Forum - View topicObscure Manga
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hanachan01
 Posts: 504 |
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The review for Love Roma made me want to start this topic. Anyone here into unusual or obscure manga?
Love Roma I already mentioned, because it's very sweet and honest. It's probably obscure because of the odd character designs, and the slice-of-life tone it has. I also love Kimi wa Pet aka Tramps Like Us by Yayoi Ogawa. The art is very hip and expressive, and the characters and feelings are realistic, even though the situtation is rather bizzare. I think the unusual topic and it's genre (josei) make it relatively unknown. One of my favorite mangaka is Erica Sakurazawa, who pretty obscure. I just received her one-shots "The Aromatice Bitters" and "The Rules of Love" for Hanukkah, and I had her stories "Angel" and "Angel's Nest" since this summer, and I read "Love Vibes" through scanlations. I how her stories are very realistic, and even what would be considered a major revalation in most mainstream shojo manga, she keeps low key and realistic. She's probably unknown because most of her books are M rated one-shots, and her stories are very low key compared to what's popular now. Also, her art style is off putting to many people. More obscure manga I've been wanting to check out are Suki by CLAMP and anything by Kyoko Okazaki. Anything else anyone reccomendeds? |
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jgreen
 Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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I have Erica Sakurazawa's "Angel" and I loved it. I've actually been meaning to check out more but I just haven't gotten around to it.
One manga I really dig that seems to be fairly obscure (or at least no one really talks about it much that I've noticed) is "Tramps Like Us." It's the story of a woman stuck working in a soul-deadening office job who comes home one day to find a young man (I think he's like 20? Not sure...) who is absolutely filthy on her doorstep. She takes him in and cleans him up, and when he expresses interest in staying with her, she responds jokingly something to the effect of "Only if you'll be my pet" and he, oddly enough, agrees. She realizes it's pretty crazy to let a complete stranger just move into your house, but she runs with it and is surprised at how natural it feels. It's a romance story with a very unusual flavor to it, and while I've only read the first two volumes so far, I really dig it. I could go on forever, though, because *most* of the manga I own would probably be considered "obscure" because it's not in print anymore. I own practically everything Viz and Dark Horse released pre-2000, minor series like Chronowar and Pineapple Army and Spirit of Wonder and Outlanders and Legend of Kamui and Mai The Psychic Girl and....well, I could keep going, but I won't. 
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hanachan01
Posts: 504 |
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Yeah......who could?
 What were your favorites out of all the OOP books you had? If any of the msound intersting, I may have to hunt them out at cons and eBay
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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I don't think I'd call Love Roma obscure, as its still easy to find and is at least known by a portion of modern readers (even if it deserves more attention than it gets). Sakurazawa's stuff is pretty obscure, at least for being released by a major company within the last five years (if you like her stuff I'd recommend even more obscure gems like Nananan Kiriko's Blue or Kan Takahama's Kinderbook). Same with Tramps. But like jgreen said if you really want obscure manga you have to go back before the popularization of the ten dollar/authentic format (I'm shocked to find someone who's actually read Pinapple Army; did they even release a trade?). I'll try to limit my choices to titles that are obscure even by those standards:
Hotel Harbor View-A classic Viz release that time has ignored. From the great Jiro Taniguchi, HHV is a pair of moody, existential noir stories. Owing much debt to the classic film "Le Samourai," these are visually stunning and thought-provoking tales of modern despair, with some of the most impressive cinematic storytelling I've ever seen in manga. Memories-After the popularity of Akira, Epic Comics apparently published Katsuhiro Otomo's short story collection (which inspired the film of the same name). I was never able to find this edition, but I did manage to buy an old English trade which was well worth the purchase. Otomo's best work is in longer narratives (at least a volume in length) but these shorter pieces (covering diffrent genre's like Sci-fi, horror and often comedy) are quite interesting, and the best of them are worth the purchase of the book. It also boasts the best artwork I've seen from him. A, A Prime-This short story collection from shojo pioneer Moto Hagio that Viz published in the mid-90's is worth tracking down for anyone interested in the fusion of thought-provoking Sci-fi with romance. It isn't all that difficult to find if your looking online, and anyone interested in the masters of manga would do well to pick this up. |
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hanachan01
Posts: 504 |
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Thank you! I love Akira a lot, so "Memories" is a must! The other one's sound really good too
Oh, another series I forgot to mention was "Flowers and Bees" by Moyoco Anno. It's a seinen manga about a boy who tries t ochange his look to catch girls, with the help of some crazy people. It's a great social commentary on how image is percieved, and it's also very crazy and out-there. It's very similar to the FLCL anime in that regard. I can never find it in stores-I had to get it at a con. I currently only have the first volume, but I love it. It's probably obscure because it's so out there, and none of other Anno's manga in the US (Sugar Sugar Rune, which I haven't read, and Happy Mania, which I have only read the firs tvolume of, and I did that really long ago) have been succesfull. Also, her art style is weird, even though I really like it. |
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jgreen
Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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I'm shocked to find someone else that's heard of it, so that makes two of us.  Pineapple Army was GREAT, too. You know, I think they did release it as a trade (two volumes, if memory serves), but I'm not 100% sure. I'd have to check my old Viz catalogs (which, sadly, I *DO* still have, dating back to 1996 when I started reading manga, though I'm not sure where they ended up when I moved a year back). I don't have it as a trade, though, I have the 10 individual issues.
