My Comics Story pt. 5: Manga

Read previous parts of this series of articles here.

One summer in the mid-90s, my brother and I were in Taiwan for about a month. We didn't have much to do, but that year we had a couple of friends like us, living in Milano with Taiwanese origins. So we hung out with them. Their chinese was better than ours, so they could read chinese comics. They introduced us to some Japanese manga translated in Chinese, and told us about the story because we could only watch the pretty art. Once we got back to Italy, we started buying manga translated in Italian.

Many of the first manga we bought were famous anime series that we watched as kids in the '80s: Ken il Guerriero (Fist of the North Star), E' quasi magia Johnny (Orange Road), Lamu' (Lum) etc...

However the ones our friend recommended us were new manga, and they were really my favorite.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventures by Hirohiko Araki is a generational series about the Joestar family. This long series is divided by generations, so the first story is that of Johnathan Joestar, the second is of Joseph Joestar and so on. Each story has different characters, although some characters might be in more than one series. And each story is also a different world, with different "powers". Starting from the 3rd story, every character has a "Stand", which is a manifestation of a person's inner strength. This manifestation can have humanoid form, an animal, or anything that the author can think of. The sheer originality and inventiveness of these powers is enough to entertain me, and the fights between these colorful characters is just genius. Add in a lot of humor as well as drama, and you've got a winnig combination. I highly recommend this series to whoever can find a copy.

Another of the first series we bought was Video Girl Ai by Masakatsu Katsura. This is about a high school boy who deals with his insecurities when dealing with girls. But there is also a fantasy twist, where Ai is not a normal girl, but comes out from a video tape... This was just right for my age when I first read this manga. Not to mention the art is very sexy.

At this time manga were fairly popular, but it was nothing compared to the big boom later on. This started when Star Comics first published a manga without flipping (manga originally are read from right to left), and that manga was Dragon Ball. I had seen the original cartoon of Dragon Ball, and I liked it, but that was only the beginning of the manga. The manga goes on to tell Goku's story as an adult, and alter on as an angel. This was truly the most successful manga ever, and it started the manga boom in italy and probably in Europe. The story is very simple, this is just a succession of big fights, one after the other, with the big bad getting increasingly more powerful and badass. This is just a fun read.

A cult favorite of mine was Bastard! This is a classic fantasy story, with orcs and wizrads and warriors. The neat thing about this manga was that it was over the top funny and R rated. The star was the manga is a real "bastard" and is crazy about women. His actions would sometimes make you laugh and sometimes make you think he was cool. The story was failry complex as it went on, to a point where it was too confusing for me, and the author couldn't get more than one volume out per year. So in the end I gave up.

Probably my personal favorite manga is City Hunter. Ryo is a P.I./helper who was a paid killer with a heart. He is infallible with his gun and fighting skills, but he does have a weakness: women. He just drools over women, and if a client is not a hot woman he refuses to accept their case. Kaori is his partner, and she hates it when he becomes a mindless zombie who goes after skirts, so she beats him up with a huge hammer. This is just a fun and cool action/comedy/detective manga.

Another mangaka that I really like is Mitsuru Adachi. I first encountered his work when I watched the anime adapted from his manga Touch. In Italy that cartoon was titled "Prendi il mondo e vai" (Italians have horrible translations for anime titles!). It was about the story of a pair of twin brothers, one very athletic, a good baseball player and responsible, the other a slacker and lazy guy. Both grew up with a girl, and both were secretly in love with her. One day the responsible one dies, and the brother is trying to deal with it. A really great series, which is mostly light high school sports comedy, but it has a lot of heart. Other works by Adachi that I read are Rough, Slow Step, H2. All are light high school sports comedy with heart.

There were many other manga that I bought and read, but these were the first few and also my favorite to this day. Unfortunately ever since I left Italy I lost track of manga, but I can't wait to go back to Italy and get a huge stack of manga that I missed in these years.