/jp/ - Japan/Anime

Finished reading basically every work from Tsutomu Nihei. Guess I'll do a quick ranking/guide for them in order if anyone is interested.

Must read no matter what tier:
Blame!: It's his most famous title and while its certainly not a perfect work - if you like it, you will REALLY like it. The artwork and world design is simply well… out of this world. Just go and read it if you haven't, just don't expect well explained characters or story. The story is written in a very obscure and cryptic manner, while the characters are rather… mute much of the time.

Worth a read if you want more Nihei art and don't mind not having great plot tier:
Biomega: I think I honestly find this to look even better than Blame overall, which is rather astounding - to say the least. Unfortunately the story is far worse and its almost 80's action movie feeling at times. The artwork is just gorgeous though, the rule of cool + style over everything.
Noise: Its a sort of a tie-in with Blame, so read if you want some more story and art.
Abara: The main issue with this story is its world not being particularly interesting outside of Nihei's character and monster designs. Still well worth a read though.

Only if you just want art and nothing else matters tier:
Blame Academy (and so on): A collection of oneshots, spin offs, and two small chapters of Blame story tied together in one book. This focuses a lot on Nihei's coloured pages, which are frankly amazing and 100% worth a look at.

Space harem adventure with neutered art:
Knights of Sidonia: Despite being much more lighthearted (for Nihei anyways) and getting very Harem-like at times, I might say this is Nihei's best story since Blame. The artwork however, is just… dead. The lines are shaky, some pages look like a draft made it to printing, the heavy dark shading is gone and replaced with some strange all white look. Don't get me wrong, it still good compared to the rest of manga made, but for Nihei's past works it a sad state in comparison.

There are some more obscure oneshots and compilations that I read, but that are hardly worth talking about. You have stuff like Dead hands, which is a cool concept but never made a full showing, or Sabrina which is just pure nonsense. Neither have good enough art to justify readings anyways.

I'm reading vagabond and it's really pissing me off. Miyamoto Musashi's whole thing is that he's undefeated in duels but then they have him fighting to a draw and getting defeated and running like a bitch. Something is wrong with the japanese. They just can't have main characters that aren't pathetic even to the point that they have to take real life badasses and make them into losers so they can identify with them or something.

>>37108
Wouldn't that be boring if main character won every time? Good story has got to have loses, otherwise it won't have any emotional response from readers.

>>35452
>>35456

i just downloaded hakuneko. what connectors do you think are best to download mangas from? im a complete noob on this app so any recommendations or advice for using it would be seriously appreciated

>>37060
I'm reading Kights of Sidonia right know and I don't know how to feel. Its like a harem comedy manga but set in a surreal sci-fi world and the protagonist is this weird dude who doesn't seem to register the world around him at all.
I also don't like the art at all, it often feels confusing to me.

>>37156
Nihel's stuff is pretty strange over all, I don't know if you've actually read his other stuff, but its all pretty "out there". The MC thing is standard Nihei character wise, and it is explained in KoS by the MC spending his entire life basically just talking to a dying old man and playing a virtual sim video game all day. The harem elements are whatever, the MC is the best pilot and literally famous - so he has bitches who love him, kind of standard stuff for that genre. To me Knights of Sidonia is Nihei making waifubait for popularity, while keeping his horror filled scifi worlds in-tact. I think the story/world underneath the haremshit is actually pretty decent, and the haremshit itself isn't awful or too fanservive filled; which makes the overall experience an alright read in my books.

As for the art, yea its not even close to being his best work if you ask me. I didn't find it too hard to follow like you did, but I just didn't like it as much as his previous works. Its a transitional style from his old heavily inked and shaded methods, to his newest vision in "Aposimz"; which I never mentioned in my list since its not finished yet. These three pictures should kind of show his transition, although his style in Abara isn't using the original Blame methods, it was however still very similar in nature to it.

