The Old School Otaku Lounge

I've been on a Galaxy Angel kick lately, so it's motivated me to start reading the translated manga again. I just started last night.

The only manga I actively read at the moment is a boxing manga called Hajime no Ippo. It is over a hundred volumes.

Took 5 hours but I finally sorted my bud's comic store old back issue manga collection (Viz, SP, DH, etc.). I don't want to do that again but I know I'll have to check that each issue is in numerical order. We've been doing the whole store for him, so it's taken several months so far. Hundreds of thousands of comics spanning the past 40+ years. Also, a lot of old series tankobons. There are current series in his main store but that is something different. He'll take pictures for an update to his store at some point. All the old stuff is going cheap. He really needs the room. Everything is available by mail though. PM me if you may be interested...

Currently reading through all 15 volumes of Battle Royale. Possibly one of the best drawn manga's I've ever seen. The style is so incredibly detailed and toned, every panel is a pleasure to view.

While working through that, I'm also reading Welcome to the N.H.K. on the side. I loved the anime and the novel wasn't bad, but so far I'm really enjoying the manga. At only 8 volumes, it's not a huge endeavor to get through, and I'm already on the 7th volume.

Finally reading my Johji Manabe trades I've been collecting. Out of the 3 I have (Outlanders, Caravan Kidd, and Drakuun), Drakuun is my favorite so far. I'm hoping Outlanders and Caravan Kidd are complete, trying to find that information is difficult. I thought Drakuun wasn't finished, because the wiki says there's 5 tankoubon, but auctions have 1-3 saying it's complete.

Just finished catching up to Berserk last week, which took around two days starting from the beginning. Did the same with Parasyte, since the promos for the animated version looked interesting. I remember reading the first volume when it came out in the late 90's, so this was a nice refresher. Ah, also picked up the new editions of Ranma 1/2 for a kid sibling, though I think I was more excited to reread it than anything.

ryoran wrote:Finally reading my Johji Manabe trades I've been collecting. Out of the 3 I have (Outlanders, Caravan Kidd, and Drakuun), Drakuun is my favorite so far. I'm hoping Outlanders and Caravan Kidd are complete, trying to find that information is difficult. I thought Drakuun wasn't finished, because the wiki says there's 5 tankoubon, but auctions have 1-3 saying it's complete.

IIRC Drakuun only had 3 out of the 5 books translated. Caravan Kidd and Outlanders were definitely completed as I have the individual issues for each series! Outlanders ran to 8 TPBs, Caravan Kidd was "omnibussed" into 3 IIRC.

Fun fact, I got some fanart printed in Caravan Kidd's loose issues. Can't remember the issue numbers though but will scan them if anyone's interested :>

PinkAppleJam wrote:

ryoran wrote:Finally reading my Johji Manabe trades I've been collecting. Out of the 3 I have (Outlanders, Caravan Kidd, and Drakuun), Drakuun is my favorite so far. I'm hoping Outlanders and Caravan Kidd are complete, trying to find that information is difficult. I thought Drakuun wasn't finished, because the wiki says there's 5 tankoubon, but auctions have 1-3 saying it's complete.

IIRC Drakuun only had 3 out of the 5 books translated. Caravan Kidd and Outlanders were definitely completed as I have the individual issues for each series! Outlanders ran to 8 TPBs, Caravan Kidd was "omnibussed" into 3 IIRC.

Fun fact, I got some fanart printed in Caravan Kidd's loose issues. Can't remember the issue numbers though but will scan them if anyone's interested :>

Oh I'll have to keep an eye out while searching for the single issue CK's! O: I'd be interested to see the scan though!

I think Drakuun's last 2 volumes might have nothing to do with the original characters, after some digging I found some of the single issue Drakuun veered off into a different character's storyline and the art was newer. So maybe it is completed after 3 volumes, I am going to find out when I order the 3rd TPB next month.

I've been making my way through Video Girl Ai lately. I just started volume 13 and the whole series has been really fun. I felt the story started off strong but, truthfully, it felt like the plot slowed down for the last two volumes and became a bit repetitive. Even so, it's still a great manga and I'm looking forward to checking out the anime adaptation.

Char Aznable wrote:I've been making my way through Video Girl Ai lately. I just started volume 13 and the whole series has been really fun. I felt the story started off strong but, truthfully, it felt like the plot slowed down for the last two volumes and became a bit repetitive. Even so, it's still a great manga and I'm looking forward to checking out the anime adaptation.

Oh yeah, I was into that for a while. As with a lot of initially great manga series, it just goes on way too long. Naoki Urasawa's stuff comes to mind. Monster, Yawara!, 20th Century Boys were brilliant for the first 7 or so volumes, but did they really need to go 20+ volumes? No. But I understand that stretching things out is a profit-related move and not necessarily a creative one. As much as people bag on artists who refuse to have editors, editors don't always have good creative interests in mind as well. Once money is involved, sometimes an editor's better instincts go out the window and they urge the artist to squeeze more milk out of something that they necessarily wouldn't have if they didn't think something would become a "franchise" or "moneymaker".

Obviously, Shonen Jump type manga are the biggest culprits when it comes to this.