Hey y’all! I know there’s a forum for comics, and technically mangas are just Japanese comics, but they’re different enough that I think a separate forum won’t hurt.
If y’all need any recommendations, want to give recommendations, or just want to discuss manga/anime, feel free to talk about it in here!
To start, does anybody else keep up with the manga for One Piece??
Nope, I read the first three volumes and stopped. I somehow never read more and then learned how many chapters there were, and vowed not to spend my money on hundreds and hundreds of volumes. I didn’t learn how to pirate yet, and I still prefer physical books. Does it get any better?
I am quite a bit biased, so of course I will say that it gets much, much, better. The first three volumes, while entertaining, were nothing to really write home about. Especially now since it’s in the final saga, every arc is just incredible. My opinion is to read until you finish the Alabasta arc. If you still don’t like it by then, just drop it.
I can proudly write here, that I read the very first episode and that it was my first manga ever (I was constantly fighting with the pages on how to read backwards). I had some fun, but it was definitely not for me. Still I wanted to have an idea what it was about. I definitely liked the main character and his positivity to follow his dream and rather with others together than against them unless forced otherwise. The only thing that I wonder about is if the first episode was already so over the top, how can they still be going and upping that constantly? Can the One Piece ever be found without ending the series?
I’m glad you at least tried it out! Shounen mangas are definitely not for everyone. I’m happy that you liked Luffy though! It’s definitely his personality that drew me to the series.
To answer your question, Eiichiro Oda has built a fantastic world. To most Shonen fans, One Piece is at the peak of worldbuilding. It poses a lot of interesting mysteries and frequently gives out interesting, but vague, pieces of lore that whet the readers’ appetite for what’s to come. And the reason for its longevity is because Oda is great at creating characters that are as, or even more, interesting than the main character.
And yes, the One Piece is something that can be found and the series will most likely end shortly after. It’s not meant to be an endless manga.
This was made in jest, but I think this graph is pretty accurate at depicting One Piece’s approach to storytelling.
Just finished the first season of Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon).
I want the second season NOW.
What are some of your favorite animes??
This had me laugh out loud. I guess that’s one way to have a series run for so long 
The picture explains why fans have so much to talk about and to speculate where One Piece is going next, because it can go in any direction.
But the beauty of it, is that it all connects so wonderfully. When the universe is expanded upon, it never really feels out of place.
That’s always so hard to answer. Hmmmm. Let’s see.
I would say all of Dragon Ball, Magic Knight Rayearth, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Attack on Titan, JJBA: Diamond is Unbreakable, Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners and Neon Genesis Evangelion.I wouldn’t say One Piece is one of my favorite anime, but Water 7 + Ennies Lobby is one of my all time favorite story arcs.
Lately I’ve been a fan of Spy x Family and, of course, Dungeon Meshi.
My favorite anime are Record of Lodoss War, Clannad, GTO, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Azumanga Daioh, K-ON!, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Mushishi, and Golden Boy.
Favorite manga: Akira, Dragon Ball, AQUA/ARIA, Azumanga Daioh
I also got pretty into Berserk a year or so ago and I wanna go back to it at some point.
That manga does not make a great first impression IMO. The first time I tried reading it I thought that it was going to be nothing but grimdark edgy shit based on the first handful of chapters. But it gets so much more interesting and involved with its story and characters and their relationships, and there’s a lot of humanity in it all. I was really surprised at how it evolved. And of course the art is amazing.
Shaman King was always my favorite !
I know of One Piece, but never really followed it. I feel like you’d need a really big bookcase at this point, or something
I think Luffy’s trying to learn how to pirate.
If I collected manga I would have bought all of initial d probably in both english and japanese.
My boyfriend and I just finished Hell’s Paradise. My favorites are the magical girl, slice of life, or high fantasy stuff, but I liked this one well enough. Everyone explains themselves way too much, though. Like if you replaced the yelling in Dragon Ball with exposition.
We’ve also been watching The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, which is also just ok. But I think it has potential, it’s fairly funny. My bf also prefers dubs and I prefer subs, so maybe I’m not enjoying these as much because they’re in English?
Finally, we caught up on Sailor Moon Crystal and finished the Eternal movies. I will always love Sailor Moon, and appreciate this for what it is, but it feels like some of the magic of the original series is gone. The music, for one (especially the Infinity arc compared to Sailor Moon S), is just not interesting or engaging. It’s weird to me a big chunk of the animation was just copied from the original series. And something about the pacing feels off, like the monster of the week format might be all filler, but in Crystal, resolutions and finishing off the big bads just kind of happen without earning it, if that makes any sense. Nehelenia throwing Chibi-Usa off the roof, or Sailor Moon powering up with her pure heart crystal and without the grail to fly into Pharoah 90 with the beautiful waltz-y music were just such strong moments, and nothing lives up to them in Crystal. 
my first girlfriend loved sailor moon. But i do not think she ever read the manga.
I’m late to the thread but it’s cool to see a dedicated place to talk manga and anime. 
Shounen is pretty hit or miss with me, and when I see it’s 900+ episodes (anime) or a million volumes long, I start to get suspicious about the quality remaining consistent. While I have read the first volume of One Piece and found it enjoyable, I didn’t have any interest in continuing it after finding out the creator was publicly supportive of his mentor (author of Rurouni Kenshin) who was arrested for very not cool things.
A Shounen series I absolutely love though is Fullmetal Alchemist. It was the first manga series I ever finished and I’ve watched both anime adaptations. If you haven’t read Arakawa’s Silver Spoon series, I highly recommend it. It’s also one of my top favorites. I haven’t seen the anime adaptation but I’ve heard it cuts short and doesn’t cover the entire manga series. This seems to happen a lot with her adaptations…
I’ve recently started reading Junji Ito’s work. So far I’ve read Tomie, Uzumaki, and the one about his cats. My favorite so far is Uzumaki. I’m really excited for the anime to release. The animation is gorgeous.
Uzumaki is a brilliant piece of work, regardless of the medium. It’s just astounding.
JUNJI ITO MENTIONED!!!
agreed, Uzumaki is phenomenal. ive only read it once but its stuck with me. it’s beautiful, heartwrenching, and horrifying. it’s very, very important to me. i should reread it… i hope the anime does it justice!
Junji Ito’s Sensor explores faith, obsession, knowledge, and power through a scattered yet sensational horror manga. A lot of the same tricks Ito utilized in previous works like Uzumaki and Remina are on display here, but I still find myself enjoying his writing style despite the tropes. His artwork, however, is fuller and more detailed than I have noticed before. Both the glorious and the grotesque are rich and expressive in this manga. That being said, I do wish Sensor had either increased its length or decreased its presented themes. A brisk read (you can get through this thing in sub two hours), Sensor does not have the page count to really explore its ideas fully. At one point, a character compares a horrifying thing to the online cloud. As you prep yourself for this discussion, the book throws this idea out to explore another one. A sin but not a damning one. I enjoyed Sensor and think it is a fine place to start with Junji Ito. But it is not the best place to start. That would be his masterwork, Uzumaki.
