Do you guys have any particular memories of your first manga experience(s)? I remember walking into Barnes and Nobles as a wee little lad, and asking one of the kind store ladies where the “anime” section as. She told me that it was called manga, and guided me to the proper section. I still remember going every so often with my mom, it was magical every time. I can’t even remember how many times I re-read the first volume of One Piece.
Kaguya-sama Love is War. I loved the anime and couldn’t wait for another season.
I need to get back to that!!! It was hilarious, thanks for the reminder.
For me, it was Chainsaw Man. I’d read a few manga years ago, most of Berserk, some Junji Ito, and Naruto way back as a kid, but none of it really stuck for me. And then I stumbled unto the Chainsaw Man anime, loved it and checked the subreddit, saw a ton of manga spoiler memes that made me feel like i was missing out, so I read the entirety of what was out, figured out manga is pretty dope, and now I’m working on reading Monster and One Piece
That’s awesome! CSM is one hell of an adaptation, I personally prefer it to the manga.
I’ve never read Monster, but it’s definitely on the list. I fell our of love with One Piece, but the pre timeskip is full of amazing stuff. I hope you get more out of the later bits than I did.
If I were to recommend something else, it’d be FMA. The anime has a legendary OST, amazing dub + sub casting, and stellar good direction overall. The manga is also great and has its own advantages, such as the later art being amazing and a bit more detail in a few scenes and arcs. Both are equal imo, pick whichever suits your fancy!
Oh I love FMA, I’ve watched it twice I think. I’ve got the first volume somewhere but haven’t gotten around to it. It’s always my first reccomendation for people new to anime
Based, same here.
The manga has some interesting additional stuff, I recommend picking up the Fullmetal version if you can. Much nicer pages and a full retranslation iirc.
Tldr; i re read a lot of classics in the library because of lack of Mangas 20 years ago. I remember the names of all of them and have found cozy feelings for them but after starting reading online did I stop remembering the names and not enjoying reading as much as before.
Story time:
I found a small selection of Manga in my local library when I was maybe 8(?) and fell in love. I went to the library almost every day and read all of the Mangas there until they asked me to leave (which was pretty much every time… Sorry 🙏 ) There was love Hina, detective Conan, dragon ball, yu gi oh, Evangelion and d.n angel. I read almost all of them. Why not all you ask. Well for some reason was there a HUGE gap between dragon balls volumes, it was fine in the beginning then 50 of them was always not there! And some random ones. So I missed out so much info…
When there were no more to read did I stop visiting and started buying. The thing is my country didn’t have that many translated Mangas so I pretty much bought all of the volumes of the few Mangas I found. So that is how I ended up with hits and misses like one yaoi batch with maybe 13 volumes (the only Mangas name I can’t remember). I was very surprised to find out men could fall in love 😂 I thought it would be about two guys making a band together… That is what the bio said 😂 I also got really boring Mangas like kill me kiss me, the first volume was pretty good, the rest wasn’t. Same with hack… I also had problems finding fully finished volumes for example I bought only the second volume of samurai deeper kyo. Loved that Manga so much that all of my accounts in many years had kyo in its username 😂 why didn’t I buy the first volume? Well I kinda read the whole thing in a store without realizing how much the time flew by haha. A Manga magazine started out around this time and I jumpt on it, they had one chapter every month from x Mangas. I read air gear, negiman, gtfo, hima… Sorry all of the other Mangas I can’t remember. It is amazing i even remember all of these. Manga had really made a great impact on me. I actually hated reading before I found Manga, I think it is manly because of my dyslexia. There were some western comics I read but I never enjoyed them as much.
Anyway. Around this time do I think I was 13 or 14 and found out there were Manga online! I was thrilled because for the first time didn’t I have to worry about there being no more volumes or having problems finding Mangas. The magazine had problem financially because Manga wasn’t really a thing. And after this I pretty much do not remember what the names of the Mangas was. I had looooong list of Mangas I read. keeping track of them on mangafox by bookmarking them. The sad thing tho about this is since I started reading digitally have I never felt as much joy as the physical thing. Back then did I reread the same Manga over and over but I would never do that with a Manga I read online. But I do not think it is because it is online, I think it is because online is both on demand and also got pretty much everything that has ever been made.
