Another week in the books. Let’s chat about manga in the general discussion thread! Feel free to use this thread for questions, comments, recommendations, etc.
Like normal, please be careful with spoilers. I wrote a guide about spoilers in case you need a refresher on how to handle them (also linked in the sidebar).
So what’s the deal with the two versions of Solo Levelling? One set present day with cool abilities and monster fights and the medieval/fantasy set one that seems like it was written by a horny 13yo where characters recharge by cuddling chesty women?
Both are things 13yo fantasize of.
Sure, but the writing quality of the present day version is well above 13yo level.
I read A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow yesterday, haven’t stopped thinking about it. The characters, the art, just wow. Perhaps not for everyone, and don’t go in expecting a lot of romance, but I think it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever read.
I picked up Yukizuriman’s One Night Stand.
It reminds me of Kamui, the One Standing Behind You.
I read several this past week, but out of those only Kyatapi Land takes the spot.
It’s oh so dumb, and I absolutely love it.
Prepare for insanity, this is not what I usually post. 😂
So, my reading drought continues this week, but should hopefully be resolving itself soon. I have mentioned before in this community that I work in the sciences, and these past couple weeks, I have been neck-deep in technical writing and reviewing. After a whole day of writing, reading, and revising technical reports, I just can’t bring myself to do any reading for fun. So, I have largely turned to English-language content recently (most recently were the Lord of the Rings films).
In any case, here are a couple more series that I have read and enjoyed in the past that I don’t think I have shared in this community.
I just saw that a new SL group picked this series up to try to finish it up. However, way back when I enjoyed the beginning of this series and ended up reading the entire webnovel. The story is pretty good despite a pretty generic setup and the characters are likeable.
Yes, I will grant you that the setup for this series is a bit suspect. However, the humor in this series is fun in a turn your brain off kind of way. The basic premise is that the MC has a crush on her friend’s little sister. However, that little sister is actually a huge siscon. So, they get roped into situations together to get closer to their crushes. It’s contrived, but funny.
I think I might have mentioned this one before, but it continues to be great, so I am going to mention it again. Basic story is that the human hero goes to confront the Demon Lord, only for her to ask his hand in marriage. He is hopelessly unable to defeat her, but she isn’t interested in conquering anything other than his heart! It’s a lot of stupid fun and I wish there was more of it to read.
This series is hardly a story at all, basically a guy that wants to be a baker/patissier bonds with his next-door neighbor over sweet things. It has all the trappings of a romance series, but it ended up going on hiatus before really getting anywhere. But, it was tasty-looking while it lasted.
Been enjoying Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You. Anyone got similar light-hearted manga recs?
Also curious if anyone has a manga subscription service or platform/app they recommend? Want to support the artists but also want to downsize my bookshelf + travel lighter.
The best way to support the actual artists is to buy Japanese raws. The compensation for English releases varies but since so many of them sell in such small numbers many of the authors don’t get any payment at all for the book sold and only get the initial licensing fee for the series.
Depends on the series, obviously. A huge series that moves tons of books, like one piece? Different story. But the latest niche release that will sell maybe 4k copies at most? Nahhh
Piracy is justified, viz/kodansha/etc are pieces of shit. unless you specifically want to support the localization teams I guess, but they also aren’t getting royalties. It’s a company of suits who “buy” creative works and earn money off them in perpetuity.
As for recommendations: you and I are polar opposites, the summer hikaru died, after the rain
Yeah, I figured they’re probably not going to see much of my money, but was hoping having some sales would benefit them, at least in future deals even if they don’t get royalties. I’m not against pirating, just wanted to show my support since I get enjoyment from their work and so there’s incentive to continue putting out content (for everyone involved).
Appreciate the recs, I’ll check those out!
The one thing that sales do benefit is the potential for future localization and to be fair that does matter if you can’t read the raws
This is why niche titles are shifting. People complain about companies like viz doing less with niche shonen and yuri and stuff, instead translating tons of BL. But you know who buys tons of physicals? BL peeps. And when the expected sales are 3-5k units, if that, might as well go for the ones that drop cash
That said it’s still crap that viz doesn’t localize smaller titles. They can do digital only releases. They have a one time fixed cost of the licensing and localization then just bandwidth, which is not much for digital books, and still make a bit of profit. But their mission isn’t to bring media to people, it’s to make fat stacks
Full disclosure: I don’t have a dog in this fight really bc i can read Japanese and just get raws in Japanese. I typically pirate everything and I do for big titles like oshi no ko (which had a weak ass ending) and shit but for small titles I do buy them to support the creators. Buying from Japanese sites gives the artist (typically) an 8-10% cut and with the weak yen digital titles are real affordable
