An Introduction to my Manga Obsession

So I'm a nerd. I know I'm nerd. Everyone knows I'm a nerd. But if I was to be placed into a stereotype for which kind of nerd I am, things get a little bit more complicated.

I'm an English Nerd. I love literature. I love writing. And I love correcting peoples grammar (but I'm really hypocritical when it comes to this). I'm the school's Grammar Nazi.

I'm a comic book geek. DC pwns Marvel. V for Vendetta is a great piece of modern literature. The Flash is just awesome. Batman too. Ask me a superhero question and it likely I'll know the answer, especially if it's about my fave's. But don't get me wrong. I don't actually read that many comics, I can't, I'm stuck in a small town without any comic book stores (sob). I just know a lot about superheroes.

I may not exactly be a gaming nerd, but I can certainly hold my own against a few of them. Sorry au7is7ic r4bbi but you just got pwnd by Spawn Camper! (Yeah... that's my Team Fortress name...)

I'm a manga nerd. Well, truthfully, I don't think I'm that much of a manga nerd, I just read a fair bit of it. Although my frienemy argues otherwise (it's so funny that I have a love-hate relationship with this dude and my brother has a love-hate relationship with his sister).

So because I'm one of the only manga readers in this one horse town and thus an expert/nerd about the topic and because I want to spread my nerdy manga-loving joy here is a "guide" to the manga I read.

Naruto:

Naruto is the number 1 manga on the One Manga site, where I read my manga. (I said manga three times in one sentence. Impressed?). Twelve years before the series starts the nine-tailed Demon fox, the Kyuubi, attacks Konoha, the hidden leaf village. This is a massive fox, by the way, about as big as the city itself (Konoha is more of a city than a village, despite its name). To stop the demon fox from destroying the town the leader of the village, the fourth Hokage, sacrifices his life to seal the Kyuubi inside a new born baby. This baby is the titular character, Naruto Uzumaki.

I do love reading Naruto. It was the first manga I read because I got sick of only seeing repeats of the Naruto anime. Personally I much prefer the manga; no filler arcs. To put it simply, Naruto is about ninjas. To put it just as simply, it's about a boy with a fox inside him that dreams of becoming the next hokage, wants to save his friend, and says "believe it" too much through the first season. But saying that doesn't really sell the series, does it?

Naruto has action, adventure, drama and humor. It's plot is pretty good. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into it. My one problem is that often the arcs get repetitive. A person fights Naruto. That Person has a sad story. That sad story echoes that of Naruto. The person is inspired by Naruto and with their last ounce of strength redeems themself. Even though this repetitiveness annoys the hell out of me, Masashi Kishimoto still make each story interesting.
I love Naruto and I can't wait for it's release every week. I suggest it as the manga to start with, if you haven't read any before. After all it is One Manga's number 1 manga.

Bleach:

Bleach is the number 2 manga on the One Manga site. I'm not really sure why this series is called Bleach but I think it has something to do with everyone accusing the main character, Ichigo Kurosaki, of having bleached his hair. But this only happens something like twice and is not at all relevant to the plot, so I'm still unsure.

Ichigo has always been able to see ghosts but things only become interesting when he encounters Rukia Kuchiki, a shinigami (god of death or soul reaper). Through a shocking twist of events Ichigo becomes a shinigami himself. It becomes Ichigo's job to protect innocents from hollows, evil spirits that prey on humans with psychic energy, and help spirits to find peace.

I don't really know why I still read this, or why I love it so much. The series is sadly lacking plot and is just one action scene after another. I guess that is because it is a shounen manga, that is, for guys, and guys seem to prefer action over plot. Sad, sad, males...
I have seriously lost all respect for Tite Kubo because of his inability to write a plot and his futile attempt to do so that didn't make much sense. I guess I only read it in the hope that something will one day happen. Either way, I still love this series and will continue reading it until the end.

I'm going to suggest you try it, just to see what you think, but it is second best to Naruto and there are other Manga the triumph it for me.

One Piece

One Piece is the number 3 manga on One Manga (seeing a pattern here?). I'm only about 100 issues into this 500+ (and still counting) series. Although I will get back around to reading some more if it and hopefully finishing it.

Monkey D Luffy dreams of being the greatest Pirate in the world and to do so he needs to sail the Grand Line (the most dangerous ocean in the world) and find One Piece the greatest treasure of all time.

As a kid Luffy eats the legendary Gomu Gomu Devil's fruit and becomes able to stretch. Yes, stretch. Just like Mr Incredible (but he is a thousand times cooler than that lame Marvel character). When he is about 16 (I think) he sets out in a little dingy of a pirate ship and does some pretty heroic deeds for a pirate, make enemies with pirates and marines alike. Slowly he puts together an awesome crew and gradually gets large ships.

One Piece is really quite good despite the anime being less than brilliant. The characters are all quite complex and have interesting back stories. Luffy is actually quite a similar character to Naruto but I wouldn't ever compare the two. Luffy is perhaps more interesting to watch than Naruto because he never really does what you would expect.

Keep in mind I am only 100 issues in so I can't give you much here but I will say that I do have Luffy's and Zoro's wanted posters up on my wall so the series must be reasonably good.

