Something Excellent

im surprised nobodys made a manga topic yet, seeing as deacon decided to deliberately point out this was for manga as well. i guess i have to pick up the fucking slack here!
have you read any good mangas recently? have a favorite or whatever?
recently ive been reading a manga called "shoulder a coffin kuro". really fucking nice art, the whole kinda feeling of the story and style works really well in black and white, and the few colored pages are also really good too. its style is what i can only describe as like, cuteness built on the foundary of gloominess/creepiness. its perfect. its about a tomboy traveller, kuro, whos travelling around while shouldering a huge coffin on her back accompanied by her friends, sen whos a flock of a thousand bats, and nijuku and sanju who are some weird test tube babies, while searching to find a witch that cursed her. the story and theming is super nice feeling, i love it to bits this is my headcanon theme song for it by the way hehe https://youtu.be/VCH88VpJKRs

The last manga I read was Uzaki-chan Wa Asobitai. No, actually, that's a lie, it was Chiaki Harada's Suspicious Diary, but it was pretty short (so far, I guess?) and I didn't love it so I didn't bookmark it or anything. I've currently got Inuyashiki pulled up for reading next, but I haven't started it since I have spent two days doing no homework and should really do some homework. I can't really figure out any favorites so far, though, I feel like nothing has impacted me that much, and also my memory just isn't serving me right now.

Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro looks cool, the style is very befitting to you (I love your icon, by the way. That's like the best kind of forum icon to have). I wonder what's in the coffin! I guess I'd just have to read it to find out.

from looking it up, inuyashiki looks strange so its pretty interesting to me, i might look into it if i need something new to read. and about the uzaki chan thing, that reminds me you talked about like, romance mangas or whatever recently before. i guess that kind of stuff isnt for me or i just havent found one perfect for me, but i remember seeing way of the housewife and from what ive seen i think id definitely love it. i mean if it even counts as a romance manga at that point, its mainly just made me laugh.. still have yet to read it though
and IKR? kuros so good. i think i only share media to other people that reminds me of who i am or aspire to be (saying that kinda made me feel like an egoist for some reason..) and another IKR? for my icon, im so fortunate to have had the stroke of genius to remember the thing it came from and that itd be a perfect forum icon some kind of help manual for fixing broken disks? or something like that lawl

I didn't end up reading Inuyashiki because all of it wasn't on the site I normally use, but then Surnachi gave me link with all of it. I still haven't read it. In its place, I read Sexy Commando Gaiden - Sugoi-yo!! Masaru-san. It's a comedy book, and it's absurd. I'm also consistently blown away by how good some gag artists are at drawing--Usata Kyousuke is actually just really great at drawing, and earlier I was amazed at how good Stop!! Hibari-Kun's Hisashi Eguchi is. He's currently in advertising illustration stuff now, so you know his stuff has to be good. For a taste of how Sexy Commando is, here's a clip of the anime adaption:



After that I went on to read a oneshot that Usata did, called Shoulder Tackle Yasuzaki-man. It was also really good! It reminded me of Devilman and Spider-Man. Here's a page that shows a very physical relation to the ol' webhead.



To throw you off of my trail, I will also probably not be reading Inuyashiki next. Instead I'm thinking I'll go for Ouran High School Host Club.

i went on a manga binge recently and read three series about music! the first was beck, which is about a normal 14 year old boy who, after a run in with a very strange dog named beck, discovers a passion for rock music and joins a band! it has a it's also a coming of age manga (of course it is) about our main guy's first dealings with love and other puberty stuff (ew, not like that dude come on). like there is some good, down to earth melodrama here. it's awesome. the art is really great, and like all great art can is a little unusual (pretty much everybody is drawn with lips all the time. there are few exceptions). it's also neck deep in that late 90's/early 2000's aesthetic if you're into that (i know i am). like all good manga it has that sticking power. like, when you read a chapter you can't just stop there, you have to read the entire rest of the thing. here's a splash i showed jack a while back (hosted on discord, i know i know): the next was blue giant, which follows a similar pattern. a mostly unremarkable middle schooler is suddenly impassioned to play music, but this time it's jazz! and i was in jazz band in high school so i get an extra kick out of this cause i can sort of understand parts of it for once (unlike, i dunno, haikyuu. which is still great but i can't really relate to the volleyball strats). our main guy, dai, who's name is really easy to remember for once, plays tenor sax, and every day he goes to practice at this riverbank in his town. he has no conventional training or knowledge, barely being able to produce different notes. but he has a distinct, 'big' sound and thru the course of the series (with lots of hard work and help) learns to read sheet music and play solos and take care of his sax. he starts a band with some friends too! it's great. the art isn't as good as beck's (it's a little indistinct) but there's a nice sketchy quality to the whole thing. i can actually look at it and tell how it was made (a lot of the time i look at manga and have no idea how it was even produced). here's a double page splash of our boy practicing: the third i read was kids on the slope. it's about this rich introverted kid transferring to a new school in a small town. his pretty face and general demeanor attract the attention of the class delinquent who is determined to befriend him. they are joined by the class rep, who our main protagonist immediately falls for. except the class rep has a crush on the delinquent, her childhood friend (gasp!!!!). so you get this immediate love triangle that is mined for so much melodrama. like, so fucking much. it's crazy. really, kids on the slope is all about that coming of age and teen feelings and melodrama, and jazz is just the backdrop (oh yeah it's also about jazz btw). our main guy knows classical piano and the delinquent is a gifted jazz drummer, so they end up jamming out together. despite this comic being like, a yaoi goldmine (seriously this is on some kirk and spock level stuff) i ended up being pretty taken with the main romance between the protagonist and class rep, and the end of the series was pretty satisfying. the art is more simple and cartooned than the other two (it makes me think of one piece actually), and is generally pretty distinct! i don't think i've seen many other manga that look like this. maybe i need to read more romance manga or something, which this basically is. anyways here is a page: (see what i mean? yaoi fucking goldmine, people)

Aaaugh! Aaiieeee!! Forum owner posting yaoi!!!

I wish I could recommend some romance manga to you, but I really only know pedestrian choices. I've got some better ones on my reading list, but I haven't been reading as much as I used to. I did power through Dungeon Meshi pretty recently, but I've been stuck on Ouran for a while, I want to finish it before I move on to other things.