Forum - View topicWhat are you reading right now? Why?
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CoreSignal
 Posts: 727 Location: California, USA |
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I feel the same about Claymore,I found it mediocre at best. The story has a interesting premise, all female-warrior organization, and I like dark fantasy settings but a third of the way in, the story basically starts going in circles, literally. After Vol. 10 I felt the characters were revisiting the same locations over and over. The battle scenes are interesting at first but the get repetitive really fast, pretty much each battle turns into DragonBall-style non-stop powering up. The writing is kinda bad. All the dialogue just sounds really generic. It's a shame too, since the setting and concept is pretty interesting. At least the art looks good. A lot of characters look similar but there are some great looking designs. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9832 Location: Virginia |
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Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary
The current volume (6) has sex, well, actually yuri sex, specifically yuri tentacle sex. It is arguably oral yuri tentacle sex. And that is just one chapter. It also offers a shaved wookie. This series was weird from the beginning. It just keeps getting weirder. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Been reading some serious stuff:
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness (2016) - Autobiographical manga about a young women struggling with her life and depression. While I also had some mental issues over my life, her struggles have been much more extreme. At points she felt as if her mind was failing apart and she couldn't even read anymore while she was jumping from job to job. She managed to overcome her depression by hiring a hooker. Also, she made some good observations regarding the meaning of life and happiness and in a way that I found easy to understand. Knights of Sidonia (2009-2015) - Finally finished it. I started reading it in 2014 and I dropped it as it wasn't finished having read everything released up to that point. Now I finished it and I am glad I did. Has great art, great story and decent characters. Nihei's other work was more experimental in nature so this manga, being a conventional narrative driven by dialogue and character development, is distinct from his other stuff I read: Blame and Biomega, works whose main appeal was mystery and abstract art style. My Brothers Husband - A serious manga kinda like My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness in that sense but this one is a pure fiction: its about LGBT acceptance in Japan, using a gay uncle to a family of a straight father and his daughter to explore LGBT perceptions from a Japanese perspective. Interestingly this manga depicts men as supermasculinized brutes that remind me of Hulk, well its perhaps the first time I read a manga drawn by a gay men who also draws gay porn. Its very different from yaoi manga usually aimed at straight women where men are thin and delicate looking, the way Japanese girls idealize masculinity, here masculinity is idealized in a rather western fashion. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Just noticed this posted just before about the same manga I just read.
I am asexual too. I guess many serious fans of art tend to be asexual since it frees up a lot of time. 
On that manga the message is indeed made clear but in my own case I think that I don't know any homosexuals close to my family in any way. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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Yeah, can't say I've ever really had interest in either gender (before I came out as transgender to my mom though, she did ask if I was lesbian. And at my one job, where for some reason, a lot of lesbians worked at, they assumed I was lesbian instead of trans! I always knew that I was a trans guy though, at least I was never lying to myself) But damn if I don't love my cat with ever fiber of my being. We're very into cuddling and the cat is on my what seems to feel like constantly. But when I was reading My Love Story, half of that manga is Takeo being too shy to hold Yamato's hand, and I just could not relate to that in the least. Probably because eww, human contact, no thank you (it's different with Butters, she's soft! And besides, cats don't have a concept of personal space unless it's applying to them), but with lots of manga, I tend to go "ok, I can understand liking each other a lot and stuff, but I'm just not sure why sex or the idea of having it is so thrilling for them".
As for me, I've been mostly distracted playing video games lately (and SGDQ is about to start in a few hours, so that'll time suck for about a week straight), but I had to kill some time last week and I decided that the library was close by and I don't feel like going anywhere else. But libraries are where I go to try out new things and I really had no intention of even looking at this one except that I hadn't heard much about it and it had a volume 1 there. And I am honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed Ultraman. I've read 3 volumes so far (though I picked up to vol 8 at the comic shop half off yesterday) and I really really like it. I've never seen Ultraman (although it's hard not to be familiar with its existence), but thankfully, the manga is ok with the audience not having seen any Ultraman. I think it expects that the audience has heard of its existence so that's really all you need to know going in. The manga actually reminds me more of American comics, honestly, since it is superhero genre. This series is basically a superhero manga where the main character learns that his father was the Ultraman from the TV show of long ago (this series takes place some 40 years after the TV show) and he's inherited some super powers in his genetics himself and he is going to become the new Ultraman after aliens return to Earth and start attacking. But I'm honestly surprised at how much I enjoy it. It's divulging secrets are a good rate without losing me because I have no knowledge of Ultraman either (it probably helps that "aliens are attacking the Earth, use these super powers to defeat it" is a pretty straightforward set up) and it has lots of battles and action. Sometimes I have a bit of trouble following which battle suit is doing what, but it's still solid action. And I definitely genuinely want more. Anyone else read this? I feel like no one talks about it (not even review sites, really) because I really don't think it's the sort of thing the American manga fans would normally go for. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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There is too much manga in the world for too few english speaking manga fans. It's like, there are 10 times more manga than anime and there are 10 times fewer manga fans than anime fans in the English speaking world. So anime is mostly covered but manga is not. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7357 |
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While this is certainly true, I find it strange that not even the various manga review blogs that I follow have even seemed to read this one. I don't really expect to find any readers for old obscure things that didn't sell well to begin with (like 2001 Nights, for example), but Ultraman is ongoing and getting released in English right now, which is why I find it stranger. I actually suspect that, in this case, being related to an old cheesy live action show that didn't age too well and doesn't have a lot of nostalgia outside of Japan is severely hurting it in this case. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16935 |
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Sort of alternating between sweet rom com/slice of life & ecchi titles currently. Pretty much it's wake up and ask myself "do I want to laugh/smile or see boobs and ass?" So to that end I've been re-reading Ai Yori Aoshi & Girlfriends while starting Flying Witch. That's the sweet stuff. For the T&A it's been continuing Dragon's Rioting, Magika Summoner & Swordsman, Testament of Sister New Devil, & Monster Musume. I actually found Triage X vol 1-9 at my local comic store during free comic day in their sale bins they do. Got each vol for about $4-$5 each. So I'll need to start that soon.
