Whatcha reading? Current books/manga and recommendations thread!

[Johncarllos]

Howdy, first new thread in a bit. I've been reading a fair bit lately and I'm looking for recommendations.

Viz media has their $2/month subscription for everything shonen jump ever so I've caught up on My Hero Academia, My Hero Academia Vigilantes, and have been keeping up with the other major ones. Might look into reading original DragonBall. (seriously that subscription is a helluva value, and the app isn't bad, even if the official translations can be.... lame)

I recently read "All You Need is Kill" which was adapted into to the movie "The Edge of Tomorrow" which I enjoyed.

Just now (like half an hour ago) I finished Demon Slayer: KIMETSU NO YAIBA, which I only started because it won some anime of the year awards a few years ago. Little did I know that the manga ended last month, so my timing was perfect. Typical shonen power scaling, but I feel like it ended at a sweet spot before it got too silly. Fun and memorable characters, too.

I've also gotten and read all of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, partway into Part 8. Think I'll wait until part 8 is done to finish it. I agree with many that part 7 is top tier.

Currently listening to the audiobook for "The Stand" by Stephen King (about 30 hours left of 48-ish-- topical considering the pandemic). In the last year I also listened to the Witcher series again (3rd time through, 2nd on audiobooks), and also did The Hobbit/LOTR and Silmarillion last year.


I think most of all I'm looking for new manga recommendations, but I do have some spare audible credits that I'm on the fence about. Didn't think I'd like Stephen King so much, so I'm considering listening through his bestsellers then getting into the Dark Tower series, just to have another year to two worth of content to listen to. I get about 5-10 hours/week of audiobook listening between running/walking and driving. Once I get back to working from the office after labor day (ugh) that'll increase with my commute.

So: Any recommendations based on the above?

Also please share what you've been reading/listening to!

[TheRedPriest]

If you have Viz, then Chainsaw Man is a must.  Dr. Stone is as well.  If you like romcons We Never Learn is fantastic.  Two new series also just started, Magu-chan: God of Destruction and Ayakashi Triangle, both of which I'm liking so far (though one is only two chapters in and the other premiered this week).

[Johncarllos]

I jumped on Bone Collection when it started a 8-ish weeks ago and it seems a'ight so far, somewhere between Bleach and Demon Slayer, but boobier.

That's my 3rd recommendation for Chainsaw Man. I'll probably start reading it tonight!

I've also heard really good things about Dr. Stone, so considering I've been plowing through 200-ish chapters a week at minimum I can probably catch up on both of those real quick. My job has lots of rendering/publishing/wait times so I can generally sneak in a bunch during the work day.

Might check out the other new ones as well, thanks for recommendations, Rez!

[Speed Racer]

Viz also handled Golgo 13 and Video Girl Ai, so you should check them out as well, and I thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink they did the Guyver manga as well way way way back in the day.

As for what I'm reading, I have kids, so currently it's "Thelma the Unicorn", which is by the same author as "Pig the Pug". Not really my cup of tea, but I've read worse children's literature.

[TheRedPriest]

Is that Pepa's friend?

[Johncarllos]

I'm almost caught up on Chainsaw Man. Fun and chaotic, but I think it's biggest drawback is that so many supporting characters are generic looking and it's hard to remember/care about who has died and whether or not the person who just died actually mattered or not.

The action is incredible though, and the visceral destruction and gore is top notch. I also wish they had kicked it off with a little more backstory.

I'll probably be jumping into Dr. Stone later tonight/tomorrow.


I have 29 hours left in "The Stand" audiobook, and maaaaaaan I am pumped to see where its going!

[ASR]

best manga i've ever read is sunny by taiyo matsumoto. and they're finally translating ping pong, too!! also really enjoying delicious in dungeon, beastars, and mob psycho 100. jojo is a fav, too.

been getting into ursula k leguin lately. the left hand of darkness blew me away, and i'm partway through the dispossessed now. incredible. easily my new favorite sci-fi author.

also slowly chipping away at city of quartz, about the history of LA w/ a leftist slant. dark, highly-researched stuff about everything the corrupt real estate land deals to the function of noir as a lens to cut through the facade and show the city for what it really is.

[Speed Racer]

Is that Pepa's friend?

It is not. I don't think my kids have ever really watched Pepa. Right now they watch Pokemon Sun & Moon (not terrible), Sonic X (complete crap), Paw Patrol (complete crap), and whatever is on PBS Kids (minus Caillou, WHICH THEY WILL NEVER SEE).