>>37158
I read Blame a few years ago and loved it, enough to actually spend my neetbux in the physical edition.
> I think the story/world underneath the haremshit is actually pretty decent
yeah I do like the worldbuilding, but I'm not sure I can get into the blend of weird shit with standard harem comedy, it doesn't mix well for me.
I still probably read all of it because whatever, but I doubt I'll like it as much as Blame.

>>37159
>physical edition
Oh sweet, what version did you get?
>I'm not sure I can get into the blend of weird shit
Fair enough. It is a bit strange, but I think it was explained well enough in the world so I don't mind it. It's also not too jarring, you don't have it flip floping tone in the middle of a battle or something. Usually anime/manga has a terrible problem with having comedy/romance suddenly interject into a dark and gritty scene, ruining any feeling or atmosphere. Nihei didn't do that, there were very clear light or heavy segments separated from each other. At least that's how I felt.
>I doubt I'll like it as much as Blame.
Nihei probably won't even make anything like that again unfortunately, I believe he did it during a period of his life where he basically hated the world, life, and humans overall. Now he has a family complete with children, who don't even like Blame or the other works because they found it too confusing. So he decided to change things up with KoS. I have heard good things about Aposimz, but obviously the art is COMPLETELY different, and apparently the atmosphere is too. I'm just waiting for it to finish before I read it.

You can still check out his other works that are closer to Blame that I listed, I sound harsh to them but that's just how I am, other blame fans like them a lot. At least check our Noise since its a tie in to the original if you haven't.

>>37160
>Oh sweet, what version did you get?
I got the master edition, was pretty expensive but it is really nice looking
>Now he has a family complete with children, who don't even like Blame or the other works because they found it too confusing
I remember reading something about that, iirc it was that her daughter wanted his manga to be more like attack on titan or something like that and he got kinda depressed over it
>You can still check out his other works that are closer to Blame that I listed, I sound harsh to them but that's just how I am, other blame fans like them a lot. At least check our Noise since its a tie in to the original if you haven't.
Thanks for the rec, I'll check it out
Also I think its kind of unfair to me to expect everything to be on Blame's level

>>37161
>I got the master edition
Yea nice choice, I've never had physicals of anything really, but I like the Master edition scans. I think it has the biggest size as well, so if physical I would go for that too.
>iirc it was that her daughter wanted his manga to be more like attack on titan or something like that and he got kinda depressed over it
Basically, lol.
>Thanks for the rec, I'll check it out
>Also I think its kind of unfair to me to expect everything to be on Blame's level
Yea no problem, Noise/Biomega/Abara are nice to read if you love Blame, but just not at the same level story wise in my opinion. I have very, very few manga I like equally to Blame, like Nausicaa or Kokou no Hito; but its so incredibly unique and well done that I had to check out everything Nihei had ever done. It really was a masterpiece of art/worldbuilding.

Finished reading basically every (translated) work from Shirow Masamune. Guess I'll do a quick ranking/guide for them in order if anyone is interested. If anyone else has anything to mention about Shirow I would love to hear it, it's quite the "experience" reading his work to say the least.

Must read tier:
Nothing if I am to be honest. Not even Ghost in the Shell really deserves to be here despite what you might think due to the movies/anime. Shirow really lacks the ability to tie his stories together properly in a cohesive narrative. Fantastic worlds, great ideas setting wise, and even better themes/messages; but he just isn't great at stories in my opinion.

Worth a read tier:
Appleseed: I actually liked this more than Ghost in the Shell (the manga form anyways). The two stars of the story Deunan and Briareos are fantastic and bounce off each other really well. The mech designs are amazing as typical of Shirow, the world is explained very well, and of course a heavy helping of political/philosophical ideas sprinkled on top. Sort of falls off the tracks during the later half of volume 3 and all of volume 4, but that's just Shirow's weakness in not being able to connect events properly.
Ghost in the Shell 1.0/1.5: It's Ghost in the Shell, just as you remember it from the movie! Uh… well not really. You are in for a SHOCK when you read these, very different feeling than the movie. That being said, the same philosophical/politic moments are here, just don't expect the characters themselves to be even close to what Oshii presented in the 1995 film.
Orion: Most magical than scifi, but still a very cool world. I don't think it was as good as either Appleseed or GitS, but its still interesting enough to be worth a read.

