Forum - View topicBest of 2018 (manga edition!)
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zawa113
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It’s that time of the year again! The time for “Best of” lists! I’m joining in the fun here, totally! Please feel free to add your own lists, I like to see what others think of this year in manga and what I might have missed!
I'm personally only counting manga that I read this year (some were released in years previous). Continuing series To Your Eternity This series is still so special and I feel like it keeps evolving as it goes on without ever losing what makes it so interesting Yona of the Dawn This series should be on every list every year! If anything, the series is getting more engaging to me as it goes on and I’m always eager for the next volume! Ending series My Brother’s Husband A short series, but a good one! The second volume was just as good as the first and while I was sad to see it go, it also went out at the right time, which always earns respect from me. I hope Gengoroh Tagame will do another non-bars series in the future. Animal Land Wow! I’m still in disbelief that this series actually final finishing coming out in English! I’ll always recall that time I was at Otakon and asked the Kodansha booth if they would maybe have a volume early and the sheer disbelief of the guy who said I must be one of the three people who collect it! But it’s still a really enjoyable series that I’m actually happy to see end for once because I didn’t think it’d ever finish coming out in English! Astra Lost in Space I feel like this entire series came out in just 2018, it is a 5 vol series, after all. But it’s right up my alley, sort of scifi series with a group of kids getting back to Earth sort of thing. Infinite Ryvius has done this, for example. But I enjoyed the series a lot and got to know all the characters and all the mysteries by the end of it and I heartily recommend it! New series Dr. Stone Science! Chemistry! And trying to learn what’s going on and why humanity was turned to stone! I’m definitely intrigued and each new volume leaves me wanting more! Takane & Hana And one for my fun shojo goodness! The two leads here are really what make it, they’re a bit more hard-headed, but why I would rank this over Kaguya-sama is that the two leads here acknowledge that they like each other, but also like to mess with each other and it feels like there’s a bit more at stake in general. The only glaring weakness is clearly the age difference, 16 year old girl and 26 year old guy. At least it’s not fetishized, but it’s still squicky to me. Spirit Circle I actually needed to double check that this only started coming out this year, but it did! I know Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer didn’t sell super well (sadly), but this is the better series anyway. I do feel like Planet With has gotten the mangaka some more interest, which hopefully will come at the right time to help this out because it’s really good and one of the best series this year. Not what i expected My Boy Boy did My Boy look like a fetished reverse Boku no Pico or something. Thank dear ARCEUS this isn’t the case! It’s more like an office lady who befriends an elementary school boy who is clearly being abused by his parents and could use just a single adult to be there for him. Who just ends up being this office lady who accidentally befriends him. It’s one of those series where you’re really rallying for child protective services. The anime ended?! MUST READ MORE! Land of the Lustrous I hate to start off saying this: but I really like the anime better. The CGI actually works with it and I can’t imagine it any other way (I needed to double check that I actually wrote that sentence) and it made the start of the story easier for me to understand. Now going on from the easier to understand opening arcs, there’s just way more story and I’m eager to see more all the time! Best One shot volume Go For It, Nakamura! I feel like I need a new adjective of “charming” to describe this single volume! It’s pretty well perfect and adorable with some great comedy! It’s like a perfect 90s style manga comedy distilled to its best elements and executed perfectly! It does have one major glaring flaw though: it’s only one volume! Claudine This is definitely melodramatic and is from a time when the lead didn’t even hear the word “transgender” before (even though he clearly is). I first read this years ago via scans, maybe I overlooked the melodrama then, but it’s still a solid single vol and it’s great to finally see some Riyoko Ikeda in English! I’m late to the party! Every year I’m late to reading some older series. And while I read a TON of older series, some really stand out for me more than others Swan Oh, it’s such a shame that CMX never finished releasing this! This is exactly what extra 70s shojo should be and it’s extremely gripping and entertaining! I feel like modern sports manga could learn something about fitting in so much content without it feeling stuffed (I’m not a fan of how modern manga will spend like, 4 volumes on a single basketball game or a single bike race or a single dance competition) Sand Chronicles This manga involved some time passing and seeing a relationship develop over the course of many years. I was interested to see how the drama and relationships would develop and having a not-mopy lead always helps! Most anticipated 2019 Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji Denpa’s released a few books