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I just saw/read the news topic on the 2-part AIDS manga and thought it was interesting. Does anyone have any recommendations of similar mangas that deal with serious issues. I've read mangas were the one of the main characters had cancer (it seems like leukemia is the popular cancer in manga). I tried the searching the encyclopedia via genres and didn't find anything with a high rating. Confused

Last edited by Tamaria on Wed Nov 19, 2008 5:33 am; edited 1 time in total

Confidential Confessions - A shoujo manga about teens with problems. Eating disorders, rape, drug addiction, aids, compensated dates gone horribly wrong...

Black Jack - Though many stories are somewhat fantastical, it does deal with serieus issues.

Say Hello to Black Jack - Seinen series about a young intern trying to deal with Japan's corrupt medical society.

With the Light - A josei manga about a mother whose child is autistic.

Flower of Life - Main character had cancer, his sister is a shut-in etc. Quite subtle compared to similar stories. Mangaka has a great sense of humor.

The Embalmer - see review

X-day - Shoujo manga. Three troubled students and a teacher plan to blow up the school. Not nearly as violent as it sounds.

Thanks! Will look into the ebalmer, flower of life and x-day.

Tamaria wrote:

X-day - Shoujo manga. Three troubled students and a teacher plan to blow up the school. Not nearly as violent as it sounds.

X-Day is out of print. And having recently read it, I wouldn't recommend anybody else take the time to track down second hand copies - the art is mostly quite bland, the characters are shallow and in all but one case have no convincing motivation for their actions and the narrative as a whole is unconvincing. It read like a badly constructed ode to teen angst to me.
Then again, other people seem to love it so maybe it's just me that doesn't get it...

I thought it was okay, at the very least it didn't overstay its welcome. Stories like this are practically always melodramatic, angsty and avoid of subtilities, but X-day isn't too bad in that regard. If you're into that kind of stuff, you could do a lot worse. Confidentional Confessions was more annoying at times, there were several girls I just wanted to kick some sense into. Bunch of idiots.

Is it hard to find these comics around? The Embalmer sounds interesting. In Singapore and Indonesia I don't think they sell these kind of very serious comics even though I want to. "Homonculus" sounds like a very serious one but it is a very long series so I'm too lazy to read it.