Favorites Your Favourite Shoujo Manga

[Aequis]

Personally, I'm more of an action freak, but of the shoujo manga I have read, my favourites are Sailor Moon (~ an eternal classic in my opinion), Nana, and Parfait Tic.

So people, which Shoujo manga are your favourite?

 

[Otome]

Hai. In Shoujo favorite of mine are Immortal Rain, Kaze Hikaru, and ... and ... X/ ...guess that's it. The other shoujo that I read are just there for entertainment purposes.

 

[Gold Knight]

Nana at this point. But I'm a guy... so don't read much... X3

 

[YukariRin]

Eek, this is a good one. I'd say out of my whole collection there are three shoujo series that I love more than the rest. I'm not counting Sailor Moon, but I think that series should be required reading for any manga reader. My all time favorite series is MARS. I've lost track of how many times I've read it, and each time I still get caught up in the suspenseful moments and cry over the emotional parts. Basara is fantastic, but its art tends to turn people off since it isn't very attractive. Kare Kano is an amazing series, and the plot just gets so much more amazing after the point where the anime stopped.

 

[shinwei]

Fruits Basket
Soooo touching.

 

[Gold Knight]

Another guy who likes Fruits Basket. See what I mean, Yumi-chan? XD

 

[Tanuki-dono]

Hahaha. Oh, man. Shoujo.  I don't read traditional ones so much anymore.  I know I have liked some.  
I read Sailor Moon back in the day (Yes, Mixx Pocketbooks), but again the first couple of volumes pwn the rest.  The creator got so sloppy and rushed her ideas.  

Let's see. Think, Tanuki, think.  Tokyo Babylon wins for its ending.  Despite the problem some people have with the ligth Shounen Ai, the views on society and the portrait of the times is great.  Like I said, despite the silliness, it wins.  MARS is good, but I like the atmosphere in the beginning better than the ending.  Fruits Basket was enjoyable, but I had problems relating to the main character Tohru, which really took a lot of the fun out of the series for me.  

I have read a lot of CLAMP Shoujo, but most of it is like alcohol - an aquired taste. The exceptions to this rule would be Tokyo Babylon and Clover - which stand elegantly in their own right.  X is all right, and while I am a fan, it suffers from commercialism and wishy-washiness and being jam-packed with more characters than CLAMP can appropriately develop.

On the other hand, I dislike Yuu Watase stuff. So many people love them, but I just cringe. So sorry, Yuu Watase fans.  Nothing against it, cause I read from beginning to end, too. Her ideas are fabulous, her main characters make me want to gouge my eyes out.  There's just his...lack of finesse in main character execution...Miaka, for instance.  Watase's best series that I have read was Ceres, but even that suffered from some fatalistic character problems and over-the-top drama.  (And I like over-the-top drama, but again - execution problems.)

I guess in the end...I'm more of a Shounen gal...

 

[Miso]

I really like MARS - it's one of the best Shoujo mangas I've read out there. It's more serious than most of the stuff you can find.
Although the funny mangas are good, too.
Another one I definitely love is Hot Blooded Woman. That is surely funny (although there are many stereotypes).
I also like Goong - it's a korean manhwa. To read more about this go here.
Another great one is Please Save My Earth. The art is very bleh at the beginning but it gets better. The story was really thrilling, I couldn't take my hands off this.

There are so many good series I really can't decide....

(Tanuki-dono: I also don't love Yuu Watase's stuff. The story isn't that awesome and I dislike the similarities between the different mangas of here. There isn't much difference. Same goes for Arina Takemura.

PS: Ayashi No Ceres was also the best form Watase from my point of view.)

 

[Tanuki-dono]

Another great one is Please Save My Earth. The art is very bleh at the beginning but it gets better. The story was really thrilling, I couldn't take my hands off this.
(Tanuki-dono: I also don't love Yuu Watase's stuff. The story isn't that awesome and I dislike the similarities between the different mangas of here. There isn't much difference. Same goes for Arina Takemura.

PS: Ayashi No Ceres was also the best form Watase from my point of view.)

PLEASE SAVE MY EARTH! Oh, I totally forgot about this one. Back in the day, I got my hands on the old anime release over here, and from that point on I was writing little teeny-bopper letters, begging them to bring over the manga as well. Here we are years later, and the manga is actually here. I'm collecting of course. Can't resist. The story outweighs the art, at least - in the beginning. Later on, as you said, the art gets quite nice. It's such a nostalgic, character-driven story. I adore Rin to pieces. I used to listen to the chanting piano-ish theme on the anime soundtrack called simply "Rin" while scouring the net for what little images of the manga I could find. Ah, those were the days. But yeah - I love that one so so much! I was mentally damaged after being exposed however....I wanted my own "Kyaa" from that point on.