[TheRedPriest]

I'm almost caught up on Chainsaw Man. Fun and chaotic, but I think it's biggest drawback is that so many supporting characters are generic looking and it's hard to remember/care about who has died and whether or not the person who just died actually mattered or not.

The action is incredible though, and the visceral destruction and gore is top notch. I also wish they had kicked it off with a little more backstory.

I'll probably be jumping into Dr. Stone later tonight/tomorrow.


I have 29 hours left in "The Stand" audiobook, and maaaaaaan I am pumped to see where its going!

Dr. Stone is amazing, but it does start off a bit slow.  The last chapter of volume 2 is where it really starts and picks up.  Reading it on one go should make it easy to through what is essentially a prologue/set up.

[Johncarllos]

I'm already on chapter 58 of Dr. Stone. The art is great, but it's not grabbing me like ChainsawMan did. I think its positivity and lack of depravity are kind of getting old. It's also just way too 'whoa science'. Like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of Manga. Enjoying it well enough, but I can't help but think that my college physics, chem, and biology courses make it harder for me to read, in that I understand just how outlandish its getting.

[TheRedPriest]

I'm sure having an actual science background makes the fantasy stand out more.  It's not suppose to be textbook real though.  I mean they have human petrification for goodness sake.  But the art is great and I love the characters to death.  They have really good interactions.  That's what I enjoy the most about it.

[Mikero]

Great thread idea.

Novels

Most recently finished a novel called "A Legend Of The Future" by Agustín de Rojas, it's an 80's hard SF novel out of Cuba that was only translated in the past 5 years. First half was super dry for my tastes (and I like hard SF so I'm OK with dry), but the second half had much more interesting concepts. I gave it 3 stars.

Also read a book called "Black, White, Other: In Search of Nina Armstrong" by Joan Steinau Lester in March. It was fine. It's about a biracial teen and her troubles with finding her place after parents divorced. Them being two different races means she's torn between two worlds. Since I actually had this happen to me at 10 years old, I was hoping this book would highlight some interesting things about that kind of experience. It completely failed to do so and the main character is basically just doing the same crap any generic whiny teen would, just with a little race stuff peppered in at an incredibly shallow level. Over the past decade I've been reading a ton of books about race (mostly black and mixed black-white) issues, and once in a while I encounter a total dud that's lauded for some reason whether it's for adults or YA. This was one of them. Another example would be "One Drop" by Bliss Broyard.


Currently reading "Burning Chrome" by William Gibson, and then I'll be reading his more seminal works (Sprawl).

Hoping that I'm getting a box set of Liu Cixin's "Remembrance of Earth's Past" series for my birthday.

I also have a backlog of non-fiction to get to as well.

Comics

I read Descender vol. 4 recently. The series in general isn't really ground breaking (especially if you've played something like Mass Effect) but it's compelling enough. The water colour look is a nice touch that makes it stand out. This volume was a bit quick and uninteresting but I'm sure the story will pick up in the next one.


Re: The Viz conversation. I've probably mentioned it before but don't sleep on the Dragonball and Dragonball Z manga. Specifically the Vizbig editions as they have incredible quality and the full pages that Toriyama watercoloured. A lot of people just swear by the show, and it's great, but once you've read the manga it doesn't come close. Every single thing is better in the manga (art by far, storytelling in general, etc.)-- the only exception being the lack of side-stories, if you like those (I actually love the story with Pikkon and the tournament in Hell).



I'm also on Goodreads if anyone uses that. Trying to actually write more reviews there.

[Johncarllos]

I'm sure having an actual science background makes the fantasy stand out more.  It's not suppose to be textbook real though.  I mean they have human petrification for goodness sake.  But the art is great and I love the characters to death.  They have really good interactions.  That's what I enjoy the most about it.

I'm on chapter 90-ish, I think Magma might actually be my favorite character so far, as he's actually had the most growth.

I also wonder how much cringe in the repetitive vocabulary is from the Viz translations... They have some questionable ones (One Piece and One Punch Man are pretty rugged offenders, in my opinion).

[TheRedPriest]

Viz has some awful choices.  The fan translations of Dr. Stone were a lot better with Chrome.  In  "We Never Learn" they completely REMOVED Mafuyu's speech pattern.  And of course, they're STILL using "Zolo" and not "Zoro" in One-Piece.  Jokes on them though, I still have first print runs of volume 1-4 when they used the correct "Zoro" before they changed it to Zolo.

