Been on a bit of a Josei kick.
Reread Akiko Higashimura’s Kakukaku Shikajika which led me to finally check out Tokyo Tarareba girls, which is a really nice series about trying to find love in your thirties, with a kind of surrealist bent to the situations, where sending a text turns into a war movie etc.
Then I went back and checked out her early stuff, and seeing how reverent Kakukaku Shikajika is to Ai Yazawa, and then seeing how much Higashimura’s early art looks like Ai Yazawa art, I would love to go back and time and see how earth shattering her work was as it was released.
Akiko is so funny compared to her peers, and seems to be more of an optimist, compared to someone like Ai Yazawa or Kyoko Okazaki, which is kind of nice in short series like Tarareba girls.
I’m normally not a fan of manga or movies talking about other real life manga or movies, but it feels like for some reason, having these characters in Tokyo talk about what western movies leak through (Sex and the City, and weirdly guardians of the galaxy, and even doing an extended bit about how men love the Dark Knight) it was cool to see what travels across borders.
This isn’t particularly informative but most of these Josei series I’ve checked out have such a nice literary vibe that made me realize a lot of the seinen or boys stuff I’ve read that I like is pulling a lot from the monologing that’s common here.
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As someone who would like to get into 4 koma manga, does anyone have any recommendations?
Bocchi the rock and Azumanga Daioh are kind of obvious but quite good. The only other one I’m really familiar with is… Lucky Star which is fine I guess.
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Do you use anything to track manga series you read?
I still use good old baka-updates
i love that it’s still 2000s html, huge database, very few people.
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I use anilist because it has built in automatic tracking with my reader ! also most my online friends are there so its fun to keep up on what we are keeping up with
it does feel a little cringe weeaboo since its only asian manga and anime but i wish any other tracking social media (letterboxd, goodreads, etc) were as well made
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My reader also supports baka-updates and anilist!
Personally i like it because the database is just crazy absurd.
The one thing i dislike is that due to the website rules some series aren’t marked as updated when someone solo-scanlates it.
It is rare, but in the 2020s some people can translate and edit manga on their own.
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I checked my reader and it unfortunately doesn’t include baka updates
anilist is mostly nice because its a really simplified social media platform (for all of the issues that brings)
the database is pretty thorough (although every time I’ve tried adding something they weren’t open for submissions which is frustrating)
still its fun to see what all my friends are reading on jump update day and what they keep up with week after week or whatever short yuri series they binge in a weekend
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Finished Chobits. Saw the anime in 2005 and decided to read after 20 years.
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