Mediocre comedy tier:
Dominion/Dominion C1 Conflict: The Pseudo-sequel "C1 Conflict" is better than the original Dominion, and its technically in a different world, but so many references are made to the original that you are forced to read both. Is it good? Not really. Is it bad? Not really. Not really worth a read in my opinion.

Schizo tier:
Ghost in the Shell 2.0: Do you like incomprehensible and psychotic technobabble? Do you like Pantyshots? Well don't you worry, Shirow has you covered. 300 pages of indescribable, incoherent, and utterly nonsense dialog while the MC contorts herself in any position possible to show off her panties on each and ever panel. I'm not even joking by the way. There is a story here, and it might have been ok, but good luck digging it out underneath the endless esoteric technical terminology. Even when you do figure out what in god's name the story actually is, its still not worth reading 300 pages of idiotic technobabble to go through it again.

Absolute dogshit do not read tier:
Black Magic: Its just fucking awful, nothing is properly explained at all, events are not connected, and the ending was completely limp. Do yourself a favor and actively avoid this manga.

Eden is the best, my next manga for read is Blame!

>>37280
What about Koukaku no Pandora?

>>37289
Thoughts on Planet of the Fools? I can't say I am a fan of Endo Hiroki but I liked his short stories.

>>37280
Orion is translated but the scans are impossible to find online

>>37290
Its not finished, and I really hate reading unfinished works. Same reason I haven't read Aposimz from Nihei

>>37291
>Orion is translated
Yep that's why its on my list,
>but the scans are impossible to find online
Here you go https://archive.org/details/manga_Orion. There is a torrent link there if you scroll down.

Shiki manga is better than the anime for not skipping so many meaningful scenes

>>37289
Eden was alright, I thought that basically every action scene was hollywood tier stuff. Especially Sophia/Kenji being undeafeatable gods of the matrix was a bit too much for me, every scene involving these two were basically just a waiting game for when the asspull shows its face.

Obviously the second half just seems to drift off into haze of questionable stories one could easily ask why they even existed. Why it shows random indian doctor storylines instead of gee… idk… Enoa Ballard's cartel backstory? No, instead you get dramatic death scenes for Enoa's right and left hand man, yet know almost nothing about them at all anyways. Priorities clearly not in order when I see things like that.

I still thought it was a decent series, but clearly flawed in my opinion. The first few volumes were great, just falling off as it got longer and longer. Also the liberal ideology here starts getting a bit annoying, no alternative is really proposed or offered, its just "racism bad, bigotry bad, violence bad, religion bad. etc etc". It lacks the depth of thought that someone like Shirow Masamune shows. Politically this manga really comes off as lacking nuance and rather childish much of the time.

>>37365
It was already 25 or 26 ep long.
I think they did pretty well adapting it given limitations they had to work with.

I've been reading solo leveling lately. It's your classic zero to hero story. It is pretty damn uninspired and blatantly rips off of several other anime (and video games) but at the same time, that's fine because that's what all anime do just not as blatantly as this one. The mc basically has no flaws and makes no mistakes and easily overpowers his opponents and has massive plot armor but it's all fine I still enjoyed it. The aspect ratio of the format is ass though. It's clearly made for phone consumption. I found it funny how much the author clearly wants to rip on the Japanese. They are constantly being evil and getting alternatively btfo or saved by the koreans.

Overall it's not exactly a masterpiece or anything but it's a decent power trip fantasy manhwa.

>>31721
I really like this manga, way more accurate than anything else I've seen.

When's the next chapter?

I finished all the currently available chapters of Tales of Demons and Gods. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Started reading martial peak because it is another popular manhua but sadly it's nowhere near as good. The author isn't completely without talent, but there are dozens of chapters in-between anything that could be considered creative or interesting. Anyone know of some good manhua dealing with "cultivation"?

I just got caught up on dungeon meshi, such a great manga. Amazing artwork.