(P.S. Thank God I am not alone...)

 

[One Eyed Sharingan]

Favorite Shoujo manga????? i gotta say 'Nodame Cantabile', 'Karin', ...can't think about the other....

 

[Idile]

I'd totally say Fruits basket! and even though i'm a girl.. I really don't read much shoujo.. weird.. but Fruits basket is really worth it. So no wonder some guys read it

 

[Gold Knight]

Guess I should try that one sometimes.

 

[Miso]

Fruits Basket is really nice. I saw the anime and it's quite good.
My sis says that the anime and the manga are very similar only that some of the stories are in another order.
So - if you are too lazy to read - you can also watch the anime.

 

[Idile]

well the anime is okay too, but it is only halfway of the manga and hides some of the essential facts of the manga. Anyway the manga is harder to get too.. and Edited Mangas of chapters are only up to 107, whereas later chapters can only be found raw ( and that hardly too) on the net with translations in other pages too, lol. And the manga is about to end in 7 chapters or so, so .. possibly you could have the chance to know all of the story soon

 

[Tamerlane]

Ah I love Fruits Basket, both the anime and the manga.

Anyway the manga is harder to get too.. and Edited Mangas of chapters are only up to 107, whereas later chapters can only be found raw ( and that hardly too) on the net with translations in other pages too, lol. And the manga is about to end in 7 chapters or so, so .. possibly you could have the chance to know all of the story soon

I think that I may have posted this link elsewhere but this is the only place that I am aware of that is doing the up to date translations of Fruits Basket:

http://shadow.randomfandom.com/

Currently the manga is up to chapter 124 with chapter 125 due out on April 5th 2006. Also it seems to me that it may be ending here soon. I dont want to give anything away but some very important things have just occured.

Guess I should try that one sometimes.

I would recomend it. The US release of the manga is up to volume 13 as of this April and the Japanese is up to volume 21. So all things considered it is not tooo far behind especially since in last summer they were releaseing a volume every month.

Also like they were saying the anime actually follows the manga very closely up to volume 8. It should not be too difficult to get a hold of if you want to download or even buy it.

 

[Gold Knight]

Cool, Tamerlane

I'll try it ASAP and let you guys know how I like it.

 

[shinwei]

Editing shoujo manga is really annoying though because of all the sparklies :P

That said I remember editing a few chapters of Penguin Brothers back in the day.

 

[SilvaShado]

I really liked the Fruits Basket anime. It'll be a long time before I get the manga.

As for manga, my favorite at the moment is Absolute Boyfriend. I'm enjoying most of the manga in Shojo Beat, but Absolute Boyfriend is my favorite. It's really hard to decide which one I like better - Night or Soshi. Sometimes I just wish she'd end up with both, but it's not that kind of manga. ^_~

I'm also a CLAMP fan. I really liked Suki, The One I Love, and Wish. Chobits and Legend of Chun Hyang were very good, but I'm not sure if they classify as Shojo. I have read Clover, and while it's beautiful, I couldn't make any sense of the story. I'm hoping to read more CLAMP sometime, but I can't buy anymore manga for a while. Does anyone have any suggestions, though, for when I do start up again?

Mars is one I've wanted to get into. Glad to hear so many positive thoughts on it.

Over the Rainbow was a cute one volume shojo title. It's been a while since I've read it though...

Anyone read Unearthly? There's only 1 volume so far, but it's fantastic.

I've watched Ceres and most of Fushugi Yugi... They have a lot of potential, but yeah, her characterization sucks. Nothing ever goes anywhere it seems. I wanted to tear out my hair sometimes at what the characters were doing.

I know this is a manga thread, but I just finished watching Angelic Layer anime and wanted to say how awesome it was! It has very strong characters and story. It's funny and sad, and a bit nerve-racking at points. I'm pretty sure I've seen the manga out, so I highly recommend checking it out.

 

[Gold Knight]

Chobits and Legend of Chun Hyang were very good, but I'm not sure if they classify as Shojo.

I think they are, for different reasons. The art and story in Chobits are more typical of Shoujo comics than Shonen comics. And Legend of Chun Hyang has a strong leading female character. (Of course, so does Claymore, but she's definitely not a typical leading female character, more like a killing machine.)

 

[Idile]

ah yes.. the site has good translations. Although it is harder to find the raws on the net, lol takes some time to.. and the ending of the manga is official, you can really see it if you read chapter 125 and some earlier ones- the change in characters really tells you that this is where it's going to end.