My Anime/Manga List

So now that I've introduced the concept of anime and manga to you (in this post) . I'm going to continue my manga and anime rant by talking about some that I personally enjoyed and/or have checked out. 


Skip Beat 

Genre: shoju (check this post to see what this means )

Story: Kyouko Mogami lived solely for her childhood friend Shoutaro "Shou" Fuwa. She follows Shou to Tokyo so that he may realize his dream of becoming a famous singer. When his dream is realized, Kyouko overhears the truth behind his decision to bringing her with him: he was using her as a maid.

Shocked and enraged, Kyouko swears to take revenge by outdoing him in show business. With a new look and a new attitude, she joins LME, the agency where Ren Tsuruga (Shou's rival and the #1 actor of LME) works, in the hopes of achieving her goal of destroying Shou's pride.

Along the way, she discovers her true self, makes new friends (and enemies), and finds herself at the heart of some interesting situations that will change her life, and the lives of all others involved, forever.(Source: mangafox.com)

Form: Manga and Anime both. 

Manga is ongoing 

Anime has 25 episodes. Anime is not currently dubbed in English but can be seen with English subtitles. 

My Thoughts: I am a HUGE fan of skip beat. I just love it. It's not exactly a romance , it's more about a girl/woman's journey of finding her identity in a way. The best part is it's so hilarious sometimes. This is one of the manga's that I have to step back from time to time otherwise I become obsessive about it. 

Manga art: Ren tsuruga

Both the manga and the anime are great. The anime actually ends at a very weird point, but you can easily follow the story in the manga. 

I actually watched the anime of this first and then followed the story by reading the manga. Let's just say that there is hardly any romance in the anime but it does start off in the manga. Be advised that the romance is REALLY slow so if you're one of the impatient types who'll only be interested to read this because of the romance , well you have been warned. 

The art of the manga in my opinion is much better than what it seems to be like in the anime. Especially the details. When I was watching the anime again(YES I've seen it twice because I have a short term memory) after reading the manga I noticed that one character that really shines through more in the manga art is Ren Tsuruga. 

Kyoko(Main character's) expressions are just priceless. She's just too cute and naive but once she gets fired up nobody can beat this chick. 

Source

Source

Manga art collages found on Google(to give you an idea of the art) :

SOURCE

SOURCE

This is the first time I've tried to find collages related to this manga and they're so pretty. I think the art is spectacular. I 

wish I could draw so well. 

Now this second collage, well all of the people in this are the same character. Let's just say she's really good at changing her image. Read the manga or watch the anime to find out more. 

Ouran High School Host Club

Genre:Shouju 
Story:Haruhi is a poor tomboyish student at a school for the ultra-wealthy, and is able to attend because of a scholarship, but is unable to even afford a uniform. One day, she stumbles across the peculiar but very popular Ouran Host Club. She tries to leave, but accidentally breaks a vase, and is unable to pay for it. She's told that she'll have to stay and do odd jobs. That is, until they decide she would be more valuable as a club member. 

Form:Manga and Anime 
Manga is ongoing.
Anime is over. It is available in English Dub. 

My Thoughts: Let's just say I've recently started to read manga (I only used to read Skip beat!) so as I saw this before I've only seen the anime but I found the anime to be outrageous and just hilarious. If you can't stand characters that are a little dumb I would stray away from this but you should really give this one a shot. 

SOURCE

Bleach 

Genre: Shounen 

Story: Ichigo Kurosaki has always been able to see ghosts, but this ability doesn't change his life nearly as much as his close encounter with Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper and member of the mysterious Soul Society. While fighting a Hollow, an evil spirit that preys on humans who display psychic energy, Rukia attempts to lend Ichigo some of her powers so that he can save his family, but much to her surprise, Ichigo absorbs every last drop of her energy. Now a full-fledged Soul Reaper himself, Ichigo quickly learns that the world he inhabits is one full of dangerous spirits, and along with Rukia, who is slowly regaining her powers, it's Ichigo's job to both protect the innocent from Hollows and to help the spirits themselves find peace.

Form: Manga and Anime Both
Manga is ongoing
Anime has ended or is on hiatus. Status is unclear but for now it is finished. 
(Episode list and details )

SOURCE

This is one which I watch on and off. I haven't read the manga yet but the anime is addictive especially the first major arcs (An arc would merely be a smaller storyline that is a part of the whole) . The only thing to watch out for while watching this anime is the filler arcs. 

What are filler arcs?
Filler arcs are basically episodes in the anime that are not part of the original manga.Usually they do not relate to the main story.They are sometimes added when there is an ongoing manga and the anime has caught up to the manga. Instead of going on a break the anime creators make up a filler episode. In bleach there are filler arc seasons. 

There is this filler season of Bleach called the Bount ARC , this is the reason I stopped watching this anime. It was so boring. Then I found this filler list and just skipped the Bount arc . 

