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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).

  • @Essence_of_MehEnglish
    4•3 months ago

    I’ve been on a holiday trip last week which means I finally had some time to dig into my backlog a bit. Here’s some brief thoughts on what I managed to get into:

    • Yotsuba And! / Yotsuba to! - I’ve been reading it on and off but had to put it down due to lack of time. I just went through the remaining 2/3rds of the series and caught up completely. It’s an extremely adorable story and I love it with all of my being. It also made me look at myself and do some light self-discovery which is nice. Can’t wait for more.
    • Gyaru Cooking / Gal Gohan - I wasn’t really feeling this one until chapters 13-14, when Fujiwara makes her first appearance (Nagisa’s addition was even better). I think it was a decent series over all but didn’t really resonate with me so I finished it more due to inertia rather than being seriously pulled in by the story. I never really got fully on board with Miku or Shinji as characters and only few of the gal jokes worked for me. I also wasn’t too hot on the ending but eh, it went about as I expected.
    • Nan Hao & Shang Feng - I’ve read a few random chapters of this one before but always planned to go back from the start some other time - well, the time has come. It’s not all gold but even the mediocre chapters are pretty good and when a joke lands, it lands hard. It’s an extremely stupid series, I love it! Mostly anyway… One thing I do not care for is the amount of sponsored chapters - I despise ads in general so calling this annoying would be an understatement. Can’t have everything, I guess.
    • The Saga of Tanya the Evil / Youjo Senki - I started this one shortly after the show ended, not sure why I stopped but whatever the reason I did it early enough that I forgot pretty much everything about this adaptation except for the goofy animal representation of all the countries. I like this version quite a lot, it captures both the humor and brutality of the story in a great way and provides some additional info about what’s going on both in Tanya’s head and behind the scenes. I want to read the original light novel as well someday though that will have to wait.

    I’m still catching up with the latter two but I’m pretty happy with the results, especially since I spent most of my time resting away from the screen for a change. There’s still A LOT of stuff to go through but any dent in a backlog is progress.

    • @[email protected]English
      4•3 months ago

      Yotsubato

      Glad to see this one getting some attention! Lots of people (myself included) got into it because it’s often recommended as a first manga for Japanese learners, but then I discovered that it’s genuinely really funny! It really felt like the mangaka understood the chaos small children bring to the table.

      Nan Hao & Shang Feng

      Those sponsored segments were truly bizarre! I totally agree though, when those jokes hit they really hit. Lots of great visual gags.

      • @Essence_of_MehEnglish
        3•3 months ago

        I also learned about Yotsuba to when looking for something to practice with (still haven’t touched the Japanese version ironically enough) but yeah, it’s a great series even as a normal read. Quickly ended up among my favorites.

        Nan Hao & Shang Feng feels like looking at my friends from school at times. I don’t think their adventures were that crazy but many chapters made me go “yeah, that looks familiar”. Is there anything similar from the female perspective? I’d be curious to see how that compares to real life experiences.

    • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
      3•3 months ago

      Yotsuba and Nan Hao are two series that I have always kind of been aware of, but haven’t yet taken the dive to start reading. About the sponsored chapters, are they explicitly presented as an ad? A recent series that I have been following has some pretty obvious Cup Noodles product placement (it is officially licensed I believe) is “Wait 3 Minutes, Mugi-senpai”.

      Gyaru Cooking looks like it might be a prequel to Renge to Naruto just based on the cover. I haven’t read it, but it looks like fun.

      • @Essence_of_MehEnglish
        3•3 months ago

        Yeah, sponsored chapters are completely explicit about what they are (here is an example if you’d like to check one). It’s not a huge percentage of the overall series but it’s something I’m rather allergic to and had to mention.