Ghost in the Shell - Masamune ShirowWell, I had to include this one. Ghost in the Shell's anime probably introduced a lot of people to Cyberpunk. Infinity is more Cyberprep and the later TV Series follows suits, but this manga is a pure gritty romp through a Special Forces Police Task Force that deals with some quite serious opponents. I don't like it.
I love the Stand Alone Complex and 2nd Gig series, I even found the movies to be quite enjoyable. The problem is that if the movies were your first brush with the source material, then the manga's difference is quite jarring. Ghost in the Shell's manga is wacky, strange and at times pornographic.
So, out of this list, Ghost in the Shell's manga is merely being listed for completion. If you're a fan of the many anime, take this romp at your own peril.
Akumetsu - Tabata Yoshiaki
Unfortunately, explaining my reasoning behind the inclusion of Akumetsu destroys some of its mystery. The story is about terrorists who attack known corrupt high profile politicians that always end in the terrorist's suicide. No one else is seriously harmed and the culling of the corrupt instantly makes this terrorist group famous.
The reason why it's included for Infinity is that Akumetsu is about a guy who invented the first Cube. He creates clones of himself, have them all learn different skills and they collates their memories. The entire purpose of doing so is to rid Japan of the sickness that's corruption, debt and the powerlessness of the masses.
Akumetsu is a Fight Club declaration of Project Mayhem en mass. I'm sorry that I had spoil part of the mystery to include on the list, but this is worth reading. It's very satisfying to see a Punisher-figure go after society's cancer.
Eden is beautifully drawn series about a family's rise and decline to power in a post-Apocalypse Cyber Punk epic. The first few issues is about the grandfather's survival from a plague. The next few volumes is about the father and what shapes him to be a criminal mastermind. The story concludes with the son forging his own destiny with Earth recovering from the disaster.
Parts of Eden are silly but that provides brevity instead of outright wackiness that Shirow penned. The story stays on point, even if it seems like it doesn't, for the pay off. Eden really portrays Science Fiction combat that seems to be right in Infinity's wheelhouse. The inclusion of some philosophy tends to finish the package. Eden is probably the least kid friendly selection out of all of these, so let that be my final reason for recommendation.
This is probably the most dumb, as it is part of the shounen genre of "boys comics". That's the sort of thing that Marvel and DC generally pump out. The formula for shounen is badass main character needs to fight his way through legions of guys until the author gets fed up or the series gets cancelled. See: Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, Fist of the North Star, etc.
Until Death Do Us Part is about a blind swordsman in modern times (told you he was a badass) who finds a clairvoyant girl who says they'll get married. Intrigued, he agrees to protect her and a whole host of bad guys are thrown at them.
The reason why I recommend Until Death Do Us Part is while it says "modern", the level of ridiculous of abilities and equipment screams Infinity, if not outright Batman too. If you want to see what a fight would look like between Martials Arts 4 and TO Camouflage, this is the series for you! After all, while it might be fun to see Musashi walk around the board cutting foes; Until Death Do Us Part really lets you witness the carnage.
If you're looking to start reading manga and don't know where to start, the above series are solid reads. I'll list a few more, but I should note that some of these are Korean or Chinese, which by a strict definition is not "manga" but for our purposes they'll do: Shin Angyo Onshi by Youn In-Wan; Angel Densetsu by Norihiro Yagi; 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa (in fact, read anything he's done); Blood and Steel by Qiao Jingfu; Full Metal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa; Beck by Harold Sakuishi; and, Great Teacher Onizuka by Tohru Fujisawa.
What's some of your favourite manga?
Not fond of Ghost in the Shell? try Appleseed. Whilst the tv & film versions are lacking I've always Appleseed's setting (the rising hyperpower Olympus in the aftermath of WWIII) and Shirow Masmaune's detours into the surreal and/or zany stand out slightly less. Plus you get mobile armour that the Nomads would get a kick out of, spider-tanks from "awww" right up to "Summon Godzilla!" scales, synthetic humans, remote controlled police drones, cyborgs and a boggling array of sf guns with funky ammo.
ReplyDeleteI have another recommendation manga. It's called Blame! (with the exclamation mark in the title).
ReplyDeleteIt's situated in the far future where time is lost to history (sometimes characters mention thousands of hours have passed since something happened so it's confusing) and the world is sort of a dystopian and architectural nightmare. There is an ongoing struggle between the builder programs and silicone life-forms and the human species is unimportant in this world (something about the diluted gene pool).
Anyway the main hero is looking for something in this mega-structure that was constructed from all of the materials found the Earth and the Moon and is trying to revert things back to normal (or at least stop the building program). There are some very weird but great visuals, the design is gritty and gothic interwoven with science fiction machinery and I guess a lot of stuff in it reminds me of Aleph.
The main character isn't a very talkative person, so there isn't much dialogue in the first book, but it changes until the 10th book. It's totally humorless and quite dark, but it paints a great atmosphere and has interesting concepts and scientific ideas.
I've also found Shirows work too wacky for my taste, but at least it inspired the two feature lenght anime which are good.
Eden is also very good. I haven't heard about the two others, but Akumetsu seems interesting.
Well, Akumetsu and Until Death Do Us Part are the typical shonen power fantasies but I think Akumetsu is much more mature. I don't know if UDDUP is finished, I read about hundred issues and enjoyed my time. Akumetsu is complete and I loved it.
DeleteBlame is strange and weird, especially the Wolverine spin off. It's decent sci-fi but not something that'd spring to mind when talking about Infinity.