And you know how I found out about Pineapple Army? From an article in SPIN, of all places, where they talked about manga and mentioned all of the cool manga being published at the time...which was pretty much ALL the manga being published at the time: Akira, Pineapple Army, Ranma 1/2, and Hideshi Hino's Panorama From Hell.
I always wanted to read this story, but the only time I ever saw it was before I was 18 and I couldn't buy it because of the "mature readers" tag on it. I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for it....
The version I have of this is two one-shots, one called "Katsuhiro Otomo's Memories" and the other called "Katsuhiro Otomo's Farewell To Weapons." Were there any others, that you know of?
A, A' was good, but Hagio's other series that's been translated into English, the 4-issue "They Were 11", was much, much better, I thought. A, A' was serialized in Manga Vizion (which I had more letters printed in than anyone....how sad is it that I brag about that?  ) but I preferred its followup, the series of short stories published as "Keiko Nishi's Shojo Manga." Nishi is freakin' amazing, and I wish more of her work was available in English.
I'll have to go through the list and get back to once Christmas is over. Either that or I could send you the 5-page word document of all of the manga I own and you can tell me what you want to know about. MOST of that list is older stuff because I was in my heaviest buying phase from 1996-2000.
Side story: In 2000, I transferred to a "real" college and didn't have enough free time to work enough to support my comics habit (15-20 hours a week vs. the 35-50 hours a week I was managing while I was in community college, some of that working at a comic book store to get that employee discount...talk about sick!). I started buying manga again in late '03/early '04 when I started picking up Love Hina, and my addiction then came back full force. |
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Major Max
Posts: 17 |
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I think that Uzumaki is a must read. It has one of the most original horror story ever. it is about a spiral killing a village. Everbody starts to become obsessed with spirals and it starts to make them crazy, eventually killing them. It may sound wierd but it is a must read for anybody who likes horror stories.
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kolibri
 Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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I recently bough Sakurasawa's Between the Sheets - she's one of the few josei (instead of shoujo, IMHO) managas that get translated so I was interested. I have to say I had mixed feelings about it - I though it was pretty disgusting, but frank for sure. Notice I don't say bad - it was a very personal subject, and it's just that relationships like that between women are kinda sensitive subject with me that I found it difficult to read - but I'm interested in getting more of her manga when I'm up to it again
Generally, pretty much all josei is somewhat obscure over here (not counting Ai Yazawa - I love Paradise Kiss and Nana, too). One mangaka that does get translated is Kiriko Nananan, but her work is mainly translated by smaller publishers and can be difficult to buy. I really liked Blue, although again it deals with difficult relationships. The art is stunning though and storytelling very subtle. |
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hanachan01
Posts: 504 |
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I've been looking around for Blue for awhile now....where did you get it?
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kolibri
Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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Amazon Marketplace. Was expensive though 
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I_AM_L
 Posts: 138 |
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Reborn is...interesting
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hanachan01
Posts: 504 |
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What do you mean by that? |
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jgreen
Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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Is it that hard to find? I was just at Borders yesterday here in St. Louis and they had it.... |
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Subaru19
 Posts: 118 |
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I loved Galaxy Express 999 but I think Viz stopped publishing it about halfway through the series. I've started to look for the original Japanese volumes, but I'm not really having any luck. The story and style is so unique and beautiful.
I've also read A A' and liked it. I should pick it up again. Now that I'm older and can understand it better I'm sure that it will have more meaning for me. |
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smoochy
 Posts: 367 Location: Texas |
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A Patch of Dreams was a very enjoyable read.
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