Let's discuss Japanese comics!!
Can't be bothered to buy?(ίDί)
#lurk
http://gotlurk.net + #lurk@irc.irchighway.net
Biggest and most complete English scanlation archive on the intarwebs.
It's worth learning IRC to use this.
MangaUpdates
http://www.mangaupdates.com/releases.html
Latest scanlations releases can usually be found here
MangaJouhou
http://www.manganews.net
It's like MangaUpdates, but shittier.
[Manga Upload] COMIC BOMBER
http://tinyurl.com/34pbgb
Lots of quality stuff here to be read. :*
I have started reading Jojo from the start and it's pretty awesome. Gotta love the inane narration with all the useless powerlevel stats.
Oh fuck. I hear these are the only existing scans of part 4:
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/2577/jojo29004.jpg
That made me think of the colored bubble GTO scanlations. Ah, those were the days...
Also I'm convinced there are better scans of part 4 but I am usually wrong about these things, so unless you enjoy false hope and bitter disappointment you should probably just ignore me.
>>102-103
There's someone rescanlating Part 4.
http://www.mangaupdates.com/groups.html?id=2650
I wish they would translate Manyuu Hiken Chou a bit faster. It is quite possibly the greatest story ever told.
>>104
It's not that much of an upgrade given that he can't read Japanese, but at least it's bearable.
A bunch of THE WORLD IS MINE chapters came out recently. Holy shit, this is getting good.
This is silly, but I can't seem to find any Hokuto no Ken scanlations. I can find the anime twice over in numerous languages, but the manga is illusive.
>>108
It's all on #lurk if you know IRC. (http://www.gotlurk.net)
There's a gap in between volume 4-8 that hasn't been scanlated, but it's still worth reading after.
>>108
Delinquent manga is scanlating 5-7, but they release a chapter once every 6 weeks. The Hokuto no Ken movie from 1986 kinda fills in that hole in the scanlations.
The other night I read Shamo for 14 volumes straight. You need a pretty strong stomach to read this, in the first chapter you see how the main character, Ryo Narushima, murdered his parents the day of his 16th birthday, in the second and third chapter there's some graphic male prison rape; and it's very slow paced, there's a fight supposed to last 30 minutes of real-time that can take you twice as long to read.
In prison, Ryo finds a very special karate teacher, and it's through karate he manages to survive the two years he has to serve in a prison for minors. The story really starts in the third volume, as we follow him outside, and see how he ends up challenging the champion of the largest MMA tournament around.
It's really worth reading. You feel like the only person in the world rooting for the asshole, and you know you shouldn't.
Unfortunately I hear it goes to shit where I stopped reading, and even goes supernatural a bit later. But even if it ends up being as bad as I was told I strongly recommend volumes 1-14 to anyone who can take it. Scans at http://www.manga-sketchbook.org/ (except for one stupid shopped "joke" in the middle of the 3rd or 4th volume the general scan and editing quality is consistently high).
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-07-16/viz-adds-saturn-apartments-kingyo-used-books-manga
Viz is getting pretty hardcore with IKKI. I hope it does well enough for them to bring over G Senjou Heaven's Door.
RIKI-OH v12 was released not too long ago.
The only ending manlier than this was Hokuto no Ken's.
Kotonoha is somewhat alive again. Pretty much anything they release is worth reading.
It was the most JEWISH manga I have ever read.
The live action movie is QUALITY, too, but I haven't found a subbed release of the OAVs.
Tetsuo Hara's CYBER BLUE. This looks too good.
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/samehat/150498.html
Especially the main villain being PRINCE.
Hox translated the first volume of Nobuyuki Fukumoto's LEGEND OF THE STRONGEST MAN, KUROSAWA. This is really hard to read because I identify myself with the main character's social awkwardness way too much. It's like I'm looking at myself in 20 years, but doing construction.
Hox also did some Noramimi. It's great stuff that I'm surprised Viz didn't pick up on for their Ikki site, becuase it's a lot better than most of the stuff they have on there.
http://www.mediafire.com/shizukajoestar
If you haven't read STEEL BALL RUN yet, I suggest you do so.
Everyone should check out Pluto whenever they have some spare time. I thought Monster and 20th Century Boys were great but Pluto is even better. Urasawa is amazing. Highly, highly recommended.
