MangaLove: A thread to share series that you love on Tildes
Choose one series
that you love
that you think deserves more love
Tell us what it is, and why.
Welcome to the inaugural MangaLove post. Passively being exposed to new manga and anime is one of the things I've missed most about Reddit, so this is an effort to bring some of that spirit to Tildes.
Many thanks to @kfwyre and their AlbumLove series in ~music that I plagiarized was inspired by.
Additional Details
Why MangaLove?
Finding new series is hard! The medium continues to become more mainstream and accessible, but that hasn't changed the fact that there's a lot of stuff to consume and few ways to find something you may like.
MangaLove offers an opportunity to sift through series loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to venture outside of your comfort zone, with a series that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.
Is this just for Manga? Can I share Anime, or Manhwa, or...
Feel free to share any Anime, Manga, Manhwa, or Manhua that you love!
What do I post?
Any series that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in MangaLove.
Please make sure to include:
- The series name
- The author
- What you love about the series. It could be the story, the art, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the series reminds you of someone you love, or the period in your life when you first consume it.
Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!
Do I have to watch/read to what everyone else posts?
Nope. You don't have to consume anything you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.
Can I post more than one series in a month?
Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.
My favorite manga is probably Witch Hat Atelier, the 11th volume's official English translation came out today! I love it because the art is gorgeous, builds out a cool world, the characters are sweet and cute, it's an inclusive world, it tackles some of the societal issues that would arise from magic, and is generally cozy. It isn't all nice, there are spooky mysterious bad guys that drive a central plot forward too.
Sweet and cute sounds fun. First one is only $1 on Kindle too, going to give it a go.
I second this recommendation. I started reading it recently because of another recommendation on Tildes (actually, it might have been a recommendation you made on another thread) and I was really impressed by the depth of the story. Also, the artwork is amazing.
Thirded! It does a really good job of incorporating the homey, cottagey English countryside magic Harry Potter excelled at, while being a much more coherent world.
Feel free to leave any feedback you have for the format in this comment thread.
cc: @talklittle
I think you've expressed wanting more avenues for discussion and recommendation, so this might interest you?
This is a great initiative! So happy to see this. Thank you for getting this started.
I have to recommend one of my all-time favorite manga, and perhaps the best I've ever read: Souboutei Must Be Destroyed, by Fujita Kazuhiro. I cannot praise this manga enough, it's the one series where I repeatedly check to see if there's an anime adaptation in the works. There's no official translation, just the fan-made one I linked, but it's complete and incredible.
The premise is that an artist named Sakamaki Deido built a mansion called Souboutei which is reportedly haunted, and many people want to destroy it. The first chapter has the Prime Minister launching missiles at the house, to make a huge national show of the fact that the house is dangerous and needs to be destroyed. You have the military, psychics, mad scientists, exorcists and a katana shaman walking into there, along with an everyman artist protagonist and a boy who disappeared in a plane crash 60 years ago.
Words alone can't do this masterpiece justice. It has nearly every genre you can imagine—horror, supernatural and psychic powers, sci-fi, aliens, ghosts, political conspiracies—and it sounds chaotic, but it works. The visuals are incredible (seriously, I really want to see some of this stuff animated!!), and the writing is top-notch. The characters are all incredible, and the writing never felt like it pulled ideas out of no where to surprise readers.
This isn't just a manga, this is a love letter to art and humanity. Every page has so much passion in it. This series feels like the culmination of an entire career and lifetime, a writer's magnum opus.
More than that, I firmly believe this is a manga that can change lives. It didn't have that effect on me, but I can tell it has that power for the right audience members. The story managed to delve so deep into the human psyche at various points without ever feeling preachy like so many other manga do. This is the sort of story that can only come from years of experience not only writing manga, but also from just living.
It's just... I can't sing its praises enough. I keep telling my friends but no one has yet, which breaks my heart because it's so damn incredible. Please, PLEASE read this manga. Go in as blind as possible, and just enjoy the ride.
I've read manga for probably 15 years now, and I think this genuinely may be the absolute best one I've ever read.
Aside from Chainsaw Man, the others that I follow are "Nan Hao & Shang Feng" by Brownie and "Grand Blue" by Inoue Kenji and Yoshioka Kimitake.
The first one is a Chinese manhwa about boys being boys. The second one is technically about diving.
I thought Dr. Stone was pretty fun. I daydream a lot about going back in time to the Stone Age and trying to develop to the highest possible level of technology based on just what I have in my brain — and that’s basically the premise.
I''s by Masakazu Katsura. 15 volumes from 1997-2000.
The title comes from a bunch of its characters' names starting with "I".
Story of Ichitaka from his late teens to early twenties. He keeps making blunder after blunder—and some successes—while following his hormones to chase after his love interest(s), and getting distracted along the way.
The author's unique, semi-realistic art style gives the story more serious weight than one might expect.
A lot of human traits laid bare in the story. Struggles through the awkwardness of dating at a young age. Impulsiveness and stupidity, accompanied by feelings of angst, inadequacy and regret.
It's not all bad though. He picks himself up with humor (not overly much IIRC), and support from friends and more-than-friends. Sometimes just letting time heal wounds and forgetting about things and moving on.
It's not for everyone, but if you're in the target audience and in the right moment in life while reading it, you might deeply connect with Ichitaka's story.
Hirayasumi by Shinzō Keigo
Premise
Hiroto, an almost-30 year old, spends his time making ends meet at his part time job. He befriends an elderly lady who he calls "Granny", who surprisingly leaves Hiroto her house after she passes. A few months after Granny's death, Hiroto's cousin Natsumi moves in with him to attend art school.
Why I love it
If the premise sounds mundane, that's because it is. It's a "slice of life" through and through, where we follow the cast through through the daily tides of life. But that mundanity breeds relatability. The author can place the cast in stories that hold up a mirror to the reader, and prompt them to self reflect.
It's hard not to see myself in Hiroto, who wrestles with all he didn't achieve in his 20s while trying to be cognizant of all the good he has around himself now. Natsumi's struggles trying to break into a new career are struggles I'm still going through at the start of mine.
I can't help but wonder what the author has gone through to write stories that I find so evocative.
I also think Hiraysumi's art is gorgeous and unique compared to most manga. I grew up around a lot of French media, and Hirayasumi's art reminds me a lot of the art of French comics like Tintin and Astérix et Obélix.
Can't recommend I want to end the "I love you" game enough. It's so hard to do romance right since people might stop reading after the confession because the author perceives that they can't continue the tension, but on the other hand, making no progress risks the audience no longer giving a crap (rent a girlfriend), or just leaves a sour taste when you just leave it to the end (Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible).
The premise of I Love You game is brilliant. The author is free to progress the relationship, while keeping the tension high. It rewards the readers with cute shit, but also keeps them invested.