Every kind of nerdery imaginable.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to compile a list of favorite anime/manga and I got an ask the other day that sparked me into finally just sitting down with a list of manga I’m currently at least semi-into.  I tried to focus on manga I’m reading RIGHT NOW and why I would recommend them.

It, uh.  Got kind of long.

This list was really hard for me to compile because I kept getting overwhelmed with choices, but with also trying to keep caveats in mind because sometimes I like things that have a lot of problems with them.  I thought about breaking it down into categories (like my favorite shoujo manga versus my favorite WJ manga) but I think that would defeat a lot of the purpose, since I know I certainly skip over entire sections of manga recs if I don’t think I’m currently in the mood for one style or another.  I’m also going to focus on just manga here, because anime would make this even more complicated for me than it already is.

Also, everything here is subjective!  I’ll try to keep this short, I’ll try to note when there are problematic elements, and I’ll try to keep it snappy.  I GUARANTEE NONE OF THESE THINGS AHEAD OF TIME, HOWEVER!  XD

TITLES I’M LEAVING OFF THE LIST, usually because… well, if you’re not reading them by now, my posting about them again probably won’t win anyone over:
Sailor Moon, Bleach, Naruto, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (Hanakimi), Junjou Romantica, X, Claymore, Cardcaptor Sakura, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, Viewfinder, Love Mode, Fruits Basket

MANGA I AM CURRENTLY READING (OR ELSE I JUST THINK ARE REALLY GOOD READS), no particular order:
→ One Piece:  It’s hard to talk about OP without coming across as being part of the Cult of One Piece that I know drives a lot of people off, because fans often very nearly attempt to cram the series down everyone’s throat and make you love it as much as they do.  The problem is that I am totally, totally part of that group!  OP is the series that always and forever makes it to the top of my favorites list and best written list!  And yet intellectually, I know it’s not for everyone.  It takes a long time to get into, I have criticized the series for its female characters before, and sometimes people just aren’t going to vibe with it.

But I love it because it does everything right.  The characters capture my imagination, it makes me shriek with laughter, and it has the distinction of being the only manga that I can think of that has ever made me cry.  It’s the only manga that I know that can make me cry over not just characters (but it does that, too) but INANIMATE OBJECTS.  I swear, Odacchi is some kind of genius that this world is barely fit to contain.  <—Cult of One Piece, card-carrying member, I know

60+ volumes is pretty daunting and it probably doesn’t help to have me say, oh, you’ll tear through that in no time, because you’ll be up ALL NIGHT LONG, reading 30 volumes in three days because you JUST CAN’T STOP (or at least I couldn’t—you think I’m kidding about those numbers >_>) or you’ll tear through the anime (which has its filler, but is probably the single best WJ anime adaptation I’ve seen!) because OP truly is the most epic, amazing series I’ve ever read.  And Odacchi keeps me coming back for more, he spins out these mysteries that I’ve spent HOURS pouring over, he spins out the single most incredible background world that I’ve ever seen, and no matter how much time I spend analyzing it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make a mistake yet.

UGH, JUST LEAVE ME HERE WITH OP TO DIE, BASICALLY.

→ Franken Fran:  This one will come with all sorts of caveats stamped on it, because it’s a horror comedy manga which gets pretty gruesome at times (bugs and guts and blood and thingssss inside you) and sexualizes women more than I’d like, but.  The lead character is a woman and she is amaaaaazing, because she’s so loopy and has no grasp of social norms and is brilliant and just goes and does what she wants with a happy smile and a skip in her step.  Her “sister” (another of the mad scientist who created her’s other projects) is a shy girl who can fuck your shit up without even blinking, whom I love dearly, too.  The art is surprisingly pretty in places, but that also means the gore is pretty detailed, too.  I find it absolutely hilarious when reading, but it’s not going to be for everyone.

→ Deadman Wonderland:  Another semi-brutal title that I don’t know if it’ll be for everyone.  It’s not as gruesome as Franken Fran, but it’s more heartbreaking and doesn’t have as strong of a female cast.  It’s sexualized more than I’d like as well, but not to intolerable levels and it almost has a sort of… I don’t know how to put it, but it feels almost by the numbers fanservice, so somehow it doesn’t bother me as much.  I love this one because the strongest character in the series (who isn’t the lead character) is a girl and she’s another loopy one who has no concept of normal social interaction and that just makes her even more awesome.  The art is gorgeous and the plot will threaten to break your heart at several points because the shitty circumstances they find themselves in, the rocks and the hard places they find themselves between are fascinating.

