Manga

I have read manga since I realized it existed. It started with Sailor Moon and Pokemon. That was how I first realized that manga was around. Little did I know how long it had been around and how many series there were out there. Once I found the manga section at Barnes and Nobles I started buying them and reading the series that I found interesting. Usually I read shounen or shojo mangas. I remember reading parts of the InuYasha series by Rumiko and I would pick up anything that Clamp had done. Piece by piece I gained over 200 volumes of manga. Now, with my family moving, they've got to figure out what to do with all the manga. And I still do read manga online. I wish I would have realized how many scanlation sites there were back when I bought all of that. It's much easier to read all of them online than to go out and spend all your money buying them.

So, though I don't read manga as much as I used to, I still do catch up on the ones that used to interest me. For instance, there is still one series that I buy in the store, which is Saiyuki by Minekura. I don't know what it is about that manga. I think it's just one that I will never get tired of. When you've stuck by a manga for 27 or so volumes, you want to stay caught up. Although the 27 volumes haven't been finished in the US, so that's why I keep up. For some reason, none of the scanlation sites really keep up with the newer volumes of Saiyuki. But I think one of the reasons that I stay dedicated to this manga is because you can see the development of Minekura's artistic style. Here's a scan of the first volume, and here's one of her newest updates. There is such a difference in style, and I love looking back at it and seeing the differences. Sure, it was the story that interested me at first, not the art. But I still love looking back and seeing the development.

There's another manga that I actually just read over the weekend. "Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle" by Clamp. I've been reading it for a while now, since it was first released in English in 2004. I owned the first few volumes, but the rest I read online because they've been keeping up with the scanlations as they're released in Japan. Over the past few days I had the chance to read up on the chapters I hadn't read before. Which also brought me to the end of the series. It was completed just recently. And I've got to say... I wasn't a big fan of Tsubasa. It was all very, very confusing. If I tried to explain what had happened, I couldn't. There was too much going on and it kept going in circles and circles. And as for the style of art, well.. I've always adored Clamp's art, but this one was different. It wasn't the art that bothered me, but the toning. They had very messy toning that made it hard to tell what was going on. Here is an example. Their line art would be fine, but they add in this gritty toning and swirly energy waves everywhere. It just makes things even more confusing. I stuck with the story in hopes that I would understand what was going on eventually. But even after it's ending, I don't.

When it comes down to it, I won't stop reading manga. Or things like manga. I've sort of moved on to webcomics, but they're like the scanlations of manga I've read anyway. So it's not going far from my roots in manga.