A few newbie Manga questions

K

Kaede

Adventurer
Hi everyone, I hope it's OK to make my first post here by asking a few questions.

1. I've almost finished the Deathnote manga comics and I'm looking for something to start reading after I've finished this. Can someone tell me what Bleach and One Peice are about? How many volumes are there to collect? Ideally I don't want to commit to something that's going to end up costing the earth to buy a complete set.

2. I was thinking of going back to Akira as I haven't read it since it was published in Manga Mania way back in the mid 90's. I see that all six(?) volumes have been recently re-released, where is the best place to get them from? Bearing in mind they're pretty bulky to send by post.

3. The Nausicaa manga - This is something I really want to get as it's my favourite anime film along with Porco Rosso. Does it only run to 6 volumes in the English version?

Thanks for any help in advance,

Regards

Kaede :)
 
Hello!

I recommend Amazon or The Book Depository for their free shipping and good prices on manga. If you don't have a local shop you want to support they're definitely worth checking out for consistently low prices, and the free shipping makes the heftier books like Akira less of a pain.

If you want more manga from the same magazine Death Note originally ran in, One Piece and Bleach are good choices. I personally prefer One Piece - a good, old-fashioned pirate adventure with wacky superpowers and a charming cast of over the top characters. Bleach is very popular too and not a bad read though I found it borrowed quite a lot from other series I'd already read, dampening its appeal slightly. It also feels a lot less polished, though you can't really go far wrong with an action series about ghosts and blade-wielding deathgods. Bleach recently was bundled into a set collecting the first 21(?) volumes for a friendly price. Both series are still running and long, so if you're after something self-contained you might want to pass on them for now.

Alternatively if you want another suspense-themed manga I cannot recommend Monster (Naoki Urasawa) high enough. There's a recent Monster thread in this very forum you can take a look at. It's more adult than Death Note, though not in a bad way at all. Well worth a look if you hadn't considered it.

R
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

About Bleach and One Piece both are still ongoing with no end in sight. I know that currently Bleach has up to vol 24-25 released in english. Not sure on One Piece. Rui described them both better then i could of :P

I also second Book Depository, i've used them several times now and they haven't let me down, the books have always been in good condition. Before that though i used to get them from my local Forbidden Planet and i know they had the akira manga but at a hefty price tag compared to other places.
 
Thanks for the quick replies guys, very helpful.

I think I will give Bleach and OnePeice a miss. Unfortunately due to other interests I can't budget to spend that much on collecting a series. At twelve volumes (and the bonus book) Deathnote was about the right length for me.

Monster sounds quite good after reading the thread, I may get the first volume and see how it goes. I thought about trying out Gantz as they had it in Forbidden Planet in London, but after reading impressions on this board it sounds like it's not for me. I like Sci-fi stuff but not really into the excessive sex and violence of some manga/anime.

Anyway, I'll keep checking out the forums for more ideas and thanks for making me feel welcome!

Douzo yoroshiku! :wink:
 
Shirow Masamune writes good sci-fi - he does do some fairly explicit nude / sexy stuff, but tends to keep it out of his mainstream mangas. Dominion Tank Police is a good place to start if you're want to check his work out, as it's only 2 volumes long.

I keep looking at Akira. It's one manga I'd really like to own, but the high price tag always puts me off - I always find DVD's to spend the money on instead...

Oh, and welcome. ;) For some reason the people who dive straight into the forums tend to be the ones who stick around. Hope you do.
 
Nausicaa manga is way better than the anime, that's all I needed to say =) And Masamune Shirow is a great read, Monster is awesome as well. For the few likes you mention, I'd say giving bleach and one piece up is a good move.

Regarding Akira, I amazon is free over 20 quid and the book depository is free delivery for everything.

Have fun and come back to say what you think of them =)


Edit: just checked the price on Akira and it went down to an average of 16 quid. Bear in mind it's the japanese version translated, I mean, read right to left and in black and white, not the westernized version in colour.
 
chaos said:
Nausicaa manga is way better than the anime, that's all I needed to say =) And Masamune Shirow is a great read, Monster is awesome as well. For the few likes you mention, I'd say giving bleach and one piece up is a good move.
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Hi, Chaos. That's good to hear as Nausicaa is my favourite Ghibli film along with Porco Rosso. I have the DVD and the art book so it would be great to get the original manga as well.

chaos said:
Edit: just checked the price on Akira and it went down to an average of 16 quid. Bear in mind it's the japanese version translated, I mean, read right to left and in black and white, not the westernized version in colour.
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Thanks for that, just had a look myself. This will be the version I get then as it's nice to get the version as close to the original as possible. Turns out I've used the Book Depository before for video game guides :D

By the way, I can't beleive I forgot to add that I have all four main volumes of Appleseed and the first Dominion Tank Police (the older ones published by Dark Horse comics). I got these ages ago from ebay as I remembered them from my Manga Mania days. Dominion is great, very funny and has a lot of original ideas and great characters. Appleseed started off brilliantly but by the fourth volume I had no idea what was going on as it went into full on Shirow political/philosphical/technobabble mode.