→ Kimi ni Todoke:  Probably my favorite in-progress shoujo manga!  I love love love the main character (Sawako) and how she’s not really that good at normal social interaction (…I didn’t intend for this to be a theme, but suddenly I’m realizing a kink I have here….) but she’s so sweet and tries so hard that you’re just instantly charmed by her.  The developing friendships she has with her two friends are AMAZING, since it’s not JUST about the romance, it’s just as often about THEIR issues and THEIR relationships.  But the romance is so sweet that I just can’t even talk about it, because it fills me with all the feelings in the world.  Sawako’s rivalry with another girl who likes the same boy, the side-ships, the gorgeous gorgeous art, the hilarious dialogue, all of it is amazing.

→ Beach Stars:  Speaking of things that aren’t going to be for everyone!  This is a title that you sort of just have to… I don’t know, either you have to like it or leave it, I suspect.  It’s a series that has a lot of focus on girls in bikinis playing beach volleyball, so you’ll see a lot of T&A and even some V.  But it’s pretty PG-13 otherwise and the thing that makes me absolutely love this series is the context that the T&A is put into—namely, that it’s not actually sexualized in universe.  There are no cat-calls, there’s no wolf-whistling, there’s no nosebleeds, there’s no strange dudes staring at the girls as they jump around or dive to hit the ball, instead it’s about a bunch of girls who are comfortable in their own skin out there getting into some pretty intense matches.  This is a series that’s about powerful female players in the sport, who are taken seriously, who aren’t punished for having actual muscles on them.  Plus, it has a character who’s heavier than the other girls who still wears the exact same swim suit because she’s part of the team!  If you can get past the concept of it, this is a manga focused on female rivalries and friendships that is actually pretty excellent!  (I’d put this in the same basic feel as Claymore, in a lot of ways, actually.)

→ Dengeki Daisy:  Another shoujo manga that I’m reading and really enjoying right now!  I read it partially for the OTP (who are a bickering couple that clearly both really, really care about each other and are wrapped up in each other almost to an unhealthy degree because they’re both all alone in the world and there are a shitload of guilt complex issues going on there) but mostly because it’s H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve laughed during it!  And the art is really pretty and, okay, the OTP kind of gives me the heebie jeebies sometimes because of the massive age difference, but there have been so many moments where I’ve just MELTED over them that I have faith the mangaka can bring me around eventually.

→ Koukou Debut:  Not a manga I’m currently reading, but the one shoujo manga that I encourage pretty much everyone to read!  It’s not my favorite (because nothing can beat my love of Hanakimi) but it’s right up there and it is SO FUCKING EXCELLENT.  The basic premise is Haruna (a tomboy-ish girl just entering high school) wants to get a boyfriend and have a love life now that she’s getting older, but since she’s not a typical girly girl, she needs to get Yoh (the most popular guy in school) to help tutor her, which he agrees to do, so long as she doesn’t fall in love with him.  You can imagine about how that goes.  The great part is that it’s not strung out for long, the pacing is FANTASTIC, the majority of the manga is about them actually being in their relationship, and ugh they are the most OTP of OTPS everrrrr and there is so much NON-STOP HILARITY and great side-ships and lovely art and INTENSE FEELINGS for all characters and and and!  Haruna stays JUST AS SHE IS, she never has to change for Yoh because he likes her the way she is and she likes herself the way she is and she’s never really punished for being the way she is.  IT ONLY MAKES HER GREATER.  This is one of those manga that I have absolutely no complaints about.  None!

→ Detective Conan:  Heh, if the length of One Piece is daunting, that’s nothing compared to Detective Conan!  I’m hesitant to recommend this one because I’m only about five volumes into it myself, but I just love it so much already…!  I’m finding that (so far) it’s… very episodic, even if it has moments of the characters tugging on my heartstrings.  It’s a very light read (despite all the murder going on around everyone!) and it’s cutely funny and I really love the characters.  I ship the main couple SO SUPER HARD, but it’s not going to be very satisfying for that because Conan has to stay in kid form or else there’s no more manga, which is why I give it a hesistant rec.  But I do enjoy it for when I just want to read a ton of manga that I don’t have to pour over, that I can instead just sit down and READ.

→ Fairy Tail:  A lot of people wonder if Fairy Tail was written by Oda as well, because the styles are very similar and the humor is very similar, too!  Which are good things, in my view, but it can never really be a replacement for One Piece, I don’t think Mashima can create characters on the same level as Oda and that’s always going to hamper his manga.  I also don’t find it as consistently absorbing as OP and it’s hard to get away from comparing the two.  That all said, I loooove this series and it’s hilarious and I enjoy the art and the fights are excellent and OMG ERZA SCARLET IS THE GREATEST EVER.  It’s definitely one of the better shounen series out there, I’ve found.

