One" he does not getting any perks to being chosen. I'd say the only perk he gets is being close to AM but with him has caused massive conflict, hurt, and idolization that has shot him in the foot with his own training. I wouldn't say it's a burden but unlike most Shounen Protagonists, he doesn't gain this lineage or mass power without having to work hard for it.

- The "rivalry" between Deku and Kacchan is extremely well thought out and so detailed to the point that many hints dropped in the first volume don't pay off until 14 volumes later. The detail of having both of them be childhood friends is not just a cheap tactic slapped on to have them "close" to one another but really details that their relationship was hard on both of them; Bakugou full story isn't truly put out into detail until chapter 116 but if you go back and read the relationship of them both through his perspective it's eye opening. It really pull out the stops that a social structure of this society really pulled the strings of these two friendship. I could go into more detail about the framing and constant progression with the relationship feeling truly earned and not just put out there to have a "classic rivalry" but an actual partnership, growth, and support.

- The entire class of A-1 is very inviewed with chemistry and friendship; I don't know about everyone else but a huge negative of having a huge cast to me is that none of them interact or have unique or positive relationships with anyone else. Of course the MC and a bit of the secondary class will interact but small characters that haven't made their huge character debut in the series have small interactions and progressive input in the background, it show that this class is really like a family; this isn't put into words in the manga unlike the horrible filler in the anime the class just grows and you have to spot it and catch onto it in plain view.

- Like many series, there are quite a ton of call backs all the way to the early double digits of the series, can't really share without spoiling but some have happened super recently in the 200+ that occured all the way back in the 10-20 chapter range.
- The power system is so well worked around with the usage of quirks and what I mentioned earlier with the pro/con of each individual quirk. I think only a handful of times does fights actually come down to a "physical" structure of punch power due to intensity of the panels but everything has to either be thought out structurally or just the sheer experience of
knowing different assets of one's power and different through lines of how they can be used or even figuring those out is impressive all on it's own.

- This may or may not be a pro to anyone else but me but the fact that only one girl has a crush in this series, it's kinda set up as more infatuation over love, it's not steroided up like it is in the anime, and it might lead down a plot point much darker down the series is inherently much more interesting then anything else I've seen in a shounen.

- Horikoshi art is deeply breathe taking to me. If you've seen his journey down his career and progression it's so noteworthy. Taking sheer inspiration from manga and western comics. His bold dark outlines and how he speaks about how he uses a whole marker ink up just to draw All Might is so awe inspiring to me. It might just fit my aesthetic wheel house and he does a lot more expressive and small little comedic inserts that are hallmarks of something he's built up to in BNHA rather than his other two series.

- As someone who owns the volumes the inserts between chapters that explore how "how the costumes are made in this universe" to "exploration of the draft designs" and many other foreshadowing and pieces of information that makes the world all the more real. Not every nook and cranny can be explained and detailed in the text or even in the panels but Horikoshi takes time just to get down what he thinks the fans want to know about the universe. [There is also many websites that upload the VIZ scans so they're readily available now]

There's probably a lot I could more say, especially about the villian build up. I didn't even talk about how my three favorite villains are perfect social breakdowns of why Deku needs to change the society in a fashion that isn't just crime stopping but from the inside of people and how it's a reflection of his own issues when he was once quirkless but it involves a lot of spoilers and other more wordy paragraphs. I'm probably missing a TON of stuff that I'll hit myself for later when I least think about it too.


One Piece:

- The crew of 9 are so well built into themselves a in the family that is weaved since the beginning that it is seamless. Oda made sure that they all come from backgrounds so broken and where their base of family is nowhere near identical to each other yet their place was needed here with the strawhats and how they fit personality wise amongst each of them; which comes with all of them having a unique relationship with one another, it really builds better with the earlier cast but it still happens strongly post timeskip as well.

- World building here as far as uniqueness and creative design is such a craft that I think only Oda could come up with, even just looking at his vast collection of color spreads through out the years, he really has an eye for making settings that are eye catching and vivid. But the man understands what it takes to make a setting feel alive in a sense. Weather, hierarchy, land change, economical turnout, historical value, and even smaller hints that you wouldn't pick up on your first reading (there's this one tribe of humans in the early half of One Piece that obviously mirror Native Americans and how they like pumpkins a lot and in a flashback at the end of the arc you find out how that vegetable got culturally integrated into their land) it's the small stuff that add up.

- Nobody in the cast is forgotten about, people mentioned from early on in the story are brought up years years later (this is probably where Horikoshi got mind to do this since Oda is his biggest inspiration but I think where as BNHA does this better with events and character progression, One Piece will do this better with foreshadowing characters not seen and stuff to is foreseen to happen)

- I think the art of One Piece is pretty spectacular, in how expressive it is in almost cartoon fashion. I've alway noted how Oda isn't afraid to make crying ugly and when you're crying as hard as people are in that universe, there snot dripping from your nose, your eyes are stinging and it hurts to cry.

- The SBS and the Cover Pages throughout the series where Oda answers questions that can't be as easily dropped in the text or hints in the story for way later are put here for great effect. And just fun inserts. Like a lot of the cast being genderswapped, hilarious. And the cover pages where the antagonists of the previous arc is shown what happens after there story is finished and shown through the covers and most of the time will be integrated back into the story with these stories used as a kind of "how did they get here". Powerful extras that I don't think other mangaka even think of using to progress or explore there world.

I don't know how well justified I can be in stating how much I love this series. It's been a while since I caught up and remembering all the small nitpicks of what I liked are damning. And many things line beat for beat with BNHA because I really think BNHA took so much positive stuff from One Piece structure.

I don't know how serious you were but hopefully this justfies my love for these series.

Swagernator said:

That's the longest response i ever read from a fujoshi.

And also too overthinked for something as simple as battle shounen.

Swagernator said:

And also too overthinked for something as simple as battle shounen.

Dysisa said:
Why, because you're not able to analyze why you like things to the same degree? Grow up.

Swagernator said:

No because the battle shounens are targeted at kids, hence there is no need from the author to put some serious thoughts in it, if the audience dont understand it or dont even care about it there is no need for it.

Also don't tell random people to "grow up", only kids are doing that.

Swagernator said:

No because the battle shounens are targeted at kids, hence there is no need from the author to put some serious thoughts in it, if the audience dont understand it or dont even care about it there is no need for it.

Also don't tell random people to "grow up", only kids are doing that.

Swagernator said:
No because the battle shounens are targeted at kids, hence there is no need from the author to put some serious thoughts in it, if the audience dont understand it or dont even care about it there is no need for it.

Dysisa said:
Hopefully one day you can look past your prejudices to get a better understanding of the effort put into even things targeted at kids.