Meme, and animanga recs?

[sarashina]

THE CHARACTER ASSOCIATION MEME

Also, I have a vacation coming up, and I am beginning to fear that I have seen/read all the animanga worth seeing/reading, which I'm sure is not true. What are some of your favorite series? The more obscure, the better. Series with a creepy atmosphere, gorgeous art, and/or adorable characters are definitely a plus.

Comments

[lacunarity.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've read this or not, but I read Bokurano last week and found it really creepy and interesting. Be warned it does have several instances of pedophilia, though they tend to be treated as a crime or at least something undesirable.

[noelleno.livejournal.com]

Kaiba. Kaibakaibakaibakaiba.




Kaiba.

[ivory-and-horn.livejournal.com]

I read more webcomics than manga so if you don't mind recs for those instead...?

[ruffwriter.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all! ♥

[ivory-and-horn.livejournal.com]

Gunnerkrigg Court sounds like it'd be right up your alley. At the most basic level it's about two girls going to a very strange school. But it's way more than that -- the atmosphere is, while maybe not completely creepy, definitely mysterious and strange. The characters are lovely, from the main two (Kat and Annie, who have such a wonderful friendship with each other) to all the side characters. The way the author builds his mythology behind the story is just fantastic. The art's a little odd in the beginning but it rapidly gets better, with just the right mix of detail and stylization for the story being told.

Guilded Age is a really funny send-up of basic sword-and-sorcery tropes. It does some interesting things with the basic character types and plays around with the basics of sword-and-sorcery RPG games. The art is fun and the characters so far have been pretty awesome.

Digger is a black-and-white comic with many interesting characters and an interestingly absurd world (vampiric vegetables!). I love the art in particular, because the artist uses the black-and-white of her comic to such great effect when the creepy stuff goes down, and if you're familiar with the Discworld books, there's a definite Terry Pratchett sort of feel to her writing at times, but without aping it.

Family Man is kind of like that manga you recced a couple posts back, Otoyomegatari, in that it's obviously a meticulously researched piece of historical fiction, though in this case it's 18th century Germany. The art is fabulous, the writing is fun, and the storyline is starting to get interesting as hints of the supernatural are showing up. There's also this feature the creator does, where she'll put up explanations for some of the historical references and objects in the comic every ten pages or so, which makes it both educational AND entertaining (though the educational bits are entertaining too).

The author also has a kind-of-but-not-really sequel comic called Bite Me!, which is basically the French Revolution on crack and with vampires. It's funny and makes fun of vampire cliches and I love the art for all the lulzy expressions the characters make.

That's all the recs I can think of for now, hopefully there will be something there to you taste. :3

[ivory-and-horn.livejournal.com]

ALSO I JUST REALIZED the link to Family Man leads to the first page where there's a guest comic currently up; the actual art in the comic is in a very different style.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

Have you read Wild Adapter or Stigma? I forget!

[evilsimon.livejournal.com]

For anime:

- Mononoke (obvious pimp) -- Medicine seller of unknown origins and unknown motives roams around kicking ass and taking names. Very stylized art.

- I thought .hack//SIGN was pretty fun.

- Yami no Matsuei is inferior to the manga form and did at least one thing that made me want to punch the screen, but amusing nonetheless.


For manga:

- Dolls by Naked Ape (again, the obvious pimp) -- Rising crime rate in Japan forces overhaul of the criminal justice system, ending up in the creation of three-man hit squads who operate anonymously.

- Switch by Naked Ape -- Follows the wacky hijinks of a n00b cop on a narcotics squad in a similarly futuristic criminal justice system. Wacky hijinks are complicated by the yakuza and by said n00b occasionally going berserk. It's pretty rad.

- Honey Comb by Kazuya Minekura -- Rising body thievery rate in Japan (there seems to be a pattern here ._.) results in armed teams going to retrieve all healthy corpses. The yakuza may or may not be involved. This is one of Minekura's back-burner projects, methinks.

- Bus Gamer by Kazuya Minekura -- A new pastime of the rich is to hire teams of fighters and hackers to steal other corporations' secrets, either by stealth or by force or both. One of these teams gets a little too clever. Craziosity ensues. Also one of Minekura's back-burner projects, it seems.

- Silver Diamond by Shiho Sugiura -- Several people trip through a wormhole and meet a boy who can make things grow by looking at them for long enough. Being as they are from a desert in a dying world, this is the most awesome thing ever. Also, group hugs.

- Uzumaki by Junji Ito -- Lovecraftian horror plus spirals.

- Yami no Matsuei by Yoko Matsushita (a.k.a. Descendants of Darkness) -- Follows a team of two dead dudes as they try to ensure that no one is messing with the natural order of people dying or not dying.


M-my tastes are very questionable.

[themadpoker.livejournal.com]

Basara by Yumi Tamura. A girl in post-apocalyptic Japan poses as her brother, the 'Chosen One', in order to lead her people to overthrow the king who killed him. I read it about three years ago and it's still one of the top 3 manga I've ever read. The art is gorgeous too, very distinctive. There's an anime too but it's only 13 epiodes and covers very litte of the manga, I'd definitely recommend you read it instead.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

not a favourite series as such, since i've only seen episode 1, but are you watching Durarara!!? it's based on light novels by the same guy who wrote Baccano!, and i think it satisfies the third of your requirements (with a hint of creepiness, too).

manga:
- Liar Game takes a while to get going, but it's a clever and engrossing series, kind of like Kaiji in premise but not in tone.
- Kobatotei Ibun is a silly manga one-shot that's like Natsume Yuujinchou, but fluffier.
- Hyakkiyakou Shou is like Natsume Yuujinchou, but somewhat creepier and with a more problematic youkai-human relationship.
- Parasyte is a chilling sci-fi manga epic that does 'creepy' very well. the art isn't gorgeous, but it's serviceable.