Romance Mangas
Lysander
near-nude scenes of girls)
Shoujo Manga = a manga for girls (usually has quite a few "cute" guys
and one or two girls)
I know that this discussion was taking place in the Anime vs. Manga
thread,and was still somewhat relevant to the original topic so it
might have been okay to just continue it there, but for the sake of
getting more people to participate I'm creating this new thread.
Thanks in part to the Anime vs. Manga thread, I've started to gain a
small interest in manga. Over the past week or two I've started and
finished a manga called Pretty Face, I've read up to volume 7 of
Pastel, the end of volume 2 of Love Monster, volume 10 of Hanazakari no
Kimitachie (or Hanakimi or "For You in Full Blossom"), and up to volume
13 of Parfait Tic... Might be excessive for one or two weeks worth, but
I just sorta jumped headfirst into manga. I tried several other genres
of manga but couldn't get past the first volume, so it seems I can only
really get into romance dramas and comedies. I've now read both shoujo
and shounen romance series' and (figure it out, I'm a guy afterall)
have a slight affinity for shounen ones. The problem is that the
shounen mangas I've read, which are Pretty Face and Love Monster, have
a slight lacking in the romance department. They have pretty
interesting storylines and all, but don't quite have the emotion that
shoujo mangas do. I know female authors, who are typically authors for
shoujo mangas, may have a better idea of how to make a good romance
(being female), but the shoujo mangas themselves also typically have a
hundred guys and one or two girls which, quite frankly, annoys me.
So, now with the question. Anyone know any good romance drama shounen
mangas? Ecchi-ness is fine, but I'm looking for something with a really
good romance story as well. That's all ^_^
~Lysander
+*diOdesu*+
comics, shoujo = girl comics. shounen is typically action like naruto,
bleach, initial d, whistle, king of bandit jing, etc. in japan it is
weird for guys to read shoujo because it really is manga meant for
girls, but in america it is pretty common. i personally read mostly
only shoujo. hot gimmick, doubt, snow drop (actually manhwa = korean
manga), tsubasa reservoir chronicles (this is shoujo), xxxholic (yes,
clamp is one of the best), hands off, wallflower, and the list goes on
forever.
shoujo does tend to have more complex storylines dealing with human
emotions which is why i choose them over shounen which is usually
redundant action (in my opinion). although romance can be found in
shounen, it isnt proper to label a manga romance shounen. im not sure
what you mean by ecchi-ness, im assuming the near-nude scenes of girls?
anyway, based on your description of shounen though i think i know what
you're looking for. a good comedy romance is ichigo 100% (but i think
the anime is out and maybe you prefer anime over manga), hands off is
really good, im not sure what the japanese name is and this manga is up
to 4 in america so finding a scanlation might be difficult, kill me
kiss me is awesome with a little cross-dressing, lots of rival gang
fights, and romance, although many people dont like this series because
the author totally switches focus on characters after book 1 which is
the best of the 5, and my all time favorite which is shounen but
considered shoujo because of its in-depth story, blade of the immortal!
a cursed immortal samurai hired by a girl seeking revenge on a
misunderstood leader of a crazed swordschool set to conquer all other
swordschools. the romance might be a little sparse but its definitely
always on your mind while reading.
i dont know much about manga that hasnt been released in america,
pretty much because i dont really like reading scanlations on the
computer. oh, a good shoujo to download which has beatiful artwork,
powers and blood is baku. its short so download it now and enjoy. let
me know if im completely wrong about what you're looking for. sorry
this post is all over the place. oh well. ja.
Michael P Hopcroft
telling other types of stories. Her msot famous examples are so famous
that I don't even have to name them, but you might want to track down
her Maison Ikkoku manga, an emotionally mature work about a college
student whose intially one-sided crush on his widowed apartment manager
leads to all sorts of strange things.
Honey & Clover is a newer series, set at an art college, that has gotten
very good press. I don't think that's gotten here yet. But the anime is
in fansub, and it's wonderful.
On the anime front, Superdimensional Fortress Macross (I don't know if
there's a manga for it) is a coming-of-age story set against the
background of an apocalyptic inetrplanetary war. Torn between the
popular idol Lin Minmei and the intelligent, mature soldier Misa Hayase,
Hikaru finds himself facing questions about the very natute of love as
everything he knew explodes around him.
Digital Deus
Aratos
shounen manga. with comedy. I mean, it's been accused of being shallow
by a lot of people, but I found myself really careing about the
characters. It probably helps that I can empythise (sp) with Keitaro
(apart from the manager of a girls dorm, three year Ronin, childhood
promise bit!) but even so. It's deep. Admitably It didn't bring me as
close to tears as the anime did, but it's worth a read.
On the subject of which, anyone here read AI love you? I could just get
it on the grounds that I think Akamatsu-sempais work is brilliant but
it's good to have a second opinion....
Oh, and warriors of Tao has both romance and action. As does battle
Royale, although the Englsih Translation's crap (Yoshitoki was supposed
to fancy Noriko, not the blinking orphanage owners daughter! And why in
HEL would they want to have a "pink party" straight after finding out
they have to all kill each other????)!
Oh, and GTO has romance, if you can call it that.
Lysander
Examples are Pretty Face, Pastel, Love Monster, Love Hina, Ichigo 100%
(as you mentioned) and I'd even throw Chobits in there. Granted most of
the mangas CLAMP does are shoujo, since CLAMP is four women, but
Chobits seemed more directed towards guys while being a heavy romance
story as well (in fact, I just looked it up, and everyplace has Chobits
listed as "Comedy/Sci-fi/Romance/Shounen"). Shounen is not just action
mangas, regardless of how you look at it. Action is a genre, shounen is
a genre, and romance is a genre. Everything ever made fits into more
than one genre. ^_^ Anywho everyone, thanks for the suggestions, I'll
check a lot of those out. Any more suggestions would be appreciated as
well, since I'm on break from school and will probably have most of
those mentioned already finished by next week.
Rumiko is an interesting author, I watched Mermaid's Forest last week
and all the problems that I had with the anime I probably wouldn't have
with the manga (the rushed feeling, the lack of any resolution to the
story whatsoever). I'll have to read some Rumiko mangas in the near
future without a doubt.
~Lysander