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Wandering Samurai
 Posts: 875 Location: USA |
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Taking my time reading Moyashimon, currently on volume 5. I'm also re-reading Tsukihime, got up to volume 7 some eight years ago but dropped the series then, now that I have found all the volumes for the series I'm starting over so I'm not missing anything.
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NonsenseUser
 Posts: 51 |
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Currently rereading the entire Umineko: When They Cry series. One of my favorite series of all time and it's always so fun rereading mystery stories after knowing all the secrets! Also in my queue is School Live volume 6, Master Keaton volume 11, and Murciélago volume 2.
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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I started reading Pandora Hearts. I watched the anime years ago and I faintly remember liking it, somewhat. So I thought I wanna read some kind of fantasy manga and Pandora Hearts popped up. I'm somewhere around volume 3 so I'm still at the very beginning. I've liked it so far. It's a good thing that it's been so long since I saw the anime because I barely remember a thing from it.
The mysteries surrounding everything are pretty interesting and I remember always liking the spoiler[whole time skip thing that] happens at the beginning. I also remember liking Alice, who is kinda grumpy early on but I just find her irresistibly adorable. It's too early to have a strong opinion but I've liked what I've seen so far. I guess there has been a lot of exposition but that hasn't bothered me yet. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Been trying to read manga in Japanese. It's very hard! But I read it's a great resource to learn Japanese (my Japanese textbook recommends it).
I am reading teenager manga that is all kanji has the furigana. Manga is a great tool to learn kanji as well. What I have been reading? Nanoha ViviD, which is a light manga that's easy to understand. Even when I don't understand the Japanese I can figure out the context. I guess a couple of years doing this and my Japanese will get fluent.
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zawa113
Posts: 7357 |
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Oooh yeah, guess I have read some things lately (I've been replaying Persona 4 on Golden edition this time, instead of reading the past few days. Yeah, P5 is better, but P4G is still really fun too)
Faeries' Landing 1-2 I do find the differences between Korean folklore and Japanese folklore interesting. Not sure how I feel about this one, I find it interesting, but not super good I guess? I do like the lead though, he seems like he'd be fun to hang around with. But I'm kind of not digging all the random relationships that keep popping up, even in just two volumes. Debating if I want to continue on with it for now though, anyone else have opinions? Under the Air and Melody of Iron Two Tezuka short story collections, so I figured I'd list them together. Clearly I got them from the Kickstarter because of my slight Tezuka obsession. Some of the stories were a mixed bag, particularly in Melody of Iron (when Tezuka himself admits he was going through a bit of an "emo phase", but Under the Air had some pretty memorable ones. I'd say if you only got one, get Under the Air though. I'll read Record of the Glass Castle and The Crater soon enough (it's nice to finally have The Crater after the massive scam that was the first Kickstarter), but I am trying to spread it out a little, it'll be a while before the Wonder 3 Kickstarter with its 8 massive books finally comes out. Forget Me Not 1-7 Interesting series, probably worth a rental. It follows a guy and his failed relationships throughout his life. I do like its sense of realism, not every high school relationship is going to end in marriage, after all, and people do go through multiple romantic relationships, but it definitely lost steam towards the end with the last two relationships getting kind of sloggy to read through without really adding much. Gunslinger Girl 1-3 Solid title, I definitely would like more. It seems to mix bits of slice of life while reminding me of a western video game with lots of shoot outs and Italian crime organizations. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9832 Location: Virginia |
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@classicalzawa
I would recommend that you stay with Faeries' Landing. I found it very enjoyable. You may have difficulty getting all that was published here, it has been out of print for some time. I've got 18 volumes so you have a way to go. As far as I could tell, it was initially based on the same folk tale as Ceres Celestial Legend. It doesn't stay limited to Eastern folk lore though. Some of the characters you will meet are from Western mythology. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7357 |
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@Alan
Believe it or not, I actually have the 19 volumes released here already (I tend to get the whole thing before reading sometimes, it's kind of a bad hobby of mine). One of my local comic shops had maybe half of the volumes for $1 a piece, then some other used stores came through for me, I don't recall having any problems getting them all, strangely enough. Can't say I care much for Ceres, I recall renting it at the library ages ago, but I suppose I am enjoying Faeries' Landing enough to stick with it for now. But thanks for the opinion, it did help! |
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