[Mikero]

That's too bad, Viz did an excellent job with Dragon Ball. I guess they put the B team on One Piece.

[Johncarllos]

I just finished Dragonball today. From what I remember of the anime, they did a spectacular job with it. Everything felt exactly how I remembered watching it.

Posted on: July 06, 2020, 06:55:20 PM

Rez, I'm also reading Magu-chan, God of Destruction. I know it's only 4 chapters long so far, but it's definitely fun.

I read all of Dragonball start to finish, and just finished The Promised Neverland. I highly recommend that one, and conveniently it just ended last month. Initially I felt uneasy about it, but by the end I ended up liking it a LOT. It reminded me a lot of the graphic novel Bone, but with the final arc being much more fulfilling, as far as world building, character consistency, and not feeling rushed.

I also finished The Stand a couple of nights ago. I haven't been so invested in the lives of fictional characters for a long time, and I find myself wishing there was more. It's that wistful feeling, especially as it's been a routine to listen to the book every day when I'm running, or when I'm driving. I was lucky that my girlfriend caught up to where I was in the book and we were able to listen to the final hours together on the couch.

In lieu of anything else in that universe, we've moved on to IT. Probably starting the Dark Tower series after that. I enjoy Stephen King's writing style a lot. It's world famous, but it may resonate with me just a bit more as I'm also a Mainer. Hell, my commute in college took me past his house every day.

I also started reading Ruroni Kenshin last night. I watched parts of the anime years ago on Toonami, but I think I'll enjoy the manga as well.

This quarantine/WFH life is making me lose myself in fictional worlds, it's kind of nice and thankfully very affordable.

[Mikero]

Let's talk books again!

I burned through Cixin Liu's "The Three-Body Problem", a chinese science-fiction novel that I 1000% recommend to anyone interested in reading something in the genre with a perspective they may not be used to. This is my favourite book in a long time. I'm currently reading the second book in the series, "The Dark Forest".

In between those two books I read the first Dune novel. I'd never seen the movie or the new movie's trailer, or anything. Knowing very little about the story, I found the first quarter (about 200/800 pages in my edition) of the book to be pretty odd and dry but it really opened up after that into something I found extremely enjoyable. Also, going through the rest of the book changed my perspective on that first quarter too. I can see why there was reverence for this story even though most people only know it's (apparently bad) movie. I have the 2nd book ready and waiting.

[TheRedPriest]

So I guess Chainsawman is ending next week.  I hope the ending doesn't feel like it just... stops.  Other than that it's been a really good series.

Haven't picked up anything new though.

[Johncarllos]

So I guess Chainsawman is ending next week.  I hope the ending doesn't feel like it just... stops.  Other than that it's been a really good series.

Haven't picked up anything new though.

Wait WHAT?! I've been reading it religiously and absolutely love it. I'm super disappointed that it's ending so soon, but it has been an amazing ride thus far.

For new manga, I've really been enjoying "Kaiju No. 8". It's typical shonen so far, but it's been fun and interesting and has a bit of a an "All You Need is Kill" vibe to it (The film 'Edge of Tomorrow' is based on that manga).

For new books, I'm on the final book in the Dark tower series. It's a bit silly and off the rails once you get to book 6, but I'm too invested at this point. It's still fun and interesting.

Also working through a reread of One Piece for the approach to issue 1000.

Mike, I've written "The Three-Body Problem" down in my list of books to look into/read, thanks for the recommendation. Dune is also in my list of books to get around to reading. I'm taking a break from Stephen King after the Dark Tower is done, gotta finish 'World War Z' then I have some podcasts to catch up on, but after those I'm gonna be thirsty for more stories.

The audio book for World War Z has a crazy cast: Max Brooks , Alan Alda , John Turturro , Rob Reiner , Mark Hamill , Alfred Molina , Simon Pegg , Henry Rollins , and Martin Scorsese are listed on the Audible page, but I believe there are more. Some accents are a little tough to understand, but it's nice to hear so many voices from so many cultures contributing.

[Speed Racer]

I got my copy of ASR's "Mr. Boop Volume III"

[Johncarllos]

I got my copy of ASR's "Mr. Boop Volume III"

That's a 10/10 book right there.