SOURCE

I'll admit I haven't read the manga but I'll most probably read it if I ever manage to finish the anime. The manga art of this seems pretty good as well. I'm not as addicted to this as Skip Beat! because sometimes the characters that are fighting don't interest me but then I just skip those and get to the good parts and there are quite a FEW good parts. This is one anime which is easily available online and is dubbed in English.

Point to note , I love some of the bleach soundtracks so much. Some of them are really good for a workout. 

Manga art collage: 

SOURCE

The Prince of Tennis

Genre:Shounen , Sports

Story:Ryoma Echizen just joined the Seishun Academy's tennis team, which is known for being one of the most competitive teams in Japan. Its members are incredibly talented, gifted, and athletic. With rigorous and extremely intense practices, the upperclassmen of the team expect the very best from themselves and they expect even more from the new members of the team. While most of the freshmen are on pins and needles hoping they won't get cut from the team, Ryoma Echizen is confident, cool, and collected. Some might even say he's cocky, but at least he's got the skills to back up his attitude. With his virtually unreturnable "twist serve," Ryoma is sure to make the starting team. 
Join Ryoma and the other first years, as they train hard, make friends, and try to find a place for themselves on the team. Ryoma Echizen is the Prince of Tennis. He may be ready for the Seishun Academy tennis team, but are THEY ready for HIM?

By the way, the Tennis skills in this series is completely beyond normal human standards and includes but is not limited to burning holes in your opponents rackets, striking your opponent so hard he flies several dozen meters, travelling in a spiral in mid air and even shutting down your opponents senses so that they cannot see, hear or feel (somehow) and therefore, has been put under the "Fantasy" genre.Form:
Anime and Manga.
Manga is completed but there is a spin-off/continuation called New Prince of Tennis that is ongoing.
Anime is available in English Dub and is completed.

My Thoughts:
I was OBSESSED with this anime. I can't believe this anime almost slipped my mind. I haven't seen it for a long time I guess because I've seen all the episodes. It's a sports manga and I just love the main character. He's moody and basically a child tennis prodigy. It's just great! 

I haven't read the manga though.

SOURCE

Detective School Q

Genre:Shounen ,Detective mysteries 

Story:Kyu's greatest desire is to become a detective. To fulfill his wish, he goes to take the entrance exam to get into the detective school run by Dan Morihiko, one of the most famous detectives ever! At the exam he meets Megu, Kinta, Kazuma, and Ryu as they all try to pass the grueling three-part exam. Kyu wants to solve mysteries, and he gets his wish: his first real case appears in the midst of the exam!

Form:

Manga and Anime. Manga is ongoing but anime is complete. Anime is available in English dub but it was almost impossible to find it in english dub online for me.

My Thoughts:

This is one I have watched the anime and read the manga. The anime I saw on television and it was in English but when I tried to watch it again I couldn't find the English dubbed version for some reason but maybe it is available somewhere. The anime might seem juvenile but the mysteries are pretty interesting and some of them are really ingenious. I saw the anime first but the manga art is much better.

Please note that sometimes this can be found under the title TANTEI GAKUEN Q.

SOURCE

Alice Academy/Gakuen Alice

Genre:Shojo 

Story:Young Mikan runs away to Tokyo to follow her best friend, Hotaru, who has been enrolled in an exclusive, secretive private school for geniuses. But it turns out that Alice Academy is a lot more than meets the eye. If Mikan wants to stay by Hotaru's side, she has to both pass the strange "entrance exam" and face the even greater challenge of befriending her very odd new classmates. Whether it's Hotaru's gift for inventing gadgets, the cranky Natsume's fire-casting ability, or Professor Narumi's control of human pheromones, everyone at the school has some sort of special talent. But what ability, if any, does Mikan possess? Mikan is going to have to rely on her courage and spunk if she's going to stay in school, or even stay alive!

Form:Manga and Anime.

Both manga and anime are complete.

Anime is available in English Dub but as with Detective School Q , I wasn't able to find it readily

online.

My Thoughts:

This is one manga in which the manga is much more complex and layered than the anime. The 

anime just focuses on the juvenile beginnings and finishes before the best part begins . I did see

the anime before reading the manga and I did enjoy the anime but even when I was pretty 

young I thought the anime was a little juvenile and was a little hard to connect with the main character.

The world building is very interesting though and I hung on for the main mystery which the anime

does not touch upon. The manga is much better.But some of the times it's easier to understand

the comedy in the anime.

Manga art :

SOURCE This is a cover page not part of main story

Okay I think I'm going to stop now. I might make a part 2 but right now the only other

one I can think of is Black Cat(which is also a pretty awesome one)

Holly Letson was nice enough to point out some legal sources of streaming anime

"FUNiMation's site streams anime, and that is perfectly legal. So does VIZ Media, which is also perfectly legal. Also, some anime by those company stream legally on Hulu as well. And, I do believe that Cartoon Network has up legal streaming animes as well."

 I tried to cover a wide range of anime and manga.Thanks to this post I actually remembered some of my favorites. 

THOUGHTS? What are your favourite anime/manga ?

Which of these has caught your attention?