Now days am I on and off about reading. Mainly because many Mangas I do enjoy update very slowly (if at all, I wonder sometimes if they have been axed) and not many Mangas out there is of my taste anymore. I may have grown out of the age group Manga is vastly targeting :(
But no worries I will find my way back, I always do :D
Storytime: they had a Manga section in the tiny library in the county jail I did a tiny bit of time in. Not a great collection, and hard to get volume 1, but I was able to read a few Naruto volumes, some nura: rise of yokai clan, and Hikaru no go. Not the best collection, all more targeted at youth, but provided some much needed normalcy and lightheartedness to my daily routine (:
So you got out of a jail and became a weeb instead? That’s certainly heartwarming and new.
Tbf, I was getting printed out Manga mailed to me in there to stay current so…but ya you could say that lol. I just like art tbh. I find a lot of Japanese art hits pretty good for me, cause I enjoy the baked in Eastern philosophy of a good amount of it.
I never got to read Naruto. Which is pretty weird. It is as big as dragon ball. Then out of the blue did the anime get streamed pretty late (especially for the child me) at 23:00 on TV 6. So that is how I was able to watch Naruto. But because it was so late did I only see a few episodes.
It is nice they had that, routines are always great and sometimes are books a bit too heavy to be read in busy/noisy environments :D
I only got to read one volume lmao. Least it was number 1 I guess.
going to china without a vpn and only being able to access mangadex
now i have like 760 manga on tachiyomi
I watched the “Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody”. It ended, but I was very interested in the story, so I ended up on mangadex…
My very first manga was Naruto after I ran out of anime episodes. Didn’t touch another manga for years until I did the same thing with demon slayer which lead to me doing the same for a few of the really popular animes at the time. It wasn’t until I’d heard about chainsaw man when the anime adaptation was announced that I’d say I shifted from “anime watcher that sometimes reads ahead” to “actual manga reader”
CSM really hooks people huh, I can’t blame ya. It’s a really unique series. I can’t wait for S2, even though I’ve already read all of part 1.
Must have been a wee lad no older than ten years old when my friend introduced me to Shaman King. After that, I eventually caught up with Naruto and Bleach (and To Love-Ru, bless my heart), and everything kinda spiraled from there.
Shaman kimg was so good! It’s shame no one really talks about it anymore…
It doesn’t help that it was left unfinished, and by the time the author did write an ending, it had already lost most of its cultural relevance.
I had been watching anime for a few years, and a Humble Bundle with Kodansha manga came out. I picked it up and have been reading since then.
I was into western comics. Then I got into anime. Seemed like a pretty natural progression to try out manga too after being fully immersed in anime. The exact reason I don’t really remember though.
Watched the original anime of Fullmetal Alchemist and found out it was originally a manga that was still ongoing, so I just had to read it any way I could.
My first exposure to “true” manga was definitely Nisekoi. That’s of course a direct effect from having watched its anime and Plastic Memories. Now all of my manga catalogs are full of romantic comedy. No ragrets.
Hell, I even read Berserk because there’s a bit of romance in it. If there were no sexy scene between Guts and Casca, I wouldn’t even touch it.
I was unhappy with how samurai x ended. I found the manga when searching samurai x in Google. After I finished that, I remembered my friend in elementary school had a pencil box which had cool pictures with slam dunk written on it. So I looked for slam dunk “comics” next. These are the first two manga I read.
What’s Samurai X? I’ve never heard of that one.
I should read Slam Dunk one day, one of the grand daddies of sports manga.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/45/Rurouni_Kenshin__Meiji_Kenkaku_Romantan
I also recommend GTO if you haven’t read it.
Holy hell, am I uninformed??? Since when was Kenshin called Samurai X? Is it some old, out of date localization name I don’t know about, or what?
Another one on the list, many thanks.
I also grew up with it being called samurai x. But I also started reading Manga before I could read it online so I only got translated Mangas from publishers (professional translators) instead of reading fan translations that you can find more easily today. I actually had a very hard time with all of the Japanese names because they are typically very long and back then did I not know any Japanese 😂
I actually don’t typically read manga, but I’m writing this comment because I have two exceptions that hooked me somewhat. +Anima, and Oyasumi Punpun. I’m hoping these combined with webtoons will get me to read more.
It started with just wanting to know what happens beyond where the anime was (Naruto at the time), then became my preferred medium.
I feel like reading Manga is faster, the action is always paced to my imagination, and it’s just easier to pick up and put down.
The good old Doraemon (ドラえもん) haha