Started reading How to Fight. On chaper 14. Pretty good so far other than the haremshit they're setting up and the author acting like TKD is actually an effective martial art. I don't have high hopes for the martial arts aspects of the story if the author actually thinks TKD is legit. I swear the koreans do this in literally every martial arts thing they produce, it's like they have some sort of fetish that they just can't let go around how their shitty useless martial art is actually not shitty and useless.

>>37588
With nothing better to do I kept reading martial peak. It gets good around 300 chapters in. The strange thing about it is just how prolific the creator is. He puts out 3-4 chapters per day. I wonder if it's a team working on it or what because I have never even seen close to that level of production before.

>>37761
how do you read it that long to get into it?

>>37762
left to right text and full color helps. Idk why they don't do color in japan, it's way better.

>>37778
color can be worse and it takes much more time to do properly. Look at korean or chinese comics/toons and how bad the coloring is to see what I mean. B&W can be a stylistic choice that pays off

https://chessmoba.us/items?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic

Chi no Wadachi, Trail of Blood.

This shit is something special.

I've never seen such good psychological horror mixed with mommy issues.

What is even more horrifying is how realistic it all is and how common shit like this is IRL.

Literally had nightmares after reading it.

And you're confused all the time, because the monster is so hot and "motherly".

Highly recommended.

What aggregator sites do you guys use? I need something that I can just check every three days or so for recently released/translated.

>>37855
I use mangapark but there are probably better places. Mangapark is the best for pc manga viewing as it loads entire chapaters at once and has dark mode.

>>37853
this is not finished yet though.
I read it up to where it was and it is good. can anyone recc me some manga I feel I have read everything I like. some pyshcological manga would be good

>>37855
mangasee123 is the best one but mangapark has more titles

>>37858
>>37860
Nice, thanks. These sites have a tendency to get shut down after some time and I'm too lazy to find new alternatives myself.

I started reading some manhuas on manhuaplus.com, and I have to say I really enjoy it. For some reason the comment section there reminds me of the old internet back when it was fun. People just post memes and fuck around for fun. It honestly made me wonder if maybe what I missed about old internet was the fact that most of us were kids just trying to have fun. Now everyone is grown up and always working some angle, but on this one site it's just memes for fun. All the stuff is full color and is updated much more regularly than most other stuff. Idk what the chinese are doing to produce manga that quickly, maybe some slave labor shit but whatever it is it's working.

What do you guys think of spin-off manga?

After reading a selection of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese manga it seems like there are consistent trends starting to emerge. Japanese MCs are often self-effacing beta males, the stories and characters and themes explored are more complex. There is lots of moralizing and social commentary.

On the other hand you have the Chinese manhuas which have much more conservative values, the characters are shallow and undeveloped, the stories mostly revolve around plot and move very fast, and there is almost zero moralizing or social commentary to be had at all. The MCs are often borderline villains with extremely grey morals. They will steal, lie, and kill just because it benefits them.

Korean manhwas I have found to be similar to the Chinese in terms of character development, just a bit better, but they have more social commentary and a level of moralizing in-between Chinese and Japanese with a level of overall complexity landing in-between the two as well. The tone of them is the most narcissistic by far. I just feel like every manhwa I ever read was written by a raging narcissist. There are also a lot of really unimaginative authors out there who just copy what other people already did or copy stuff from video games. This is true of every country of course but I feel the koreans are the worst in this department.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I just imagining it?

>>38312
Personally never got into Korean comics because the grammar of the fan translations were univercially shit to the point that it made it hard to follow the story.
I swear some of the larger translator groups were using early 10s google translate with no attempt to correct or edit the grammar between languages at all.
The few Chinese comics I read were based on very old stories, folk tales, etc, so they were pretty moral of the day heavy in the same way Aesop's fables are.
Also read that one that was heavily inspired by the life of Siddhartha Buddha (only with Chinese characteristics and culture) so it was also pretty moralistic.