→  Kuragehime:  I picked the anime of this one up on a whim (and I think that would be a good place to start, if you want to get into this one, since it’s only 12 episodes) and then moved over to the manga, which is very cute and warm and fluffy.  It’s about a group of “amars” (ie, nun-like recluses) who don’t know how to deal with society at large, so they group together and live in their apartment and mostly only socialize with each other, until the world starts intruding on their lives.  It’s fairly standard josei-ish material, but the characters are delightful and the art is cute and it’ll inspire some decently strong feelings in a person.  But mostly I enjoy this one for the portrayal of a crossdressing character who a) is not punished by the narrative for it, b) doesn’t have to be an okama for it, and c) is actually really good at it.  You almost never see that!  He and the lead girl (who is adorable) form a pretty fun OTP, too.

→ Pokemon (aka Pokemon Special, aka PokeSP, aka PokeSpe):  OKAY, WAIT, HEAR ME OUT.  I know it might not seem like it, but this is one of the best manga I’ve ever read!  The manga takes the world of the games (though, it’s not a direct adaptation, the storylines are completely separate to each other, but more that the feel between the two is similar) and brings it to manga form, giving the series some pretty epic battles and storylines and characters.  It’s so cute and there’s great moments of hilarity and the characters are ACES (seriously, I love ALLLLL of the trainers!) and there are actual personalities and SHIT ACTUALLY HAPPENS, it’s not just running around battling random people, no!  Each arc of the manga has a beginning, middle, and end!  It’s an actual satisfying narrative!  And Pokemon has one of the best female casts I’ve come across, they are all HARDCORE AWESOME and actually get to DO IMPORTANT THINGS.

It’s very kid-oriented at times, but it also has some surprisingly adult themes and tons, especially when you run into ghost pokemon who are SERIOUSLY CREEPY, jeez.  The kids in the series eventually grow up, but even when they’re younger, they’re adorable and interesting to read about!  If you don’t mind the slightly younger focus (and you do need to be able to leave the whole, “wait, why are they letting their 10 year old go on a journey with just his Pokemon for company?” thing at the door), it’s an A++++ read.

(It’s not related to the anime at all, by the way.  They’re two entirely separate things, even to the point that the only thing they really share in common are similar character designs.)

→ Skip Beat!:  Another amazing shoujo series!  I love this one because the lead female character (Kyouko) is FULL OF RAAAAAGE for the shit way she was treated by her old boyfriend and the narrative never really punishes her for wanting revenge and not being able to let it go and for being really loud and full of energy.  It’s clear that she’s not happy and needs to work on herself, but it always comes across as being perfectly understandable and you feel so much for her.  But it’s also about Kyouko discovering herself and her relationships with these two guys (former dick boyfriend and potential new boyfriend) and her best friend (who tries not to be charmed by her, but grumpily has to admit—TO HERSELF—that Kyouko is pretty great) and finding a passion for something that’s HERS instead of giving everything of herself to others.  It’s hilarious and the OTP is super hot and just a really great read.

→ Soul Eater:  I’m not very consistent with this one, I keep falling away from it, even though I really love it a lot, because it’s all the things shounen should be!  Everything about it is really solidly good (the humor is excellent, the art is very solid, the characters are amazing, the background world is intriguing, the battle scenes are fantastic, the plot is solidly epic, etc.), but where it really shines is in how much the characters will suck you in and in the co-lead character, Maka Albarn, who is hardcore awesome and the fighter half of the duo (in Soul Eater, there are weapons and meisters—one person turns into a weapon of varying strength, the meister is the one who wields the weapon, and a lot depends on teamwork and their individual strengths in comparison to each other), which you almost never see.  Soul literally couldn’t fight without her and you can see how strong of a presence she is in the manga and it’s just really excellent.

→ Gate 7:  It’s… well, it’s CLAMP.  You either take ‘em or leave ‘em, I guess!  XD  The artwork is lovely and it’s… well, the best part about G7 so far is the potential for crossovers and how it’s connected to the rest of CLAMP’s work, because I’m vaguely intrigued, but not over the moon for the characters yet.  I am, however, feeling like CLAMP has a bit of their magic back because I’m enjoying it so much and HOLY CRAP CLAMP VERSIONS OF THE SENGOKU JIDAI!  That is all it took to sell me and it’s been pretty rad so far, just for that.  (But, okay, yeah, I’m intrigued by what’s all going on, because CLAMP is at its best when you want to know more about the plot and the battles the characters are going to face.)