Regards

K
 
Nice to know you're into shirow then =)
If you like cyber punk stuff, you can give Battle Angel Alita a try.

BTW, you're from London as well?
 
Hi chaos and Dracos,

Yes the style of his artwork is fantastic (the mecha in paticular) but I prefer his 'lighter' works rather than Appleseed/GiTS.

I'll have a look on the internet for Battle Angel and Orion, thanks guys.

(PS Yes I'm from East London, I live in Essex now but I work up town so I'm lucky enough to be able to visit Forbidden Planet from time to time.)

Regards

K
 
Kaede said:
Hi chaos and Dracos,

Yes the style of his artwork is fantastic (the mecha in paticular) but I prefer his 'lighter' works rather than Appleseed/GiTS.

I'll have a look on the internet for Battle Angel and Orion, thanks guys.

(PS Yes I'm from East London, I live in Essex now but I work up town so I'm lucky enough to be able to visit Forbidden Planet from time to time.)

Regards

K
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Hope you enjoy battle angel. It's allegedly becoming a James Cameron movie as well.

And if you're in London, you should go to one of those movies in the barbican next year. There will be a few of us there.
 
chaos said:
Hope you enjoy battle angel. It's allegedly becoming a James Cameron movie as well.
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:eek:

chaos said:
And if you're in London, you should go to one of those movies in the barbican next year. There will be a few of us there.
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Yeah that would be cool. I signed up here a little too late to catch the info on the last set of films hosted by Helen McArthy? I work very near to the Barbican too! :(
 
Kaede said:
Yeah that would be cool. I signed up here a little too late to catch the info on the last set of films hosted by Helen McArthy? I work very near to the Barbican too! :(
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Really? I work at blackfriars myself.
 
Hello again everyone, I popped into Forbidden Planet last night and picked up the final two volumes of Deathnote which should keep me going over Christmas. I had a look for some of the other stuff reccomended in this thread but they didn't have anything starting at volume 1 so I passed. Had a quick flick through Monster though and it seems quite cool, deffo one to try when I can find the first volume.

I did notice there was a 'new' edition of Dragonball out? I don't know anything about Dragonball other than it's quite old and one of the most famous anime TV shows. Is the comic any good? And is it another manga series that runs for 500 volumes? (These editions were quite chunky and about £15 each).

Does anyone have weblinks to the major manga publishers websites so I can keep a tabs on what's available? I'm only aware of Dark Horse, Shonen Jump Advanced and Tokyo Pop.

Cheers

K
 
Those editions you saw were the Viz Big editions and are basically three normal volumes packaged together into one book, the same goes for the Kenshin manga. As for series length it runs for 42 vols in total (16 for Dragonball and then 26 for Dragonball Z) Apparently the manga is supposed to be better then the tv show but i haven't had chance to read it yet so don't hold me to that. Hope it helps :)
 
Thanks Black Wolf, so the Viz 'big editions' should run to 14 books in total? (42/3=14?) I'll have a look round on Amazon.

Cheers

K

EDIT: Oops! Just found this on the Viz media site. So Dragonball is just 3 editions in the 'big' version?
 
I have noticed that Dark Horse is usually a few pounds more expensive than, say shonen jump. I remember someone telling me that this is because it is "less edited", or something. They also do more darker/horror/gore/seinen/serious manga; Like 'Berserk' and 'Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service', both of which I highly recommend!

Shonen jump is, well, shonen. Stuff like One Piece are great, but run for quite a long time (so you might want to avoid them; one piece is currently at the 49th(?) volume in japan).

Tokyopop do a variety, so it's hard to say :p.

Dragonball(z) also runs for a long time. I wouldn't really recommend it; It's a bit too predictable and shonen :x

You'll probably want to check out the Death Note novel. I haven't read it myself, but I've been told quite highly of it :p. IIRC, it's about the fbi agents wife (who the writer wanted to make last for longer) who dies quite early.

I'd also recommend you buy things online, it's generally alot cheaper that shops like forbidden planet. The bookdepository seem cheapest for me.
 
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