5 Manga I Recommend

And here we go.
 It's a bit strange even to me that I've been living in Japan for three years and haven't really blogged about manga in detail. Yes, Japan's the birthplace of manga, anime, and everything remotely related, and as such, you would expect it to play a huge role in everyday culture and in people's daily lives - and it does. Popular manga/anime characters adorn trains, are on posters, billboards, and are sold in hundreds of figurine shops and sought by collectors.
 And although I've deliberately chosen not to make my blog about Japan something that only fans of the manga subculture could get behind, I have read my fair share of manga too. In truth, manga has very much inspired me to draw and create, in ways that American comics couldn't. Whether it was through driven characters or incredible plot, Japanese comics had a powerful appeal to me even from early childhood, and still do, though maybe to a lesser extent.
 That being said, here are the five manga I'd like to invite others to get behind, in no particular order.

GANTZ (37 Volumes / 2000-2013)

 Gantz is a well-drawn comic from the get-go to its very end. The premise is simple and, to some extent, remains untouched for the duration of the comic: two boys are killed in a horrific accident and are revived and sent to a room where a mysterious machine gives them a series of monsters to kill. Should they manage to destroy their target, points are tallied, and they can potentially buy their freedom back. Gantz is not for the faint of heart. It's extremely gory, with very detailed scenes of unimaginable violence. Characters are introduced in droves, and characters are killed off in droves. But aesthetics are Gantz's strongest point and it continues to deliver pages full of beautiful detail.


ATTACK ON TITAN (14 Volumes / 2009 - ongoing)

 This is the series that took Japan by storm, and is currently the most read manga in the country, dethroning One Piece, which stood at the top for a long time. If truth be told, I don't know what it is in particular that drove the series to success, but the whole idea of humanity being reduced to a fraction of what it was and having to fight off man-eating giants is lots of fun to play around with. Attack on Titan has a story that moves forward much faster than most other boys' manga, which tend to fall behind a "meet bad guy, get stronger, defeat bad guy, meet stronger bad guy" loop. Plus, it does intrigue very well, with each chapter leaving the readers to ask more questions. It, too, though, is quite a bit on the gory side, so fans of horror might really find something delightful in the grotesque imagery of people being eaten alive. Be warned, though, that the series didn't gain its readership through its artwork, which actually starts quite roughly before it begins improving.

YOTSUBA& (12 Volumes / 2003 - ongoing)

 The black sheep amongst my favorite manga. Yotsuba& follows the daily lives of a young father and his adopted daughter, Yotsuba. The manga was the recipient of many awards praising its drama-free, plot-free format. Every chapter is incredibly light and paints the world through the eyes of a child who often discovers things for the very first time and sees things as they are. The illustrations are soft on the eye but very detailed when it comes to backgrounds, and there are often shots of mundane objects that truly only children would notice, and that's the beauty of it. Before you know it, you find yourself laughing at the simplest jokes. Yotsuba& is a great way to escape after a day of hard work.



GREAT TEACHER ONIZUKA (25 Volumes / 1997 - 2002)

 GTO is a classic, about a young teacher with skewed moral values who is assigned a class full of rebellious children, and sets each one right, all the while becoming a better person in the process. Despite the premise being perfect for all kinds of drama, which GTO does have plenty of, the comic actually fits the comedy genre better. It's got plenty of rather dirty jokes, but it's all in good fun. The varied cast of characters makes it hard not to relate to at least one, and to some extent, GTO made me want to try teaching too, which happens to kind of be what I'm doing now. Of course, you do have to suspend your disbelief once in a while, but the comic has no actual "bad guys," with each of its characters having a back story that affected their present decisions, and it all goes to show the importance of having someone to look up to while growing up.


TENJHO TENGE (22 Volumes / 1997 - 2010)

 And at last there's this gem. Tenjho Tenge has a pretty typical plot for a boys-oriented manga, and you might recognize reflections of it in other manga like Naruto and Bleach and so on. Young adolescents with powers sign in to a fighting tournament and meet other powerful teenagers. Nothing fancy there. But to me, Tenjho Tenge truly takes the cake when it comes to its artwork. The way the human body is depicted in motion in this series continues to be an inspiration to me - and with such a huge variety of characters fighting in different ways, ranging from sword-fight to capoeira, you truly get an unrivaled visual treat. No other manga I had read portrayed movement as convincingly as Tenjho Tenge, while keeping clean lines and being instantly readable. Like many other series, the artwork starts out rough, but the illustrator develops into a titan when it comes to illustrating stylistic anatomy. And the wonderful thing is, Ogure Ito doesn't hold himself back from drawing anything he wants. If he feels like drawing a shark, there it is, no matter whether its directly relevant to the story or not. Tenjho Tenge is so much fun.