What manga are you reading now?

I'm re-reading/reading Bleach. Over the last few days, I've re-read volumes 1-6 and read volumes 7-8 for the first time, though it feels like I'm re-reading everything because, like with Naruto back in the golden age, SP followed the manga as faithfully as they could. My masterplan is to read all 27 volumes of Bleach currently released in English. I'm unsure why exactly since Bleach gets more shite as it goes on... my only real reason for doing so is to make sure I read the second longest manga series I own.

Bleach is great to start with: Lovely, easy to follow art. Lots of amusing scenes. Likeable enough characters. Fast pacing... It had a lot of plus points back in its day, just like its brother from another father, Naruto.

I always liked how well Tite (great name) blended the serious business with the comedy stuff. It takes talent to mix those two elements together without failing. For example, when Ishida shows up to help Rukia, he's carrying a plastic bag; a bag he uses as an excuse for being at the right place at the right time, and he goes out of his way in one panel to convince everyone that him being there wasn't anything to do with him sensing the soul reapers near him, insisting that he'd actually gone out to buy something from a 24 hour store. The mood then switched back to serious. That sort of thing happens a lot, and that's why Bleach is so enjoyable to read/watch.

There needs to be a new Bleach/Naruto. As good as they were at the start, they've both grown stale and need to stop. I don't know about OP - it's never appealed to me - but I wouldn't object to a new holy shounen trinity. Without some GOOD weekly shounen action, my weeks aren't as full as they once were.
 
Nana 16. Still great, though the creator is apparently on sick leave at the moment :(

Aion: With regards to Bleach I always felt that the creator had plotted out the Soul Society stuff in his head and ran with it, then the extreme success took him by surprise. The first 20 volumes were pretty interesting and full of promise but after that it just felt like it stopped really trying to be anything. My husband still likes it and keeps up with releases but something about it is missing now for me. Have you tried One Piece beyond the freaky art style (your wording is a little ambiguous)? It's got far more creativity in it than Naruto and Bleach put together despite following the same Shounen Jump formula.

R
 
Rui said:
Have you tried One Piece beyond the freaky art style (your wording is a little ambiguous)? It's got far more creativity in it than Naruto and Bleach put together despite following the same Shounen Jump formula.
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One Piece is currently the only anime / manga that actually makes me anxious for the next episode / chapter. It's silly, it's art style is so unique that might put many people off by its weirdness, but when it's good, it's really good.

Currently One Piece seems to be building up for what will be their greatest adventure yet. Also, the powers the characters have are something else as well and adds plenty of colour to it.
 
Rui said:
Aion: With regards to Bleach I always felt that the creator had plotted out the Soul Society stuff in his head and ran with it, then the extreme success took him by surprise. The first 20 volumes were pretty interesting and full of promise but after that it just felt like it stopped really trying to be anything. My husband still likes it and keeps up with releases but something about it is missing now for me. Have you tried One Piece beyond the freaky art style (your wording is a little ambiguous)? It's got far more creativity in it than Naruto and Bleach put together despite following the same Shounen Jump formula.

R
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I doubt most creators of endless shonen titles like Bleach and Naruto have a lot of the events that take place between the middle and end thought out in their minds in advance, and that's why they both ended in failure. Plot holes become exposted the longer the stories go on, power levels jump all over the place because of the ever increasing cast of characters and, somewhere along the way, the author just loses IT - thing thing that allowed him/her to come up with high quality content to begin with.

The one plot hole that's always stood out in my mind is the one involving Ichigo's dad. The anime team even tried to cover up that one. At the start of the Bleach story, Ichigo's dad - a dormer captain (or vice captain?) gets badly injured by a level one hollow. He also failed to save his wife or help his daughters at various points. Yet, later, after the SS arc, he appears in soul reaper gear and owns a level one arrancar in one attack. To me, it seems like Tite pulled that out of his arse because it just didn't fit.

There are other examples of early plot points coming back to haunt Title later. Rukia started out weak, getting beat by the same level one hollow that did Ichigo's dad... yet later she takes on the arrancar and even can use shikai? What gives - how could she get beat by a too weak enemy at the start and turn out to be strong?

Bleach and Naruto have out me off similar, never-ending titles. It's haerd to accept that titles that were once so good are going to end as nothing series, hated by many. The managas are a shadow of what they once were, and the animes turned out even worse because of the horror of SP fillers and SP not wanting to put money into the series once they'd become popular.