before now, but this is the one I’m most excited for! Nice off the bat omnibuses are nice too! Might as well just call this a shout out for Denpa books in general. Ed Chavez did great with Vertical (shame Kodansha ate it so thoroughly) and I like his taste in manga and willingness to try new things, so seeing where Denpa goes in the future is going to be exciting for me! It must be hard enough to start a manga company in the US and have it succeed, now imagine doing this twice! Snow White With the Red Hair Am I ever NOT up for fantasy shojo epics? No, I always am. Always. Total Eclipse of the Eternal Heart It’s from the mangaka of Go For It, Nakamura, enough said. Rose of Versailles AHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! Nicest Physical Book Devilman For once, this is an award I don’t need to read the book to enjoy! But Devilman is still pretty cool (minus the time travel stuff, which was an interquel that came out later and everyone kind of agrees you can ignore it). It came out at the right time though, what with Devilman Crybaby getting a lot of attention, and the manga itself is also pretty insane and worth reading. And it’s a nice way to package an older series to make it more appealing to people who aren’t me and didn’t want old school in the first place. I couldn’t give a best physical book award to Sailor Moon Eternal though. For those pages being so thick, they’re oddly see-through, it’s extremely annoying to me. Worst series of the year Golosseum Wooow was this bad! The entire purpose of this was clearly “look! It’s Vladimir Putin! With a tiger! That he’s beating to a pulp!” and that was kind of the entire appeal or something. The “plot”, or sad attempts at it, is just god-awful. Just avoid this one at all costs, I feel bad for the trees it was printed on. Dead Dead Demon’s Dedededestruction This is probably another case of just Inio Asano just not being for me. This certainly didn’t change my opinion of him as a hipster who likes to meander around with his stories and bore me. This is rather my last straw with giving him chances though, he can go join Tsutomu Nihei in my “I will never read another one of your manga again” category. Fruits Basket Another Somehow, it’s almost worse to have a really good series with an aggressively plain and boring “sequel” than to just have a straight up plain and boring series. There’s never a moment when you are reading this manga that you aren’t wishing you were just reading Fruits Basket instead. Sword Princess Amaltea So, Tokyopop, in their rising from the grave, took over a bunch of titles from their German counterpart (who was not affected in 2011 and have a generally good rep, it’s like their Viz there), because they clearly didn’t have a lot else to work with. To TP Germany’s credit though, most of the ones I’ve read have actually been pretty solid and good series that I want to read more of. Kamo: Pact with the Spirit World, Goldfisch and Undead Messiah are all actually worth your time to read. Sword Princess Amaltea though? It’s just the most stereotypical fantasy “prince rescues princess” story, except it’s all gender flipped. That is literally all it has going for it is pointing out that it’s gender flipped at every opportunity. It just feels stale as all hell, which only stands out more b because it thinks it’s so much fresher and deeper than it is. Best Cat: Butters Well, obviously, who else was going to win such a prestigious award but Butters! Although she does make reading manga more difficult at so many times, it’s worth it! Best US Publisher of the Year: Winner: Seven Seas I don’t know how, but every year, this company just keeps surprising me. It’s a bit hard to not still think of them as “that company that puts out monster girl ecchi” because let’s face it, it’s still half of what their new licenses are. But now they’ve started doing classics this year with Devilman (among others) and they’re willing to take some risks on things like Go For It, Nakamura, Claduine, and Spirit Circle. Once again, I am impressed with them! Runner-up: Viz Consistency is important as well and Viz has been good and reliable to me year after year. I probably do buy the most Viz manga though, they do have quantity combined with enough quality titles that keeps me coming back to them. They also don't tend to delay titles very often and my comic shop gets them in early much of the time (which I like). They also reprinted Banana Fish, huzzah! And they're still printing the Legend of the Galactic Heroes novels! Worst US Publisher of the Year: Loser: DMP They went MONTHS with basically zero word on like, four Kickstarters, just begging for a damn update. I just want my damn Tezuka books! At least they haven’t launched any more Kickstarters. They did launch a new website which looks a lot better, but they’ve mostly switched to digital only it would seem. They did get someone to at least keep up with the damn Kickstarters and answer some questions. I’m wondering if it’s too little, too late (I still want my Tezukas first). As is, I feel like they’re just hogging good licenses that I’d like better companies to get. Loser up: Vertical My how the mighty have fallen  I honestly don’t understand what the purpose of this company is anymore, now that they’re owned by Kodansha and are basically the same damn thing as Kodansha. I can see why Ed Chavez left to start his own company again (props to him, because Vertical was never better than at the start when it was under him). Just fold the damn thing into Kodansha.