→ MONSTER:  This is another manga that I have trouble articulating my feelings on, because it’s so brilliant that I don’t feel like I could do it justice.  It’s a little different from the usual manga style, but that’s because it’s utterly serious in its story about a promising young doctor who gets wrapped up in murder plots and sociopaths and a complicated web of everything trying to come after him.  It’s second only to One Piece in how—being as objective as I can possibly be, personally—brilliantly I think it’s written!  It’s engrossing and tightly written and I honestly could not put it down.  I read 18 volumes of it in about two days because it swept me up into the story and it literally had me shaking by the end of it.  I honest to god felt my hands trembling at the final scenes, that’s how powerful they were.  (To be fair, I read late into the night and I had haunting music turned low in the background, to set the scene for myself.)  It’s an absolute must-read if you enjoy psychological thrillers.

→ Saiyuki:  I almost forgot to put this one on the list because the fandom has made me so passive aggressive about how I don’t actually think there’s any canon ships, nor am I interested in any of them!  (Or at least not the popular ones.  XD)  But Minekura’s manga on its own is actually really, really enjoyable, if you’re into four dudes traveling around on an epic quest to stop a bunch of youkai from rampaging on the humans.  It’s a lot more complicated than that, but Minekura’s striking artwork and solid battle scenes (if terrible, terrible scheduling) and fantastic characters make it a great read.  It’s a fast read, not a lot actually happens in terms of plot or progress, but she still manages to make it feel densely packed anyway, which I appreciate.

→ Sex Pistols:  The one BL title I’m going to put on the list, because I feel like it’s obscure enough that I can get away with it.  The art style is very weird and the plot is super weird (sort of like a BL version of Fruits Basket, now that I think about it—where there are lines of families with animal traits and they mate with each other to produce the strongest possible offspring) and it’s only just NOW getting into anything resembling a plot, but!  I love love love love the otps of the series and I laugh super hard at it and it fills me with all sorts of intense feelings on the characters!  Some of them are hilarious, some of them are kind of hot, some of them are super super sweet!  It’s a great read if you can get past the art (which I’ve come to appreciate in its own way) and don’t mind the usual BL tropes.

→ Yankee-kun to Megane-chan:  You know, I’m not sure if this is shoujo or josei or shounen or something else, it’s sort of hard to define.  It’s about a deliquent who gets roped into the life of a weird girl at school (who, again, has no real idea of how to socialize normally) and begins to develop feelings for her (NOT THAT HE WOULD EVER ADMIT IT) and eventually realizes that, however terrifying he may be as a fighter, she would mop the fucking floor with him, despite that she just wants to be a normal high school girl now!  Add in a hilarious cast of extras around them, a lot of typical posturing from characters as they bicker at each other, and more lines that I was IRL LOLLING SUPER HARD at, and you’ve got a great manga!  The art is very pretty in places, but really.  Read this one for the OTP and because I’m pretty sure I teared up with laughter at more than one point.

→ Hunter x Hunter:  For all that I started out with YYH as my very first anime (so much nostalgia for when I had to order VHS fansubs through the actual mail, because digital fansubs weren’t yet commonplace!), for all the fondness I still have for it, for all that I enjoy Level E, I think Hunter x Hunter is my favorite of Togashi’s works.  It’s very typical shounen, the ridiculous power levels and the battles and the quest to go find whatever it is or whomever they’re trying to seek and the friendships that develop and the awesome characters that come along, but there’s something really magical about Togashi’s works.  Maybe it’s that he often includes gay characters like it’s no big thing (though, they’re not exactly sympathetic in HxH, they are very popular characters), maybe it’s that he can write wickedly funny scenes, maybe it’s that everything he writes is so weirdly creative that it’s addicting, I don’t know.  But I love this cast of characters, I love the simple Gon who’s such a good-hearted kid but is going to grow up to be a powerful fighter, I love the damaged Killua who is growing a real heart because of Gon, I love the damaged Kurapika who may or may not step off his path to revenge because of his friends here, I love Leorio who seems like nothing more than comic relief until you realize that he’s always there for his friends and he does what’s right.  I love the batshit Zoaldyck family, I love the dangerous and batshit Hisoka, I love Bisuke who is PURE CONCENTRATED AWESOME, I love that I JUST STARTED LAUGHING ALL OVER AGAIN when I think of Togashi’s dodgeball from hell scene (asdl;fjkaslkj crying everything about it was so hilariously brilliant and over the top and amazing) and how the fandom sticks with Togashi no matter how many hiatuses he has to go on because of his health.  Because it’s always worth it when he comes back, because his manga are fucking magic.

