Sunday Comics Part 1
It would be remiss of me to make a blog entry mentioning manga and not acknowledging the most depressing news I received this last year, that being the passing of Kentaro Miura. Berserk is quite possibly the best manga ever made. While to some degree this is of course hyperbole, I would be lying to say that I don’t to some degree believe it. There’s a reason its been at the top of MAL and Anilist for all my time using both sites.
Content Warning for the 97 anime, generally applicable to the manga aswell. Spoilers. Rape, Sex, Lots of violence. Do not read while depressed.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is better and worse than people say it is. The internet parade that champions part 2 is inhaling so much copium that they seem to be taking a large percentage of the worlds supply, and part 3 is as garbage as most people say it is. What JoJo heads are right about though, is that Part 7 and Part 8, Steel Ball Run and JoJolion respectively, are fucking cracked, with the former rivaling Berserk in all time rankings. If you’ve bounced of JoJo’s before, I don’t blame you, but the soft reboot in SBR is a refreshing take on the JoJo formula that elevates the franchise from good to some of the best manga available.
Frieren is the series that for a brief while patched the hole in my heart that Miura’s passing left me with. While like the previous two recommendations are primarily action driven, Frieren is a slice of life first and action series second. Focusing on the life of Frieren after the death of her party mates (pictured above) several decades after they slayed the demon king, and her adventures in a world changing around her.
The manga is as comfy as it gets, and fills a similar niche to Witch Hat Atelier or Little Witch Academia in my mind, even ignoring the shared theme of magic. In all of these series, Magic isn’t about the awe and mastery of magic, but its about the relationships the characters have to said magic, and the relationships the party forms within itself and others.
To put it bluntly, this is the closest manga has gotten to DnD, and that’s saying a lot considering that Record of Lodoss War is literally an adaptation of someone’s campaign. Easily my second favorite manga of the last year.
Trailer:
Gender and Sexuality is a weird thing to experience. Our Dreams at Dusk made the struggle of figuring myself out feel more relatable to me. I would recommend this to anyone who is going through that journey of self discovery, or anyone who wants to understand the journey others go through. Otherwise, its simply an excellent coming of age story. Thanks to Ari for the recommendation and thanks to Mina for the friendship.
4 more tommorow
First
Frieren is likely one of my top 5 manga, excited to see what tomorrow's manga are