>>121
What happened to Kurosawa though? Are we ever going to see vol 2?
>Project Status:
>Medium Priority
>Legend of the Strongest Man, Kurosawa ("probably" will not continue work on this until early 2010 or so)
('A`)
I've mentioned it earlier in this thread, but man, Takemitsu Zamurai is must read stuff. Hox finished up the second volume and it's jaw dropping. This is some of the best stuff I've read in a long time.
So apparently Tsuruta Kenji wrote something new. He the guy who made "Spirit of Wonder" and "Forget-me-not". He's a guy that only makes comics once every 10 years, but every time he does, it's pretty good stuff. His latest book, "Memories of Emanon", is an adaption of a novel (that he happen to draw the cover for) and is about a woman with a memory that dates back to the start of life on Earth.
Kotonoha released the first half of the comic. Check it out.
http://kotonoha.monkey-pirate.com/
Shigurui is being scanlated again.
http://www.mangaupdates.com/releases.html?search=2304&stype=series
>>131
Oh dang, that's some fantastic artwork there. And the story isn't half bad either.
Anyone care to recommend some decent Josei? I'd like to try it out but the art usually turns me off, not to mention a lot of it seems pretty dumb.
I would like to revive this thread. We need more good manga discussion and sharing.
>>134
I went through a period of reading josei manga because I thought a lot of it was more truthful about life and emotions and all that crap. Then one day I realized it's not and a lot of it sucks and I can't relate to it properly and went back to my old reading habits. The only thing I can really think of that I like is Honey and Clover and everyone's read that.
I haven't been able to keep on top of new manga or even keep up with ongoing series for a year or so now, I've only read one new release in that time and that was a collection with a couple of stories I'd already read. I have the problem that there's so much stuff I want to read I'm not sure I'll ever get around to starting any of it.
Is josei mostly like the manga equivalent of romance novels or something?
>>138
Not exactly. Josei is a demographic.
Shounen - Early teen boys/All Ages
Shoujo - Early teen girls/All Ages
Seinen - Late teens/20-somethings/Business guys/etc.
Josei - Same general audience as seinen, except female.
Also, more josei recommendations: Usagi Drop and Nodame Cantabile.
I don't know if I could recommend stuff by Ai Yazawa with a straight face. They're guilty pleasures. (LEΦEM)
>>140
I've been bumping this thread anonymously with stuff I've read.
I'm thinking of uploading cool free comics again.
Total number of files: 300
Total size of all files: 6.78 GB
Total downloads: 16,507
Total bandwidth: 636.78 GB
Holy crap.
>I'm thinking of uploading cool free comics again.
I highly recommend this. I find that downloading and tracking down good manga is always a hassle. I would love to help if I could as well. Comics are great.
>>143
I uploaded three collections by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (The Pushman and Other Stories, Abandon the Old in Tokyo and Good-Bye). Stuff's bleak and depressing, but it's very well done. I really need to buy his stuff one of these days.
>>144
I feel the same way, makes me wish I knew Japanese fluently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28vGi7jPNrY
Lego video for Monster fans.
I AFFIRM MYSELF
http://telophase.livejournal.com/1120897.html
A manga about train bentos? Well now I've seen everything
What manga is everyone reading at the moment?
As for me, it's Steel Ball Run!
Anyone have suggestions for some good comedy manga?
>>157
Sugoiyo Masaru-san: Sexy Commando, Gyagu Manga Biyori, Yakitate! Japan, Short Cuts
>>159
This entire time I thought this had something to do with Boku no Pico. Just took a look, reading immediately.
I'm debating getting an iPad, pretty much just for comics. Any opinions?
>>161
As a satisfied owner of a jailbroken iPhone, on which I have read many e-Books (but no comics), I strongly recommend you don't.
You need both a filesystem you can access and intelligent software that is allowed to access it. The iPad has neither.
Expect tons of non-obvious gotchas and limitations.
Do not buy unless you can get a chance to borrow an unit and verify for yourself that you can read 500 pages of diverse material without swearing a lot about all the things the machine won't allow you to do because it was optimized to display albums with 30 photos.
Slightly related, I use a widescreen display in a vertical position to read scans myself, using Xee (a mac program done by the same guy who did the text board and image board software saovq runs!)
It's not mobile but really convenient.