→ Dragonball:  NO, WAIT, COME BACK—!  And, yes, I’m serious about this one.  I have this thing where, about once a year, I pick up from the first Dragonball Z volume and intend to just read a little bit of the series, maybe just a few of my favorite moments from the series, but then wind up with the whole entire thing read all over again, because it’s actually pretty good, when you take it for what it is.  Dragonball gets a bad rap because people often only have had limited exposure to it or have watched the anime, which had ridiculous amounts of filler shoved into it (whereas they would have been better off just making up their own arcs, god, how amazing would that have been?) and it ruined what was actually a decently paced manga.  Where Dragonball really captures people’s attentions, though, isn’t necessarily in the epic fights (though, they are awfully fun in the manga) or the over the top plot lines (though, those are AWESOMELY fun, too!), but instead in the amazing cast of characters.  I don’t know anyone who could read the entire manga and look at Vejiita’s progress and not think that that was actually some pretty goddamned good writing.  That the ending of the manga, where Vejiita encourages the people of the earth to help out Goku’s Genki Dama, knowing what that says about him, was really goddamned good.  Or the look on Vejiita’s face when he knocks Trunks out, because he’s going to BLOW HIMSELF UP to save his family, because that’s how far he’s come—being willing to sacrifice himself for OTHER PEOPLE.

His character progression is probably the best of the series, but you guys.  BULMA BRIEFS.  SHE IS AMAZING.  She’s a genius and she fucking knows it and she’s rich and she has all the greatest toys and she knows she’s super fucking hot and she’s not afraid to own all of that, but she doesn’t get punished for it in the narrative.  True, I will give you that the women don’t get to fight in the series like the male characters do, but if you try to criticize Chichi for wanting peace for her kids and for worrying and for STICKING AROUND WHEN GOKU WAS OFF GALLAVANTING ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, we are going to have WORDS.  Toriyama probably didn’t really know what to do with the women of his story and he’s clearly said that he’s not good at writing romance, but that doesn’t mean his female characters or the romantic relationships aren’t amazing anyway!

If you step away from what the internet-in-general thinks of the series, if you don’t mind Toriyama’s art style (which I’ve actually grown to be really, really fond of), you’ll actually get a really engrossing, surprisingly touching, but delightfully off the wall series that you can see why it was so influential.

→ Fujoshi Rumi:  I enjoyed this three-volume series kind of a lot!  I wish it hadn’t been as tempting with the gay pairings as it was, because I wound up shipping those harder than I did the het pairings, but this manga is totally worth it for the spot-on ribbing of the fujoshi/otaku cultures.  I was pretty much crying at the references to Fullmetal Alchemist and Prince of Tennis and the three-complete-sets rule for buying a series (one to read yourself, one to lend out to others, one to archive in pristine condition!) and the discussion of top vs bottom and the delightful friendship between the two girls in the story!  You can’t take it very seriously, but I laughed really hard while reading it and it’s a fun, light thing to pick up when you’re in the mood for it.

→ Hanjuku Joshi:  I’m still reading this one, so I don’t know how it ends up, and I will stamp a big warning on it ahead of time where it’s… there are issues of body image that are touched on, but it’s not really entirely dealt with in a direct way, it’s not really about that (entirely).  Instead, it’s meant to be a story about two girls falling in love with each other, dealing with how girls often blur the lines between friendship snuggling and romantic snuggling, how they’re often “playing” at romance between each other, but sometimes it’s real.  You do have to worry that the girls are drawn rather young and there’s a fair amount of topless nudity and a few sex scenes, but the tone of the whole thing is so sweet and gentle and lovely that I find myself enjoying it a lot!  I really like the couples that form in the manga, I like watching the characters come into realizing their feelings and growing into their relationship, one that’s actually serious!  The artwork is SO LOVELY, the girls are SO ADORABLE, and it’s only two volumes, so it’s not a big committment!  The emotions of the entire manga are lovely, so even if there are some things I’d want to warn for ahead of time (the usual issues you get with manga), I think it’s worth reading if you’re into shoujo-ai.

→ Ranma 1/2:  I’ve been rereading this one lately, curious to see if my feelings change on it over time, now that I’m more analytical in my approach to a series.  And, basically, I feel about the same, but that means I still have a ton of fondness for this one.  I think it helps to go in knowing that it’s a Takahashi manga, that it’s never going to get any resolution even by the end, and instead you’re just reading it for the cute antics and adorable OTP and totally OTT antics of the cast.  Basically, I think this one is best for people who ship Ranma/Akane or who are looking for a read that you won’t take very seriously.  And if you’re looking for those things, this one is light, fast, and fun!