*Please note that all the images in these posts are not owned by me. If you own any of these images and want them removed or want to be credited please get in touch with me.Only the image of Random post is created and owned by me. 

Review: Crash Into You

Crash into You (Pushing the Limits #3)

by Katie McGarry

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes the explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane. 

The girl with straight A's, designer clothes, and the perfect life - that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. 

One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker - a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 

Isaiah has secrets too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks - no matter how angelic she might look. But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

Source: Publisher (Thanks MiraINK!) and Netgalley (Thanks HarlequinTEEN!)

US COVER . *SWOOOOON*

My Thoughts:

I love Katie McGarry I really do but I have to say that Dare You To wasn't as good as Pushing The Limits. Crash Into You is better than the second but not as good as the first in my opinion. Unfortunately now that we've read the first two books in the series it seems as if the books have conformed to that specific formula. Dare You To kept your attention because you expected something different. Crash Into You does not stray from the main formula due to which it causes some fatigue in the reader in the beginning but the author introduces concepts that really fascinated me in this book. I was fascinated by the drag racing and cars aspect of this novel. It added something new and exciting to the novel. 

Isaiah is a fascinating character. I loved reading the chapters which were from his point of view. I always liked him a lot. He seemed like the most decent of the Noah-Beth-Isaiah trio and he is. I like seeing books in which nice guys prevail. I mean he's tattooed and messed up but he's not an @$$ . He pays his debts (Game of Thrones reference :P)

Rachel is a character I have mixed feelings about. Sometimes she came off as whiny. I mean she's a rich kid. Sometimes her problems just seemed insignificant compared to Noah. But sometimes I could really relate to the kid. It's not easy standing up for yourself . There's this scene near the end that I really loved because she shone through in it.

I loved the family dynamic in this. I loved the scenes in which the scenes in which Rachel's family was being adorably normal. The seven brothers dynamic was very interesting.

The plot is interesting and the story manages to hold your attention. I'm not sure about the characters on which the sequel is going to be based on but it is Katie McGarry and her books are addictive so I will read it. I hope she writes something different though , I want to read something different from her now that completely breaks this series established 'rules'.

Overall, this book is interesting and much better than it's predecessor in my opinion. 


My Rating:

3.5/5

Almost a four, though. 

What are your thoughts? 

Introduction to Anime/Manga[A.K.A I'm back for now]

So I know I haven't posted a blog post with my "voice" aka thoughts for a long time. Truth is I've started a new chapter in my life and I'm finding it hard to write. Also posting is not only about writing it's about formatting as well, which takes ages and is something which I am not able to do properly from my phone. In short, I'm sorry and I'll try to keep posting and become more organized now. 

Now usually when my exams start I go on a romance binge. Basically I'm one of those people who can't concentrate if a plot is too interesting , in a typical romance you know how it ends so you don't have an urge to stop studying and read till the end. This time instead of going on a romance binge I went on an anime and manga binge and it made me realize I've never broached this subject on my blog before. 

It's not like I'm new to anime or manga but I've just never talked about it before.So I thought I would get over my radio silence and maybe introduce my readers to something new. 

First question , WHAT is Manga?

This is the answer that trusty Google provides : 
manga

ˈmaŋgə/

noun

1. a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, typically aimed at adults as well as children.

Second question, What is anime? 

anime

ˈ

anɪmeɪ,ˈanɪmə/

noun

1. a style of Japanese film and television animation, typically aimed at adults as well as children.

What I think anime is: Manga that is animated. I know there are animes that are not based on manga but that's how I usually think of anime . 

Now that the concept has been introduced. There are basically two types of manga/anime (this is just what I understand I'm not an expert in this field) 

1. Shoju (Lit. "Young woman". Anime and manga intended for the adolescent to teenage female demographic. Source: wikipedia)
2. Shonen ( Lit. "Young man". Anime and manga intended for the adolescent to teenage male demographic . Source: wikipedia)

Basically shoju is romance and shonen is action and fighting. The meaning is a little stereotypical and there can be romance in shonen as well but I'm trying to make it simplistic here. 

This is what a manga page looks like 

SOURCE

This is like a cover page but it's usually black and white and the text is written pretty much like it is in the image above. 

What an anime looks like:

I've attached a .gif of the anime based on the manga above. 

Source

So I hope everyone has got the basics now. I was planning to straightaway write a post on my animes/manga I'm obsessed with but a lot of my friends aren't really aware of the basic concepts, so I thought I might as well do this post. 

There are various sites where you can read manga and watch anime. As you might already know I don't live in USA or Japan so it's not like I have easy access to buying anime or manga to read or watch. There are various sites you can watch or read anime from but keep in mind these sites aren't legal . I for one will buy my favorites in a heartbeat if I get my hands on them somehow but if you want to TRY before you buy , you can. It's easier to try out anime because it's possible some come on your television and you haven't noticed it yet. 

So I finish off with a meme from one of my favourite anime/manga. Keep a lookout for my post with a list/rant about manga/anime I've read! 

THOUGHTS?