I give Naruto a 9/10 score because I'm able to separate the first and second halfs. Thankfully, a time-skip occurred right when the quality started to drop. And it was also around two hours for me in the real world before I continued the story after the VotE fight.

With Bleach, I can't do that. I wouldn't anyway - I've always been more of a Natutard - but there was no time-skip that allowed me to separate the good and the bad in the case of Bleach.


As for OP, as silly as it sounds, the first episode of the anime put me off because it struck me as being too kiddy. A rubber man, cartoony pirates and art that lacked appeal. Knowing OP lasts for 100's of episodes and suffers from fillers, I just couldn't being myself to continue it.

I did later go on to pick-up the first six volumes of the manga. However, the copies I got from eBay are in tatty condition, some of the ink on the pages having faded throughout the books. I did read a few volumes, and I kind of enjoyed it, but the art and the boss fight with a clown (cartoony...), like with D. Gray-man, made me lose interest. If the series had an end I might've kept going, but it doesn't. The clown killed it.
 
Aion said:
As for OP, as silly as it sounds, the first episode of the anime put me off because it struck me as being too kiddy. A rubber man, cartoony pirates and art that lacked appeal. Knowing OP lasts for 100's of episodes and suffers from fillers, I just couldn't being myself to continue it.

I did later go on to pick-up the first six volumes of the manga. However, the copies I got from eBay are in tatty condition, some of the ink on the pages having faded throughout the books. I did read a few volumes, and I kind of enjoyed it, but the art and the boss fight with a clown (cartoony...), like with D. Gray-man, made me lose interest. If the series had an end I might've kept going, but it doesn't. The clown killed it.
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I'm sure he'd be quite pleased about that.

If it does ever end, or you get a good deal, I still recommend giving it another bash when you are feeling a shounen drought. It gets better and better as more (smarter than Luffy) characters are added and quite a few of the villains that come later are more menacing than that silly clown. It's still got kid appeal and is Shounen Jump through and through but unlike a lot of other shounen manga it consistently seems to do things right and not mess about introducing useless characters and forgetting about them or pacing things so badly you stop caring. It's also surprisingly ruthless when appropriate and has some excellent fights.

The fourth TV box is 63% off still at Axelmusic...

R
 
Meh, I'd rather re-read Bleach or Naruto... like I'm sort of doing right now. I have no place in my heart for One Piece - Bleach and Naruto will always be my favourite endless series.

Bleach is awesome. Reading the manga is reminding me why I once watched Bleach and Naruto together every week.

Examples of awesomeness:

Most manly master>student talk ever:


"I, Makimaki, am not the sort of man who'd leave a woman behind..."
 
I really really enjoy the Bleach manga.
I think it's such a shame that some of the art style is lost in the anime.
I've only got the first volume of Naruto, I was thinking of picking the first series up since it's so cheap.
 
Bleach fans like Naruto and vise versa.

Naruto stays awesome for longer than Bleach does. That's why Naruto is my #1 - despite me not having read the manga for many months - and Bleach isn't in my top five.

If you plan on watching the anime in Japanese, don't get the first four R2 Naruto DVD releases. Manga did an awful did with the subtitles.
 
Thanks for the tip off, I'll remember that.
I'm not sure I want to hear Naruto do that Believe it! thing in english.
I can't decide whether to continue with the Bleach manga or the anime.
I actually enjoy one piece but, different strokes for different folks.
 
Naruto is worth watching in Japanese. The main cast all give top performances and most are popular, well known people. The guy who plays Ishida in Bleach got the role because of how similar the character of Ishida is to Sasuke - both are the last members of their respective clans and both have bad attitudes. Sasuke wins because of his brother and added coolness, though.

Also, this - an image of Naruto's English voice actress - might put you off hearing 'him' in English:

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Read up to the point where the SS arc ends in Bleach. Now that the best is out of the way, I don't really feel like reading my other 6.5 volumes. It always sucks when a story needs to start anew.

Once I'm done with my 27 Bleach books, my 25 GTO books will be next. After that, I'll probably need a break from manga, though I might read volumes 13-15 of FMA before stopping.
 
Well why not read something else and come back to Bleach once it feels fresh.
Always breaks up the 'ugh. new arc.' thing for me.

I read Bleach volume 4 today and a bit of 5.
 
I might. I need to get cracking with Trigun Maximum - I own three volumes and number four should be on the way soon.

The problem is, I lack the motivation to start anything new. That's why I'm always so slow at clearing through my backlog.
 
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