In my endless quest for good oneshots, I can classify the manga that I find into three rough groups.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- A Sea Turtle Flying in the Air - Quick 4-page oneshot about a baby sea turtle.
- Densha aru aru? - 2-page oneshot about sitting on the train.
- Among Us - 17-page chapter about the mind games involved in the game Among Us.
- If You Gaze Long Into an Abyss, the Abyss Also Gazes Into You - 4-page oneshot about a delinquent and an Ojou-sama in school.
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).
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!
Finally got some time to look through your links and all of them gave me a good chuckle. Nice finds.