After I finished The Dark Tower series and it's side novels, I listened to NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) and I like it better than most King books I've read, haha. Relistening to The Tower series with my wife, and instead of books I've been listening to Not Another D&D Podcast, gonna see them live in January. Once I'm caught up on that I am 100% going to start the Dune books. That movie and world have really intrigued me and I'm thirsty for more.

For Manga, I've plowed through almost everything in the Viz catalog now.
-Jujutsu Kaisen is amazing, and has an incredible anime.
-Kaiju No. 8 keeps getting better, and I'm thirsty for every chapter.
-Spy x Family is a lot of fun, and is apparently getting an anime as well.
-Mashle is lot of goofy fun.
-Sakamoto Days is pretty good, it grabbed me pretty quickly and I'm excited for new chapters.
-D.Gray Man has been a long slog. It peaked somewhere around chapter 120 and it's dragging and retconning itself constantly.
-Just started Toriko, I can't help but think ASR might be a huge fan of this series.
-Seraph of the End was intriguing for the first 20-30 chapters and became a bit of a slog.
-World Trigger is much the same; great premise, but that premise hasn't been applicable to it for literally years now and it's a slog of problem solving, and tournaments. They are currently in a problem solving tournament as a qualifier for a mission, which at this rate they won't start for another 2-3 years.
-Tokyo Ghoul was worth reading, Tokyo Ghoul:Re was a weird second part but only got really good when it became more like the first part towards the end.
-Choujin X is from the same author as Tokyo Ghoul and although it's only on chapter 12, it's promising.
-Ghost Reaper Girl is just ok. I think it's also suffering from the 'great premise but after the first volume the author loses direction.'
-Dr. Stone- A lot of the same criticisms I had earlier in the thread, but it feels like it's actually reaching the final arc and I'm getting excited for it again.
-Black Clover- Great magic fightan manga. Refreshing amounts of positivity.
-Undead Unluck, the latest 25-ish chapters have been a little weird. Fast pace developments and I feel like they're going to end it soon. Enjoyable and fun.
-Witch Watch - newer, high school magic shonen, a little funny, a lot cutesy. Surprising amount of filler chapters so far though.
-Magu-Chan: God of Destruction, I stopped reading it. It was fun but literally every antagonist became an ally. Maybe I'll catch up eventually.
-One Punch Man, absolute god tier. My Number 1.
-One Piece, It's been a crazy ride for whole last year. Can't get enough.
-My Hero Academia Vigilantes: Arguably better than the main series. Also about to finish, it feels like.

Sorry, that's a long list. Current Top 5:
1. One Punch Man
2. Kaiju No. 8
3. One Piece
4. Jujutsu Kaisen
5. ChainsawMan (Even though it's not releasing anything new, I've reread it a few times and I like it more each time)

[TheRedPriest]

I highly recommend the 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love you.  I think it's my favorite harem manga ever.  And I generally don't like harem manga.  This and We Never Learn have been the only two I've truly enjoyed and loved.

I've been following Eden's Zero as well, and I like it ok.  Fairy Tale was a dumpster fire, but so far I like this one.

I'm also reading Witch Watch, and like it pretty well so far.

Neru Way of the Martial Artist and The Elusive Samurai are also holding my interest so far.

And as always, Re:Monster and Goblin Slayer drip drips out.

[Mikero]

Those Cixin Liu books were amazing. Of the three in that series I mentioned previously, my favourite has to be second one "The Dark Forest". Really changed how I think about some things and left an indelible mark on how I take in other sci-fi stories now. Highly recommended sci-fi stuff.

I'm re-reading Dune Messiah now. Then I will probably read Hyperion next.

[Johncarllos]

Let's talk books again!

I burned through Cixin Liu's "The Three-Body Problem", a chinese science-fiction novel that I 1000% recommend to anyone interested in reading something in the genre with a perspective they may not be used to. This is my favourite book in a long time. I'm currently reading the second book in the series, "The Dark Forest".

In between those two books I read the first Dune novel. I'd never seen the movie or the new movie's trailer, or anything. Knowing very little about the story, I found the first quarter (about 200/800 pages in my edition) of the book to be pretty odd and dry but it really opened up after that into something I found extremely enjoyable. Also, going through the rest of the book changed my perspective on that first quarter too. I can see why there was reverence for this story even though most people only know it's (apparently bad) movie. I have the 2nd book ready and waiting.

Those Cixin Liu books were amazing. Of the three in that series I mentioned previously, my favourite has to be second one "The Dark Forest". Really changed how I think about some things and left an indelible mark on how I take in other sci-fi stories now. Highly recommended sci-fi stuff.