Full Metal Alchemist:

Full Metal Alchemist holds fifth place on the One Manga charts (ha! Take that pattern) and it was the third Manga I read because I had a friend tell me how good the anime was. Well, let me tell you now how much the anime sucks. Okay, well I suppose the anime doesn't suck. I just don't like it because it has a different plot to the manga and I hate things that do that. It is like watching a movie based on your favourite book but it leaves out all your favourite scenes and changes the ending. If you want to watch the FMA anime watch Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood which actually follows the plot of the manga.

I'll explain this series to you the same way my friend did to me "It's about alchemists but they're awesome and do cool stuff!". Okay, maybe I should give it to you in more depth.

After Edward and Alphonse Elric fail to uses alchemy to revive their dead mother Ed looses an arm and a leg and Al looses his entire body (but Ed manages to transfer Al's soul into a conveniently placed suit of armour to keep him alive). The series is about their search for the philosophers stone in order to restore their bodies and the conspiracy they uncover on the way.

I know I should try and be more critical in my reviews of these manga, but I wouldn't read them if I didn't love them. So all I can say is how much I love FMA and I will tell you that I do cry every time a character gets hurt. Yes, I'm that pathetic.

Unlike the previous three Manga which come out weekly, FMA is a monthly manga so the issues are longer and the series is shorter. FMA had just reached its climax and is at about at issue 100. My bet is that the serise will end at 110 and everything is so thrilling at the moment I can't wait for each month. You really should get on board this excitement and start reading FMA!

Claymore:

Out of all the manga I read, Claymore is probably my least favourite. While the cast of Claymore is almost entirely strong female characters it is most obviously a shounen series. You can easily tell that it is aimed at a teenage male audience through the partial nudity that gets worse as the series progresses (particually that scene with Raffaela and her sister. I mean, what the hell?).

Maybe that is the reason I don't like this series as much as the others. Cause I'm a girl and I find that a little offensive.

Anyway, Claymore is ranked number 12 on One Manga and it is centred around Claire a member of an organisation made entirely out of women called claymore after the swords they use. Claymore are half human-half Yoma (demon) and it is their job it kill Yoma, who feed on humans but cannot be detected by them.

I don't suggest Claymore as highly as I do the others on my list but it is still a good series. But if you like fantasy than maybe its a good one to check out.

Skip Beat:

Skip Beat is the only Shoujo manga that I read (that is, manga aimed at teenage girls) and I absolutly adore it! It is cute and quirky. It's fun and heart warming. You're either laughing at Kyoko's antics or crying over Ren's heartache (or flipping off Shou).

Skip Beat is number 13 on the One Manga charts and the number 2 Shoujo. Although until recently it was number 1 and still should be. It was unfairly over taken by Vampire Knights because vampires are all the rage now, thanks to S. Meyers. I have read some Vampire Knights and I can tell you it is no where near as good as Skip Beat.

No matter how I explain Skip Beat it comes across sounding lame, but trust me, it is a must read for girls (guys, not so much). It is about Kyoko Mogami who tavels to Tokyo to support the guy she loves, Shou, as he becomes a music idol. But when Shou becomes famous he ditches her and she finds out that he only ever thought of her as a maid anyway. Kyoko decides to get her revenge by becoming a bigger celebrity than him and has everyone fall in love with her on the way up.

Skip beat is on a fortnightly release but it scarily hasn't beein released in the past month and I'm really beginning to panic. Seriously, the cliff hanger it is on is seriously going to kill me.

I hope I have convinced at least one of you to read Skip Beat because you really should. When my friend suggested it to me I was really sceptical, but once I started I couldn't stop and I totally fell in love.

In case I have convinced you to read it I just want to warn you, Yukihito Yashiro is all mine.

Death Note:

Now, if you thought I was enthusiastic about Skip Beat that was nothing compared to Death Note. Death Note is the greatest manga of all time and shoud be number 1 (not all the way down at 62). Death Note is a fairly old series now, and the only one I have read that has actually finished (I blame this as the reason it's rating has dropped so low).

Death Note is about Yagami Light, the number 1 student in Japan, who finds the Death Note. When a persons name is written in this book they die and Light aspires to use this power to ride the world of evil and create a utopian world with him as the god. Thus Light takes on the alias of Kira (killer) and begins using the Death Note to rid the world of crime. The legendary detective, L, is enlisted to try and track down and it becomes an awesome game of cat and mouse as each side try and take the other out.

This is a really dark series and most of the characters scare the hell out of me (except Misa and Matsuda) even L and Near. Expectally Near, actually. Any 16-year-old that plays with toys like him should be feared. Light is probably the most terrifying character in manga.

Even so, I love the characters. L is mysterious and cute and awesome. Matt may be in only 12 frames through out the entire series but has more fan girls than most characters in other manga. And Mello may look like a girl but he is the hottest thing on the planet. (I love Mello!).

You seriously need to read Death Note. Seriously. I mean, you could try the anime, but Light looks like he's having sex eveytime he writes in the death note in the anime so really, try the manga. Really, read Death Note.

So, that's my say on manga. I hope at least one of you got something out of it and that at least one of you is about to go read Skip Beat and Death Note and hopefully one or two of the others as well.

I'm sorry this was so long, but I'm a major manga fan and once I started I couldn't stop. Please go read something and tell me what you think. xxx