Favorite Series of the Year: Winner: Go For It, Nakamura! Definitely just the series that stuck with me most this year and the one I think I enjoyed reading the most. Was not expecting this! It’s one volume, buy it!! Runner Up: Spirit Circle This series ends next month! 6 vols is just the right length for it and it’s just so good, read it! Got two series from Seven Seas this year for my favs! Last edited by zawa113 on Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Oh yay!
Continuing series Silver Spoon. I was so happy when Yen got this, as I thought it'd never escape Viz's grip. I loved the anime, I love Hiromu Arakawa's writing and I can't wait to read more. Cells at Work I hated biology at school, but I adore the characters in this series and I've learnt quite a bit from it. Looking forward to the next volume. Natsume's Book of Friends. Continues to be one of my favourites. Good comfort reading. New series Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card. I love the original and this is a worthy sequel. When Clamp get it right, they really get it right. Yona of the Dawn. What zawa said. Harukana Receive. I did not expect to like this as much as I did, but I loved the anime and the manga so far is pretty much identical. Interested to see where it goes once it gets past the anime material. Wotakoi: Love this series, the characters are great. LGBT My Brother's Husband. I love this series so much, and it's nice to have a series about adult characters dealing with actual adult problems. My Solo Exchange Diary. Oooft this was far too relatable. Can't wait for the next volume. Kase-san. This series is so good and adorable and I love it so much. The Bride Was a Boy. Also super cute and nice to read. Light Novels Konosuba. Continues to make me laugh. One of the best isekai parodies. The Devil is a Part Timer. Also never fails to make me laugh, I always look forward to a new volume. Disappointments Fruits Basket Another. Really felt like they were just using the Furuba name to sell a totally boring series no one would've cared about otherwise. One hit wonder, thy name is Natsuki Takaya. Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun. I loved the anime, but somehow the manga falls rather flat for me. Maybe it's just the author, Oresama Teacher bored me to tears as well. Most Anticipated Shimanami Tasogare. I've heard nothing but good things about this. Descending Stories 10. I am excited to read the ending. Special award for: OMG I never thought I'd see another volume of this/I didn't realise it was actually still going, I thought it had died. Viz quietly snuck out volume 13 of Loveless a few months ago. Favourite publisher Seven Seas, for taking a chance on things like My Solo Exchange Diary and other LGBT works. Least favourite publisher DMP. Kickstarter is not a way to run an ongoing business. You're basically saying to people unless they have several hundred dollars upfront they will never get to buy your products. That is if they even release them after taking your money..... |
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zawa113
Posts: 7358 |
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I feel like this isn't actually Viz fault on this, it really does come out at a molasses pace in Japan even. Ooku also comes out at a snail's pace (I believe one chapter every 2 months?) and I remember when they first got the series, it was projected to be "about 10 volumes long" and now it's 15 so... who knows! I think Real is on hiatus in Japan though, which sucks because it's amazing and it's been WAY too long without a volume (about 3 years, maybe?). But damn, these series are making it look like HxH and Berserk come out regularly. Now, their yearly single volume of Kaze Hikaru on the other hand? That series is over 40 volumes (I think, or close to it) in Japan and we just got vol 26. At first, when it was in their Shojo Beat magazine, they printed them more often, but the past like 5-6 years it's been one volume a year. I mean, if it's not selling well, find an arc to end it on and stop publishing it! But I get the feeling it's one of those cases where they're basically being held at gunpoint and forced to pump out one volume of it a year. I wish that they would at LEAST do an omnibus volume of it from now on though (the Japanese publishing rules count a 3-in-1 as 1 volume so they'd be paying a third of the "per book" costs that way! Although maybe it would be offset by having to pay for more translation and it's not worth it for the ten people who collect it) |
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st_owly
Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Yeah, I'm not blaming Viz, I was just surprised to see it! I wish they'd speed up Kaze Hikaru too, I feel like with the recent popularity of things like Touken Ranbu more people might buy it if they actually knew it existed. |
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