But honestly I haven't read ether of the two extensively to come to any sort of generalized conclusion.
I do sometimes wonder if the fan translations have improved for Korean comics, but now I can't be bothered to read much of anything anymore. When I do Japanese manga is still king.

MANGADEX DATABASE LEAKED AGAIN, USERNAME+PASSWORD+EMAILS NOT YET MADE PUBLIC

If you use the same username, email, or password combinations as you do on MangaDex, consider changing them. Some haxxors have them as plain text. It's happened before, but this time is different because it's the first time it happened during a January. If you use MangaDex at all, consider stopping using MangaDex and instead using IRCs or Newsgroups to get direct access to scanlators' works without being plundered by third-party ads.

>>38333
I have asked people in MD staff, this is the first they've heard of it, the passwords weren't even in plain text before the first leak and they certainly aren't now. Are you making this shit up or what

>>38339
You would trust MangaDex staffers over a fellow wizard…?

>>21823
Fun idea for wizards who haven't killed themselve yet.

>>38569
If you know Japanese, that is.

>>38570
The exhaustion from learning Japanese is a good reason to commit suicide.

Alright I'll posting about the stuff I'm reading, /jp/ needs an more active manga thread.

There's a fair amount of titles running on Gangan right now talking about otaku. Yankee Shota to Otaku Oneesan is, in my opinion, the best of the bunch right now. This is the tale of a fujoshi and shotacon fan called Kazuko and her neighbor, Ryuou, a 3D shota (from her perspective) that starts to follow her around for reasons she doesn't understand.

It's a very light and fun comedy and Kazuko in particular is quite a hilarious character with her mannerisms and excessive inhibitions. There's a balance here between the funny moments that centers around the interactions between the main characters, and the more drama-like aspects of the story, centered around Ryuou relationship with his parents. They're good people but maybe not the best parents in the world.

If you like to watch socially inept succubi forced into social interactions, then you'll certainly enjoy this title. What makes this interesting is how likeable Kazuko can be without trying too hard. There aren't any absurd moments purely for comedy (like with Watamote), her reactions seem more genuine and this adds a certain tenderness to it that really gives this title a peculiar charm.

It's funny, I read a few chapter of this last year, really liked it and intended to read all of it but for whatever reason I completely forgot it ever existed until I saw it's available at Piccoma by accident. It's a lighthearted comedy about a pair of hikineet siblings hanging around the house. Looks like the stuff I would like.

Mr. Fujiko passed at the age of 88 a couple of days ago. Doraemon was the first manga I read from beginning to end in Japanese. Here's a post to celebrate his memory. I'll be reading Dora for the next couple of days.

>>38736
Rip. Glad he passed after he finished his project, many mangaka these days don't have that under their belt by the time they expire. Doraemon is definitely a legacy to behold. It's weird, I see Doraemon everywhere in Japanese art and culture, and even here in the west (It's a it's a JDM icon). Almost as much as Sanrio and Nintendo icons. Yet I have absolutely no idea what it's about, the names of the characters, or the extent it was released. The information just never organically landed in my peripheral and it doesn't look interesting to me enough to look it up.

To follow the life of Itai Shiori is like watching a tiny and precious trainwreck. It gets personal very quickly, too, because you’ll care about her from page one. Itai wants a boyfriend but she doesn’t quite know how to go about it and is not the best at reading social situations. And so comedic yet painful events follow.

The way the story unfolds is really clever in this one. Most of the text is not dialogue, but narration, like we’re watching Itai’s with the narrator and she too often will get flabbergasted about her actions. This really puts you in a position of wanting to help Itai. A lot. But you can’t. You’re forced to watch as she moves along being silly and living her painful comedy day by day.

A very engaging narrative and a very interesting read. If you enjoy awkward female protagonists and painful laughter, this title has you covered. The art is simple but it has a very unique charm I don’t quite remember seeing anywhere else. The author has a way of coming up with excellent facial expressions for the characters and even though it’s a simple, straightforward way of drawing the characters, there’s an attention to detail to the expressions that really adds a very special quality to them, it’s hard to put my finger on it. I guess you’ll have to read it to find out by yourself.