Manga Series Reviews/Recommendations
 

Post up reviews of various manga series you have read (mostly, if not fully). Please make the reviews detailed enough for us to understand why you think the manga series is great or not great.

20th Century Boys / 20 Seiki Shounen

Story : About a guy named Kenji and his friends, highlighting certain years in their lives. One of his childhood friends, whose identity remains unknown until later in the story, labels himself as "Friend" ("Friend" garners public support by prophesising and showcasing his supernatural powers via seminars). He has wicked intentions however and uses the childhood creations of Kenji and co. to cause mayhem (enacting the dreadful events stated in the book of prophecy, making use of the robot and weapon designs etc). He eventually becomes an extremely powerful figure through deception, consuming the government and molding his own society, one in which he reigns supreme and the citizens are brainwashed into believing his lies. His committee keep dissidents in check, either having them "excommunicated" (killed) or sent off to "amusement" parks to have their principles reworked.

Complicated with plenty of twists, the plot is very well developed and unpredictable. Nothing cliche and nothing haphazardly thrown in.

Art - Beautiful, detailed drawings. Characters look more human than in most anime/manga I've come across.

Overall - 9.5/10 Very interesting and thought provoking. There's always something that you're dying to find out because something is always left unknown. Give it a go.

Koroshiya 1

Story : Explores a fictitious underworld society of Shinjuku, where the Yakuza operate. A man (only ever referred to as "Jijii") puts a strain on relations between gangs through lies and manipulation. Main characters are Ichi, Kakihara and Jijii.

Art - Detailed yet some of the facial expressions irritate me. Scary characters look genuinely scary, which is a nice quality.

Overall : 7.5/10 - Intriguing plot and characters you can't get enough of (IMO). Having said that, I can only suggest this manga to people who can tolerate high doses of depravity as the backbone is medley of rape-murder, female degradation, gore, brutal violence, torture and very hentai themes. More messed up than its movie adaptation and one of the most disturbing manga I've read.

Gantz

Just read the first volume, you'll see. The art is some of the best I've seen in a manga and the gore is very detailed.

Some might also know this as ichi the killer :D

I loved the manga and the film.

ohh Koroshiya Ichi is just amazingly desturbing.

But while gantz is really cool at first it get's old fast.

I would recomend Uzumaki, Tomie, and Gyo, to any fans of manga violance and brutality. It's not nearly as perverse as most guro titles, but the author (Junji Ito) is just weeeeeird. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I have read pleanty of manga dealing with rape, torture, and S&M, and none of Ito's work ever goes near there, infact he rarley even shows a drop of blood, but somehow his imagery is just so much more desturbing. He just thinks of stuff no one else would and that's why he is amazing.

I loved the movie but it was a bit difficult to follow, reading the manga gave me answers to the many questions I had about the movie (how did Kakihara get all those cuts? why does Jijii look like a bodybuilder underneath? where did Ichi's costume/weapon come from?). The anime was quite disappointing though, it was surprisingly short (45 mins).

Cool, I'll check them out, along with Gantz.

I'll post more reviews later when I have time..

Oh, I completley agree, there was so much I didn't understand about the movie. The manga made a lot more sence.

Oh, another author I would recomend is Suehiro Maruo. He draw's guro manga, and his art is really detailed and attractive (even though the subject matter is really desturbing). He has too manga published in english "Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show," and "Ultra Gash Inferno." he also has a short story called "Planet of the Jap" that is published in english in a book called "Underground Comics Japan."

His work is hard to get ahold of. You can get them on amazon but they are expencive. There are places that you can find scanlations, but they arent that easy to find. If you can read Japanese, then the Japanese editions are pretty easy to get a hold of.