Manga and Manga Recs?

[nanslice]

So I read a lot of manga. Like...a lot. I prefer manga to anime tbh. I also, of course, prefer yaoi to anything else (except...maybe...your general shoujo!) but I've outgrown a lot of yaoi tropes but I keep reading it because I'm hoping I'll find a good yaoi manga. (Okay, I will admit, I quite like the big strong seme and the more smaller emotional uke amd the rape = love trope doesn't bother me as much as it does a lot of people but I just want the seme to respect the uke okay, I just want there to be love and respect sometimes). But I'm also looking for new manga in general to read but I just like manga a lot. ;3;

ANYWAY. I finally, finally got my act together and actually made accounts at MangaHere and Batoto. ;3; I also downloaded A Certain Manga Reader but tbh I'm kind of dumb and don't understand how to use it. But it's there for when I want to!

So anyway, manga recs, give me your manga recs! Like I said, I still quite like yaoi and shoujo but I'll try anything. :3

Also, I made an original fiction writers discord channel if anyone would be interested in joining! It is here: https://discord.gg/fsKAenq Invite your friends!

Comments

[thenicochan]

Yaoi is... tough for me. I realize it's not targeted toward my demographic (actual gay dudes), like how a lot of lesbian porn isn't targeted toward a female demographic, but I still find a lot of yaoi... problematic. Or maybe just distasteful? There's a few too many tropes that, as a dude who has done the do with other dudes, just make me headdesk. It's not only the sexual stuff (but there is... so much about... the sexual stuff...), but the way a lot of yaoi treats the characters involved in general.


B-but I did totally get into FAKE when I was younger!


I don't have much to offer other than this... off-topic comment. I don't read much manga, and when I do it tends to be stuff everyone else has already read (Sailor Moon) or adaptations of video games (Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War)

[nanslice]

That's totally fair. I'm a gay girl (which is surprising probably, considering my most evident interests, but legit have no interest in men and lots of interest in women irl, haha) and a lot of lesbian porn is just eyeroll worthy. Like, okay straight dudes, I'm glad you're liking this but no thanks. Unfortunately a lot of yuri tends to be overly infantilized and just kinda sweet and boring? Yaoi, (as well as a lot of straight shoujo) for all of its flaws, has lot of tropes I really like. They're definitely not true to life and are totally problematic though. I completely divorce them from reality though, haha.

...and actually, it's kind of funny because a lot of stuff that I find acceptable in yaoi is completely unacceptable in like, slash or original fiction. So I'm wondering if it's just this idea of porn versus romance/not!porn. Huh.

BUT ANYWAY yeah, yaoi is certainly filled with a lot of problematic stuff, and the fandom around it can be pretty dang cringy.


EDIT: Also hey, I was also super into FAKE when I was younger.

[darthneko]

I sadly have fallen out of the yaoi manga genre - it's not even the tropes and stuff, really, but the art styles on them tend to all be so similar (gigantic yaoi hands!) that I tend to just skip it and start looking for other stuff.

That said, while they might not be yaoi, I do read some shoujo... I highly recommend both Emma and Otoyomegatari (A Bride's Story) - same mangaka, Emma was her earlier work and is Victorian England historical with an upstairs/downstairs romance, while Otoyomegatari is set in historical east europe/mongolia sort of area and the mangaka's attention to costume detail (and the fact that she hand draws it all) is AMAZING.

It's neither yaoi nor shoujo, but Dungeon Meshi (Delicious Dungeon) has had me LOLing ever since I found it. Old school RPG dungeon crawler with a side of meta humor about game mechanics.

Loveless was popular awhile back, but I enjoyed the first half of it (the plot in the later half got convoluted and I stopped following). Not yaoi, but definitely shounen-ai.

Tegami Batchi (Letter Bee - fantasy action), Dogs: Carnage (action), Natsume Yuujinchou (Book of Friends - supernatural slice of life), and Afterschool Charisma (supernatural highschool where they've cloned famous historical figures and you have everyone from joan of arc to hitler as teens) are some of the other ones I've picked up in recent years.

[nanslice]

Yeah, gigantic yaoi hands have been a thing since forever but since the success of Junjou Romantica and other things by that author, the various art styles seem to have narrowed even more.

