In my endless quest for good oneshots, I can classify the manga that I find into three rough groups.

  1. Bad - These are manga that are just really not great for one reason or another. I don’t want to start naming things that put a manga into this category for me so that I don’t inadvertently name something that you happen to like, but this is the category that contains the largest volume of manga.
  2. Great - These are the series that I really like and enjoy. It could be great art, an interesting premise, a good joke, etc. These are the ones I like to post to the community, but they are the least common among all the manga I find.
  3. Somewhere In-between - This is the subject of this post and future Casual Friday posts. I find quite a number of oneshots that I think are decent, but not special. So, I decided that rather than let them fade into browser history obscurity, why not group some together and share that way. I chose to share four of them as a bit of an homage to the 4-koma format.

Alright, with the preamble out of the way, here they are in no particular order:

  • @Essence_of_MehEnglish
    2•10 months ago

    I’m gonna cheat a little bit since I do think these are good enough to warrant a separate post but are also old enough I don’t want to spam the community on my first visit.

    • Deus - horror/drama about physical transformations caused by alien/elder-god/who-knows-what visiting earth. Pretty creepy but the execution could be a little better. I’d love to read a bit more in this world. Medium read (32 pages).
    • The Boy Who Collects The Stars - story about a biology professor traveling through remote wilderness of Sweden, looking for a legendary six-legged dear. There’s a bit of mystery, fantasy and melancholy in a pretty beautiful package. This one’s a longer read (50 pages + translator notes).
    • Her Special Seat - story about a woman grabbing a bite after a long day at work. Pretty cute, not too long (32 pages).
    • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
      2•10 months ago

      Deus was wild. I never knew what each panel would bring. It felt like Mieruko-chan without any of the levity in the humor. The other two were interesting. I liked the classics lesson from the translator on The Boy Who Collects The Stars. It was some mythology that I wasn’t very familiar with other than recognizing a name or two. Finally, I really liked Her Special Seat. Rent for the restaurant must be really cheap if she can keep it going with just one tenant though.

      Thanks for the reads!