Comments | firelizard5: Help me corrupt my sister!

firelizard5

Help me corrupt my sister!

Jun 22, 2007 19:39

My sister has recently begun to show an interest in anime, so I have suggested that she start reading manga as well. As I am not a manga reader myself, though, I do not know what to suggest. So I thought I would ask you, my Japanese-culture-loving LJ friends, for recommendations that are ( Read more... )

recs, family

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darksea June 23 2007, 11:05:54 UTC

I'd be happy to give you lots of recommendations, but I have no idea what's actually available in bookstores, let alone the library. Uh...

Well! First of all, sappy romance (girls) or action/adventure (boys) manga?

firelizard5 June 24 2007, 04:25:25 UTC

Action/adventure please. Nothing pink. Shantel is still not particularly interested in boys, let alone sappy romance.

darksea June 24 2007, 14:40:51 UTC

O-kay... guns/cars/high school athletics OR big splodey/fight-fight-fight in another world OR slightly creepy mysteries OR I-can-see-ghosts stories?

firelizard5 June 25 2007, 02:22:30 UTC

Any of the above will work. She is a fairly voracious reader.

darksea June 25 2007, 02:55:29 UTC

... Look. I have 142 manga (at least one chapter, some nearly 40 volumes) scanlated on my computer alone. They're not all appropriate for a young teen, but they are all in English. Please give me a decent starting point?

darksea June 25 2007, 13:47:13 UTC

Okay, the series that are sort of basic shounen manga are things like:

Dragon Ball and its family, Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece... These are all incredibly popular (or have been) in the US and so should be available in libraries. If not, let me know and I'll point you to scanlation sites. Keep in mind, though, that only Ranma and Dragon Ball are actually finished, and all of these are really, really long. (Dragonball, DBZ, DBGT, etc. all together are arguably the longest series ever, Ranma 1/2 is 38 volumes, Bleach is at chapter 280, Naruto at 359, One Piece at 457, and Inuyasha at 509. You are warned.)

Darker, more mature stories in the same category include:

Fullmetal Alchemist, D.Grayman, Detective Conan (for some reason, changed to Case Closed in the English version, probably due to FUNimation getting stupid with renaming everything), Hellsing... These, however, deal with murder/death, questionable consent, and in the case of the first two, the transformation of humans into monsters, and in the case of the ( ... )

firelizard5 June 26 2007, 19:08:28 UTC

Wow. That's quite a list. I'll scan the library database tonight and see if I can find any of that. It should be more than enough to get her started. Gracias!

P.S. Long is fine. She is at home all day, alone, through most of the summer. Reading means she has less opportunity to blow up the house.

darksea June 27 2007, 13:53:52 UTC

If the ones I've given you get too annoying, let me know. They're the kind that drag out a single fight sometimes longer than a book. A chapter turns into a character thinking "Okay, he did that, so then if I do this, he'll do that, so what if I do... Aha! I've got it!" And you don't get to see what they actually do until the next chapter, which is usually in the next book on top of that. OR, a chapter will consist of the enemy or the goodguy explaining what they've just done, which has always struck me as stupid.

These are (mostly) shounen-of-shounen manga, after all. The plot is mostly a carrier for the fighting.

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