Thank you so much for the recs! Just from a summary glance the art looks really beautiful and I really love class differences in romance. *__*

I'll give the rest of those a look too! I liked what I saw of the Natsume Yuujinchou anime.

[moon_blitz]

I haven't read a yaoi series in a very long time, so I can't rec you anything. I also lean more towards shounen manga, but I do follow some series you might like!

7 Jikan-me Rhapsody is about the relationship that develops between a teacher and his student.

Appare Jipangu! is about a girl who who can erase sadness from people by using a special staff which turns blue as it absorbs people's sorrows, then sends it back to the person guilty of causing the sorrow.

Inferno (Ruru) follows the story of a young man and his adopted son (who is older than him) in a future were Tokyo has been divided up among three powerful families and were a mysterious disease runs rampant. It has some slashy vibes between the two leads, and I've enjoyed what I've read a lot.

And here's a list of everything I'm currently reading and want to read: So much manga!

[nanslice]

Oooh, thanks! Appare Jipangu! and Inferno look super interesting in particular. :D Also that's a heck of a list! :D

[stormsong]

Maybe out of your genre ballpark, but I love Saga.

[nanslice]

Oh, I'm already a fan of Saga! :D I have a really nice local comic book store. I'm very behind but gosh, I love the art style so much!

[chagrined]

i haven't really read a ton of bl 4 a while & i tend 2 read more seinen overall i think but i'll see! what i can think of! haha. (i also can't remember if you've already read or have expressed disinterest in any of these so apologies if i mention something u already know or dislike!)

-koi wa ameagari no you ni: i only picked this one up sometime last year and it hasn't been running that long. it's about a high school girl (iirc she's a senior?) who has a crush on the middle-aged manager of the family restaurant she part-time waitresses at. lol i have to admit i picked it up b/c i was like THAT SOUNDS SKEEZY haha (and i like that kinda thing) but it is actually not skeezy! it's all v sweet so far. a very low-key kinda story. one of the main subplots is the girl used to run track but got injured and that's why she started working at the restaurant but she misses running etc. it's a seinen but has a shoujo feel.

-gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun: i'm thinking u probably already know this one but if not it's a p funny series about making shoujo manga. tho i think it might actually run in a shounen online mag or something it's very shoujo-oriented in terms of tropes it plays with and stuff.

-ore monogatari: well, those batoto scans i linked are p behind i think, but this has been licensed in english and i think the last volume is due to be published p soon. it's a v sweet shoujo with an atypical male lead who's really huge and strong and not conventionally attractive. it's like SWEET ROMANCE OVERLOAD haha and also a lot of ppl (myself included) also like ot3 the main couple with the main dude's best friend. the english title is "my love story".

-chihayafuru: a josei sports manga about a competitive card game karuta tho it also has a romance subplot, but i like that the karuta is the focus. and it has gr8 characters and character development. this is one of my favorite manga. probably like my #3 favorite rn haha. (altho i do enjoy the anime version b/c then u get 2 hear the poetry being read. reading it isn't quite the same, sadly.)

ok and then i'll include a few lol that aren't really the kinda thing u asked for at all BUT I'LL REC THEM ANYWAY XD

-mob psycho 100: a shounen & my current fave fandom of the moment haha. some ppl don't like the art style but even tho i didn't love it in the beginning it really grew on me. and the plot/characters really suck you in more and more as it goes along too. the premise is this kid who's a really strong psychic but he has emotional hangups b/c he fears hurting ppl with his powers, and as a result he's like emotionally stunted and has a hard time rel8ing 2 ppl. and he works part-time for a fake psychic who mentors him on like, getting along in society. there's no canon m/m of any kind but there's a lot of good ship potential in this series, altho the english language fandom has ITS ISSUES b/c there is a huge anti contingent especially on tumblr, so. but anyway i love it haha.

