Re: Your favorite seinen (and why)
Blade of the Immortal (無限の住人) by Samura Hiroaki
I think this was the first
seinen title I ever read. I got into it mainly on the recommendation of a friend and instantly fell in love with it's art style. The plot is very appealing. Even with it's dark storyline, Samura manages to slip a few bits of humor into it. All the characters are engaging from Makie, the female assassin to Shira, the woman-hating sociopath. Love them or hate them, they're all interesting. Rin manages to be a good female lead without being too annoying. And, as I mentioned before, the art style is breath-taking. It floats somewhere between being very realistic to almost traditionally mangaish. Given Samura's penchant show depicting brutal and graphic mutilations, I wasn't entirely surprised to hear that some of his work has appeared in
eroguro magazines.
Links:
Discussion |
Wikipedia |
Dark Horse Manga
Lone Wolf & Cub (子連れ狼) by Koike Kazuo & Kojima Goseki
What appealed to me the most about this series was how, well "old school" and "traditional" it seemed. The art style is realistic and somewhat resembles
ukiyo or ink paintings. Whereas the storyline seems like something from a Kurosawa samurai film. Even though each chapter is a new mission for Itto it's still interesting and I can't wait to see how everything turns out. Especially in the chapters in which Itto, a very honorable man, accepts a mission of questionable honor (one would expect him to turn down) and somehow manages to complete his mission, yet also strike back at his employers. The chapters that show a mission through Daigoro's eyes are also especially interesting.
Links:
Wikipedia |
Dark Horse Manga
Samurai Executioner (首斬り朝) by Koike Kazuo & Kojima Goseki
I started reading this one because I had enjoyed
Lone Wolf & Cub so much. To my surprise, I ended up liking this series more. I think it just comes down to the fact that I like Asaemon much more than I like Itto. Where
LW&C is a samurai story,
SE is more like "crime and punishment". Even though Asaemon is the main character, sometimes he only come in at the end of a story line. I like Asaemon's intelligence (a few times he helps the police solve crimes) and his conscience about what he does for a living. I especially liked the story where he finds that he executed an innocent man and so sets out to demonstrate to the police why they need to catch the
real criminals, not except a scapegoat.
Links:
Wikipedia |
Dark Horse Manga
The Ravages of Time (火鳳燎原) by Chen Mou
This one I picked up on a whim. I admit, I had a hard time getting into this one. Unlike Japan, the most I knew about China was how to find it on a map, so a lot of things confused me. But by the time I finished the first volume I was hooked and started researching things on my own to better understand the series. There are two things I really enjoy about this series. One is that, even though I know
what is going to happen (i.e. Lu Bu betrays and kills Dong Zhuo) because it happens historically, seeing
how it comes to happen is exciting and full of surprises. The other thing is Bossman Chen's portrayals of certain characters. Zhang Fei is known as a formidable warrior, but also a hot-headed drunkard, but Chen turns him into a skilled artist who is very intelligent as well as a kick ass fighter - he's also believes in Liu Bei so much that he allow himself to be seen as a brash drunkard just to further his big brother's reputation. There is plenty of action, but most of the plot focuses on various schemes - nearly all the characters are frighteningly intelligent and sneaky.
Links:
Wikipedia |
Edited Manga
I don't really read much seinen, but I did enjoy it when I do. Judging from my above list you can see that I really love historical accuracy in my manga (with exception of BotI uses a lot of modern-looking character designs) and intelligent plotlines. One of the things I love the best about the above series is the fans. It's nice to be able to talk about a series I like with intelligent fans who aren't prone to "ship" characters or get into pointless arguments about which character is better. I tend to distance myself from the fandoms of my favourite
shounen series because of the lack of sense in it's fans.
