Manga Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [Week 19]
Hey gang! You all know the drill at this point. Monday means a new general thread. Let's hear about things you read this past week, things you dropped, things you finished, all of it.
Like normal, please be careful with spoilers. I wrote a guide about spoilers in case you need a refresher on how to handle them (also linked in the sidebar).
After wjs018 mentioned the adaptation - Heavenly Delusion - in an anime thread last week, and more specifically after I looked it up and discovered that the original manga is by Ishiguro Masakazu, I binged Tengoku Daimakyou.
Ishiguro Masakazu is the author of one of my all-time favorites - Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru. It's a fairly straightforward SOL with a particularly good cast of characters, but it also has a certain amount of overt weirdness scattered here and there.
Tengoku Daimakyou is pretty much exactly the opposite - a thoroughly bizarre and brutal post-apocalyptic mystery with a certain amount of SOL scattered here and there.
In part it's post apocalyptic SOL in the vein of Girls Last Tour or Usuzumi no Hate, as the protagonists explore and try to make sense of the crapsack world in which they've found themselves. But mostly it's a bizarre mystery thriller alternating between the story of the two protagonists in the outside world and the "students" at a sinister research institute, and the odd connections and overlaps between them.
It's ongoing at 63 chapters currently, but feels like it's getting near the end, since there are only a few mysteries left to be cleared up. And it's terrific and highly recommended. And I'll be linking the new chapters here as they come out.
Glad you like it! I had first watched the anime, having gone in completely blind other than knowing from visuals that it was a post-apocalyptic setting. The anime does a great job with the adaptation and got me super hooked. The animation was stellar, the way they pace out the mysteries and foreshadow things was great, and the OP was killer.
After the anime finished and there was no announcement for a season 2 (still no announcement 😞), I went ahead and binged what was available of the manga at the time. After I did that, I haven't read any of it that has come out since because I felt like this was a series that benefited from the binge. Reading it all in one go keeps the foreshadowing from multiple volumes ago fresher in your memory, so that when the reveal happens, it is more satisfying. When I am reading a story like this 1 chapter/month at a time, I often just end up forgetting things and get confused.
I think I will re-binge the series now to get caught up to current. Being able to take part in the discussion threads will hopefully help keep things more top of mind going forward.
I only read manga occasionally (I go on a binge now and then) last one has been a while. From my understanding tachiyomi doesn't work anymore, are there alternatives?
As far as recommendations, the last one I really enjoyed was Bakuman! You should give it a go if a shonen about guys writing manga with lots of meta sounds interesting.
Yeah, Tachiyomi got pulled due to some legal threats directed personally towards the maintainers by a Korean webtoon publisher. The project has since been forked and is now called mihon. Basically nothing else changed.
Awesome thanks!
This past week I have been traveling a lot, so I haven't been able to read as much as normal. It turns out that it is difficult to read manga and drive at the same time. In any case, one of the series I had recently found and was reading just finished up. Specifically, Houkago no Honya-san just wrapped up with its 12th chapter.
The premise of the series is a little weird if I am honest. It is about an elementary school girl who helps her grandfather run a book store (she never has parents in the story). The comedic twist comes from the fact that it is an adult bookstore and she becomes fascinated by (even obsessed about) erotic things as a result. The shop hires a part-time worker that turns out to be a succubus that is embarrassed about erotic topics and wants to work at the bookstore in order to become more accustomed to it. Important to note that this series is decidedly SFW. It doesn't discuss or illustrate anything that is even very suggestive really. It is pretty tame considering that the main setting is an adult bookstore.
The series is primarily a 4-koma and, ethics of the premise aside, was overall just a cute SOL. It didn't really break the mold humor-wise in any way, but it was entertaining enough to keep me reading it. The ending kind of came out of nowhere, but I have definitely read worse before. Just like most SOLs, the story ends pretty much where it started.
Just read through it all. Little weird is an understatement. Still funny if you can read it without prejudice.
Yeah, to be honest, I had stopped reading it at one point because the premise is...well...you know. However, I hadn't removed it from my library yet. So, when I saw chapter 12 come through and that it was the end, I just quickly binged the last couple chapters so that I could remove it from my library guilt-free (other than the guilt that comes from having read it of course).
Ughhh, I need the next One Piece to come out! I just read the series for the first time, wrapping up just after New Year, so now having to wait after reading everything else in one go is agonizing!
I started Insomniacs After School last week and am pretty far through that. I'm nervous how it will end, but I've really enjoyed their relationship so far.
Everything else I'm reading I'm caught up on. Boo.
Everything else I’m reading I’m caught up on
Perfect time to pick up a couple (or a bunch) of new series to fill in the gaps! That is essentially what I do anyway. When I don't see anything in my library that I am dying to read, I will often browse the recently updated on Mangadex to see if anything catches my eye.
Yeah, I'm trying to find something to catch my eye.
I finished Insomniacs way faster than anticipated because I got very invested in the outcome. The ending felt rushed, so that kinda left me feeling unsatisfied.
I also read Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan over the last few weeks and crushed that faster than I had planned also. That was more what I had been hoping for from Farming Life in Another World, where it was more about the farming and tech, plus I got some history also so I got very excited to read that too.
Maybe I'll pick up Helck since I enjoyed the anime. I've had 7 Seeds on my list for a while too since I enjoyed the 2 seasons on Netflix. Other than that I just have some romcoms, but I'm not feeling that right now.
I need to remember to check in here more as well. I keep forgetting this group is much more active now.