-oofuri: is my other fave, tho it's been on hiatus (but i think it's coming back this month or maybe already did? AHHH I SHOULD CHECK). i can't remember if u've expressed an opinion about sports series be4 tho haha. anyway this is about high school baseball. again some ppl don't love the art style, tho i really like it, it's esp good for character expressiveness. really in-depth character growth & world development. also REALLY SLOW PACED haha so that may be ur thing or really not ur thing. XD like, the series has been going since 2003 with like iirc maybe 2 years worth of hiatuses or something so basically around 12 years, or even say it were shorter and just a decade, and NOT EVEN A YEAR HAS PASSED IN THE STORY YET lol. for me, i love that kind of thing, getting that kind of super in-depth development of the characters (and their baseball games lol). but i know some ppl dislike it. this series is also super shippy & the english language fandom is not as bad anti-wise as mp100 altho there are still some. mostly the fandom is just like, really small and not that active these days, tho. tho there are pockets of us haha.

anyway yeah THESE ARE SOME OF THE SERIES I'M CURRENTLY FOLLOWING! i do occasionally read the rare yaoi or bl but like, usually it's just str8 up oneshot porn haha and i generally don't remember the titles afterward, or else most of the longer plotty ones i end up losing interest in as they go on. let's see, looking at the stuff i actually bothered to put on myanimelist (i am usually super lazy about tracking manga unfortunately)...

ok one i do remember is hoppe ni himawari. iirc i found it pretty cute. ok that's the batoto link but iirc there is more of it out there than that so go a-searching or something haha. anyway the synopsis is it's a high school romance btwn this fat kid and some baseball player. the fat kid has a crush iirc and thinks the baseball player won't like him but it turns out he's super attracted to him specifically b/c of his weight? i know it has chubby kink of some kind. i think this one was recced 2 me by a friend b/c the main couple reminded them of the main characters in oofuri haha. (i could see the similarity.)

i've fallen super behind it so idk how recent chapters are but i used to really enjoy saezuru tori wa habatakanai. tonally completely different from everything else in this rec list LMAO. it's a yakuza BL about this masochistic yakuza boss. i enjoyed all the yakuza shit mixed with the kinky shit. and esp that there's this pairing btwn that boss and his bodyguard who is impotent and the yakuza boss gets off on like sucking his limp dick and stuff, but then the bodyguard starts to become attracted 2 him but worries that if he's now able to get a boner the boss won't be interested in him anymore haha. anyway maybe more happened since i stopped actively following it but that's the kind of content to expect there. i feel like most of what turned me off following this one back then was the official english release which is REALLY TERRIBLE and i don't recommend buying it, if u can even find it b/c they seem to be v limited releases. anyway, the scanlation seemed a better quality translation anyway.

uhhh also i vaguely remember the doukyuusei manga being cute? i more remember the anime which is like my fave BL anime but yeah i think i read the manga too and enjoyed it well enough (tho having already seen teh anime adaptation i think it didn't add a ton to it but if u haven't seen that anime then reading the manga should be good!). it's a cute high school romance.

[nanslice]

Dang, thanks for these recs! I've been meaning to check out Mob Psycho 100, although admittedly I am shallow and the art is not great, but I'll persevere through that because I really like the summary you provided!

I have never even heard of saezuru tori wa habatakanai and your description made me laugh but then I read the link's description and it seemed kind of sad, so now I have to read it and see which emotion will win lmao.

Hoppe ni Himawari looks adorable, I'm gonna have to read that and then find the rest of it lmao yes give me that.

You recced the doukyuusei anime to me before but I'm dumb and haven't watch it yet, I will definitely do that and then maybe also read the manga, I like cute high school romances okay.

Thank you so much for the recs! *_____*

[chagrined]

DELAYED RESPONSE, i saw this reply the other day but then 4got to reply back even tho i meant to oops.

imo ONE'S gr8st visual strength esp in mp100 is his sense of panel layout & flow. it becomes more apparent as it goes on & maybe he was developing his sense of it also as he was going on but yeah it really strikes me as one of those like, "this is a series written/drawn by some1 who really has a feel for comics" haha. and yeah, the plot and characters are really great! mob is my waifu lmao so i'm biased but he's had such amazing growth & character development, it's really great if you value that a lot in your fiction!

haha, WELL, re: that manga (lol the title is so long to type), i didn't find it sad. but looking at the batoto descrip now i can see how it'd give that impression. XD the way they describe the main yakuza boss guy there imo gives the wrong impression. it def has its serious moments but there's a ton of humor in the plot too! including with that yakuza boss b/c he's also like a total sex addict so there's lots of him just wanting 2 get fucked all the time heh.

ANYWAY YES HOPE YOU ENJOY SOME OF THESE :D :D

[novel_machinist]

Ajin!