Manganime Philstravaganza - PART 1

There is nothing.

NO. THING.

I love more than getting people into things. 5 years after it went off the air, people still come up to me and tell me that even though they thought I was a dork back then they have just started watching the OC and love it, and want to talk to me about it.

It's the best goddamn feeling in the world.

Now last night my buddy David (who I have gotten into several TV shows, to his chagrin and joy) was all "hey I'd like to get into some manganime can you suggest anything?"

That is not the kind of opening you should give me.

This list is mostly just my favorite stuff, meant largely for someone who has not watched much anime since the heyday of Toonami and isn't really ingrained in the culture.

Also, listen. I kind of really went overboard with this. It's kind of massive. I'd ask that if you think you'll respect me any less for it pretend I made a witty joke and ended the post. Thanks.

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One good thing to start with might be:

Bakuman - http://www.onemanga.com/Bakuman/

This is from the duo who did Death Note, but it's actually a lighthearted manga about two boys who want to become famous mangakas. It's cool because it shows you the process manga goes through, which is way more complicated than you might think.

It also gives you a good cursory look at different genres, and not only how they're constructed but how they sell and what goes into making them. It's also got some nice characters, and a cute little romance story. And hella nice art. An anime is coming soon, but there's only 66 or something chapters, so you could easily get through it in a couple of sittings. A very nice introduction to the manga world.

A note on these next two. A lot of what I enjoy is your basic shounen battle manga, and I'm not alone in that. The top 10 selling mangas and anime are almost entirely shounen battle manga. It's a simple formula but it's entertaining as all hell.

But when you're starting from scratch, anime really isn't the way to go with these. Because they're ongoing, Bleach for example has 250 episodes, which works out to 80-something hours. And, because it comes out weekly the anime has to kind of drag things out to catch up, or interrupt the story for filler arcs to give the manga time.

This is the classic DBZ problem, where there's twenty minutes of yelling and powering up for every five minutes of actual fighting. Most shounen anime are MUCH better at doing that sort of thing now, but I'm getting off on a tangent.

THE POINT IS: With shounen it's probably better to go read all the manga.

Bleach - http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/

Ichigo Kurosaki has always been able to see ghosts. He's a juvenile delinquent who actually just wants to protect his friends and family. One day, a Shinigami, a god of death, appears. She offers him her power so he can defeat a Hollow, the corrupted version of a dead person's soul. As he himself becomes a Shinigami he gets drawn into their battles and fights about a billion dudes all over the place.

The crux of the story is that most of the characters have Zanpakuto, spirit katanas that change into various forms. They can become bigger swords, moving clouds of dust, giant monsters and other things I wont spoil. Probably the most fun part of the series is gradually seeing the reveals of whose swords do what.

I really really like Bleach. It's a classic shounen formula but it has this edginess that gives it a really unique flavor. Honestly, it's a little more edgy in the beginning, and loses some of its street charm later on. However, it becomes so action-packed and fun that you don't really care. Tite Kubo is a goddamn idea man, and he crams about ten billion unique characters with unique weapons into the story.

In fact, as you read on you'll realize that at one point in the story literally every goddamn character in the series is in a fight at the same time. This means he cuts back and forth a lot, but everyone's so fleshed out and interesting you barely notice.

A note on the anime. It probably would be a drag and a timesink to watch the whole anime back to back, but the Bleach anime has absolutely SUPERB art direction. Because it's been airing nearly every week for years now, the animation ranges, with movie-quality animation for important fights and so-so for other parts, but the general tone of the show is really really good. It may actually be worth watching, or at the very least once you're done with the manga you might want to start watching the anime every week too.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! - http://www.onemanga.com/Katekyo_Hitman_Reborn/

Tsunayoshi Sawada is known as "Loser Tsuna" at school, because he is terrible at everything. One day, his mom hires a home tutor, who turns out to be a one year-old in a suit and fedora named Reborn. He tells Tsuna he's a hitman from the Vongola mafia family, and he's here to train the only living heir.

As Reborn trains Tsuna to be a mafia boss, he shoots him with the Dying Will bullet. When it kills you, you are reborn with the ability to correct whatever for dying regret was. All sorts of bizarre people come into Tsuna's life, and shenanigans abound.

Then shit gets real.

Reborn was originally a gag manga, a comedy. It had some fights once in a while, but in general it was just funny situations. Of course, doing a manga like that every week is a lot of work, plus it's hard to keep sales up, so a lot of gag manga end up becoming battle manga, which is what happens to Reborn around 60 chapters in.

Now, as a comedy Reborn was GOLD. It's actually really frickin' hilarious, and it was kind of sad to see it change. However, Amano Akira makes some really interesting fighting styles, and has ended up making one of my favorite battle mangas ever. I don't want to post any of the later openings or fight scenes because it's half the fun seeing how all the normal kids end up as fighters with special abilities, but Reborn is just a really unique manga.

Also, it is written and drawn by, and read mostly by, women. Also, stay away from the anime. It's not nearly as good.

I'm including exactly one sports manga because David asked about it, and that is:

Prince of Tennis - http://www.onemanga.com/Prince_of_Tennis/

Prince of Tennis is goddamned ridiculous. RIDICULOUS. It's also incredibly fun. Basically it's about a middle school tennis team that does all sorts of impossible stuff with tennis balls, in a world where 9th graders look like they're 25.

The characters are all pretty interesting, and there are a TON of guys from all the different schools. It can drag on a little but for the most part it's a nice departure from the usual thing.

Wolf's Rain

This is one of, if not my favorite anime of all time. It can be a little slow, but the stark, moody setting and tone is so easy to get absorbed in. This trailer can sum it up pretty well:

It's a post-apocalyptic and largely Russian setting, where the main characters are wolves who can cast an illusion to appear human. There's also a parallel story of some humans who are following the wolves, whom they believe to be extinct. Honestly, it's the kind of story that's hard to really classify. I think this is the sort of anime where you wont really understand until you watch a couple episodes. It's brooding and subdued and beautiful, and the incomparable Yoko Kanno outdid herself on the soundtrack. The last couple episodes tore me apart.

Watchable in English or Japanese, the dub is actually really really well done.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Ghost in the Shell is an anime movie from the 90's that was an incredibly influential cyberpunk feature. It is not required watching before this series but it helps. The setting is actually changed a little for the series, made closer to modern times but still the same basic stuff going on.

Ghost in the Shell takes place in a futuristic Tokyo, where people can get cybernetic parts and bodies, where the line between robot and human is blurred, if it exists at all anymore. Motoko Kusanagi is the major of Section 9, a basically invisible agency that stops criminals that other law enforcers can't get at.

It's very political and cerebral. Definitely best to watch in English, I think, because talking is such a huge part of it. Very nice dub on this one, so it wont detract at all.

Yakitate!! Japan

This is probably about where I lose you. Stay with me, I promise everything's going to be okay.

This is an anime about baking. I'm not even a little bit kidding.

It is also RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. See, to make baking interesting, they added "Reactions." A Reaction is what happens when you eat something really delicious. It's almost always based on a Japanese pun, with the eater turning into something ridiculous, while simultaneously describing what is special about the bread:

There's also this:

WARNING: don't watch the last episode, it is absolutely terrible. Instead, start reading the later parts of the manga, which continues the story. TOP TIP.

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Readers, I can do no more. I'd be here all night. I shall do a Part 2 later, and recommend the last couple anime that I think provide a good cursory look at genres and are also fun to watch.

Feel free to contact me with questions, and if you would like me to do something like this with TV shows or American comics or anything let me know because this is like goddamn porn for me.