6 min read

My Anime Journey

Sometime in secondary school, one of my classmates was telling another about an anime he'd been watching while we were on vacations, and I sat in to listen. If I recall correctly, he was talking about two. Naruto, one with a lot of soldiers fighting. And Bleach, which sounded the most interesting. I didn't imagine how a story about soldiers would be more interesting than Bleach which had more supernatural elements.

Fast-forward to 2010, and I was walking home and decided to stop at a DVD store where my eyes landed on a copy of Naruto. It was the only item that I recognized from the collections they had and so, I went with it. I didn't get the first season and I started somewhere along the Chunin exam arc and I was hooked almost instantly. I spent weeks binge watching all the way to the Pain Invasion arc, at which point I'd caught up to the anime and had to wait for new seasons to come out before continuing. I tried Bleach for a while but I didn't get into it immediately.

From looking up Naruto online, I found out that it was based off of a manga, and I found a site where I could read it and binge read until I got to the War arc where I started reading week to week. I decided to try Bleach again. I had a habit of picking a random chapter/episode far into the story if I didn't like the start, and it worked for Bleach. I can't say how long it took for me to catch up to it but I breezed through the series until I did.

I read a number of manga afterwards, after I realised how much convenient it was for me since I read pretty fast. I'd talk about some of the ones I remember reading in the past, what categories I lean towards and the types I enjoy re-reading

Categories

Animanga is usually targeted towards 4 main demographics - shonen (younger men), shojo (younger women), josei(older women), seinen (older) men. The regular genres that we're used to would fall into once of these four, so action, adventure, drama, romance, et al

I read a lot of shonen series - Naruto, One Piece, Bleach. And some seinen. I don't gravitate towards shojo or josei as much. Claymore being the closest that I've gotten to them.

Some of my faves

One Piece

This took a while to get into as the art style was goofy at the start. I tried a couple of times and it didn't feel like it was meant for me. Could I have been so wrong. I was at work one day and decided to pick a random chapter to see if I'd like the story, and it was so good. I started with the fight between Franky and Senor Pink.

A manga panel showing the fight between Franky and Senor Pink from One Piece. There's a text bubble on the right that says, "Franky Iron Boxing!"

I read the entire fight and liked the series so I decided to go back to the beginning to start, and it's one of the best decisions that I've taken. One Piece is one of the most relatable pieces of work that I've read. Luffy is probably the most emotionally intelligent MCs that I've seen in any shonen series. The series focuses on him and his crew going around the world and liberating countries from their oppressors. I've read and caught up to it twice.

Kingdom

This is a chinese series that's loosely based on actual history, and focuses on the emergence of modern day China through the eyes of a historical character, Shin. The series follows Shin as he embarks on a journey from slave to soldier to general (not much of a spoiler since the real Shin made it to being a general). Similar to One Piece, this explores the concepts of found family. It's also a good series for exploring different tactics of war as they'd have been fought back then. I've read and caught up to it twice.

Cross-section of some of the characters from the manga, Kingdom. It has the main character, Shin, on the right

Beelzebub

In this, the devil has a baby who comes to the human world. The baby's name is Beelzebub and it's goal is to always attach itself to the strongest person around. He attaches himself to the MC and the story follows their progression as he learns to care for Beelzebub, while battling any enemy that comes their way.

Mashle

This is a parody series focused on magic systems, and it's written pretty well. I generally like looking for spoilers for some of my favourite shows, but I didn't do so for this. It doesn't take it self seriously but the core cast grows as the series goes on.

Cross-section of characters from the anime, Mashle: Magic and Muscles

Claymore

One of the few series that I like to read multiple times. It follows a group of women who have been engineered to take on monsters with Claymore swords. It's a mix of thriller and mystery, as you try to figure out why the women are the way they are and to what ends they are fighting.

Image showing a centaur like character from the manga, Claymore

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Also a series that I've seen multiple times. The entire story's power system revolves around the law of equivalent exhange, and that for you to get powers, you must give up something of value. We follow two brothers who break this rule to try and bring their mum back, and they lose parts of themselves in the process and go on a journey to get them back. Equivalent Exchange reminds me of the power system in Darker Than Black (theirs is extreme, like having to eat a pack of cigarettes whenever you use your power)

Cross-section of characters from the anime, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 

Toriko

One of two cooking series that I like. Toriko follows the titular character, who is a gourmet hunter in their universe. We follow Toriko as he attempts to create his full course meal together with the help of his chef friend, Komatsu. It's one of my favourite series to read multiple times. Food Wars focused more on cooking style competitions. Toriko focused on adventure

Cross-section of characters from the anime, Toriko

Sakamoto Days

This follows a retired assassin, Taro Sakamoto, as he tries to live a relatively normal life until the assassin world comes back for him. He's promised his wife never to kill again and he has to take on enemies with that in mind. It's one of my favourite new-gen series. The manga has some of the best choreographed fights that I've seen. The manga fights are better than the manga fights for Jujutsu Kaisen. Fight me.

Cross-section of characters from the manga, Sakamoto Days

Jujutsu Kaisen

This follows a world where cursed spirits are born from negative emotions from human beings, and the sorcerers that are there to stop them. Not going to go deep into it since the anime is still ongoing.

Yuri and Todo, from Jujutsu Kaisen

Kuroko's Basketball

One of my favourite animes hands down. This is one of the only series for which I'd not read the manga since the anime does a really good job. It's probably what got me interested in regular basketball. The character growths are written really well.

Noblesse

This was my first foray into webtoons and manhwa. I discovered it in 2016 or so, and while the art style took some getting used to, I loved loved loved the story progression and it's one of the few series I like to reread. It follows Raizel, known as the Noblesse, Frankenstein (one of the most unhinged characters you'd meet), and the young group of highschoolers that they seek to protect.

An image showing the character, Frankenstein, from Noblesse

Other honorable mentions

  • Kakegurui
  • Food Wars
  • Deadman Wonderland
  • Fairy Tail