You could reproduce this sort of setup with a half-as-expensive-as-an-iPad laptop rested on its side, or one with hinges that can open at a 180º angle. Almost every laptop produced in the last 3 years allows you to change the display rotation for the whole system, often right from a system tray icon, so would not be limited to software that supports a default rotation.
If you were getting an iPad or a laptop just for comics could you not just use that money to buy the actual comics...?
>>163
Given the thread we're in, I don't think his interests are limited to stuff available both on paper and in English.
>>166
You could get a kindle dx, or a similar large screen e-ink reader. I bought one for general reading, and didn't think much of putting my comics from glorious Nippon on it in advance. However, when I tried it worked very well. It's not as general, or "fun" a device as the Ipad I suppose, but it does the reading part very good. It also has a much more comfortable screen to read.
The Kindle doesn't have a filesystem directory by default, but since most of the manga I've read have been packaged in rar or zip-files, it hasn't posed big enough a problem for me to try to rectify. Note that 10" really is the minimum screen size for comfortably reading comics, so I'd advice against the smaller devices for this purpose.
>>171
...I just looked at that Cyber Blue description in the first link. Good lord, the translation isn't like that. Don't worry.
mediafire.com/?nvmuhmln00k
Very very interesting manga. I have no idea who it's by but it's pretty refreshing and interesting.
http://www.mediafire.com/zawanons
part 2 of Kaiji is getting translated, though it's kinda old news
Would anyone be interested in having a manga book club? We could all read one manga (something on the shorter side I guess) over the course of two weeks. Once the two weeks are over we can chat about our impressions in this thread. What do you think?
Depends on the manga.
I only like slice of life and shoujo, really.
Can't be bothered to buy? Anyone who knows anything about economics know that if a product isn't being bought they wont produce it. Why bite the hand that feeds when you can work for the food.
Let's read one piece
>>183
I agree with this, anything more than a couple chapters and I'd be way behind, even if you do give us two weeks.
Well, Onani Master is about 31 chapters long and Solanin is 28 chapters long. Pretty short, but they are amazing.
We could also read Absolute Boyfriend, it's 33 chapters long and it's pretty entertaining.
I actually started reading Onani Master a while ago, but never finished it. I'd be fine with choosing that.
I recommend Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. It's 14 volumes, but it's a very light read. We'll burn through it no time.
Come to think of it, I really miss reading new chapters of this every month.
There was another manga by the same person who did Solanin, but the name eludes me...
>>191
There's Nijigahara Holograph, What a Wonderful World, City of Light and Goodnight Punpun.
What a Wonderful World, that's the one I was thinking of.
Thank you, VIPPER!
Well let us get this started. For the next two weeks lets read Solanin!
2 chapters a day, it's perfect.
Make sure you're ready for tomorrow VIPPERs, chapter 5 is a good one!
I've got some catching up to do.
I was worried we would not start this.
How do the other VIPPERs like it so far?
I wish my life was as free as theirs...
Well, I just marathon-read Solanin in one sitting. It was excellent. However, reading it so quickly was probably a mistake, because I could not fully digest the tragedy before moving on to the uplifting parts, leaving me in a terribly depressed mood. I'm graduating soon and wondering, where will my life go? The characters in Solanin at least had friends to help them through life. It's lonely struggling alone.
I read through it two chapters a day and everything but then forgot about posting in this thread. I've actually read it before, and thought it was great, but this time I didn't like it much. I have a feeling I was just drunk the first time.
I started realising I didn't like it because the dialogue was annoying me - a lot of it felt false and over-dramatic. I guess it's intentional to a degree, especially with Taneda, but I don't think it's all due to a deliberate portrayal of the characters acting that way. Then that feeling extended beyond the dialogue. Based on my bad memory and the reviews I'd read I'd pictured a subtle, sensitive, and realistic story, but it felt more like a particularly subdued but still shallow and melodramatic j-drama or soap opera. It also has a lot of Japanese pop culture tropes that I don't like, in particular the obsession with how being young and innocent is good and growing up sucks and somehow corrupts you (since this is what it's based around I suppose I should have realised I wouldn't like it, even if it is about overcoming the supposed problem), and the bittersweet "life goes on" ending.
If the whole thing was meant to be viewed negatively as a criticism of this kind of (particularly Japanese?) story and attitude I would like it but I don't think that's the case, although I suppose I can just call death of the author and read it that way regardless.