I'm re-reading Dune Messiah now. Then I will probably read Hyperion next.

I've seen a LOT of buzz about the Three Body Problem. It keeps creeping up in unexpected places, sooo I guess my book queue will be similar to yours about 12 months ago, Dune and Cixin Liu.

I highly recommend the 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love you.  I think it's my favorite harem manga ever.  And I generally don't like harem manga.  This and We Never Learn have been the only two I've truly enjoyed and loved.

I've been following Eden's Zero as well, and I like it ok.  Fairy Tale was a dumpster fire, but so far I like this one.

I'm also reading Witch Watch, and like it pretty well so far.

Neru Way of the Martial Artist and The Elusive Samurai are also holding my interest so far.

And as always, Re:Monster and Goblin Slayer drip drips out.

Got any easy sources for 100 Girlfriends and We Never Learn? I need something for after I finish Toriko.

Witch Watch has been wishy-washy from week to week. It has been way too meta, which is great for people in the know but I'm a bit too casual for these filler arcs and stereotype characters.

Neru and the Elusive Samurai are totally off my radar, worth checking out for 18 and 40 chapters, respectively? I feel like if something breaks 40 chapters in Jump it's got SOMETHING going for it.

[TheRedPriest]

I get 100 Girlfriends from
https://xunscans.xyz/manga/the-100-girlfriends-who-really-really-really-really-really-love-you/

I was reading We Never Learn week to week with now extinct scanlations and then Viz's official releases.  I'm sure it's on one of the remaining aggregate sites.

[Mikero]

I've seen a LOT of buzz about the Three Body Problem. It keeps creeping up in unexpected places, sooo I guess my book queue will be similar to yours about 12 months ago, Dune and Cixin Liu.

Nice man, let me know what you think. The Three-Body Problem has some interesting stuff about China's cultural revolution and history and that affects some of the viewpoint for this sci-fi. But the concept of a Dark Forest adds a new layer to how I watch/read science fiction and even some real world science stuff.

[Johncarllos]

I've seen a LOT of buzz about the Three Body Problem. It keeps creeping up in unexpected places, sooo I guess my book queue will be similar to yours about 12 months ago, Dune and Cixin Liu.

Nice man, let me know what you think. The Three-Body Problem has some interesting stuff about China's cultural revolution and history and that affects some of the viewpoint for this sci-fi. But the concept of a Dark Forest adds a new layer to how I watch/read science fiction and even some real world science stuff.

I did the first 3 Dune books and the Three Body Trilogy.

Reading the synopsis for God Emperor of Dune makes me glad I stopped when I did. The first book was soooooo good, and things just kept going more and more off the rails.

I really liked the cultural lens of Three Body, the final chapters of the first book were so on the nose I'm surprised it wasn't censored, based on what I know. I really enjoyed not knowing much about the series going in, but I think the first book would have been better had I not known the general premise, there would have been a lot more fun mystique.

I was shocked to find that Alpha/Beta/Promixa Centauri is actually a 3 star system, and is the closest to us at a little more than 4 LY. Really grounded Sci-Fi.

My favorite parts of the trilogy are definitely later in the crisis era up to the deterrence era, exploring that new world and the unraveling of the human overconfidence with the return to impending doom, leading up to Luo Ji's 'final' journey. The last book took some bigger risks and wasted a lot of potential fun Sci-Fi. The coded stories were probably my favorite part of the final book, some of the messages were easy to guess at their meaning, but the reveal of the others was really satisfying.

Appreciate the recommendation!

I recently finished the Martian (the movie did it justice), and am currently working on Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Salem's Lot is weird because I live pretty much exactly where that fictional town of Jerusalem's Lot is. I was on a bike ride down to Portland last weekend while listening to it and going past landmarks and riding on roads that exist in the book made the eeriness all that much more overwhelming. King grew up around here, my Great Grandmother was one of his elementary school teachers.

I get a lot of novelty from King books. 11/22/63 is next on the list, as one of the major story places is right down the road from me, haha.

[Winged Warrior]

I got my hands on this cute manga called "Catch these hands" that I'm really into.   There's only two volumes though so bully on that.

Catch these hands is, like, a story about a girl who used to be a high school delinquent but is considering going normie at, like, 24?  She meets a rival at a clothes shop looking for business casual attire, Said rival challenge, The protagonist needs to fight her, and if the protag loses, they gotta date.

It's pretty gay, I love it.