Manga Rec

[cynchick]

So I've been reading a new manga, called Vagabond. I'd known about it for a while (its a bestseller,) but never got around to it until now and...Im loving it. Its a story about the life of Miyamoto Musashi - the man who wrote the Book of Five Rings, and widely recognized as the greatest samurai of all time, and one of the best swordsmen to ever live.

The story is really captivating, particularly if you like samurai/ martial arts/ traditional japanese genres. But I think what I love most about it is the artwork. Its so pretty. As an artist Im kind of in awe of the mangaka's skill and detail - Ive never seen a manga with so much hand drawn detail; from facial expressions to patterns on fabric to indivudual leaves in the trees. Gorgeous.Absolutely nothing is sloppy. (take lessons, Kishimoto...) Lookie: this, this, this. Lots of colored pages too, which I love. Anyway, its really good. I definitely recommend it, Flist.

:D

Comments

[itz-cindyrella.livejournal.com]

that looks pretty nice and neat...
now that i have all tghis free time, i'll probably take a loot of it

[goldengrimoire.livejournal.com]

Oh this looks great, thanks for the rec! ♥

Have you read Otoyomegatari? The artwork is amazing.

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

Oh that is pretty. Are there only three chapters so far?

[goldengrimoire.livejournal.com]

That's all that's been translated so far. It's fairly recent, so I'm not certain if there's much more of it out in Japan; I haven't checked to see if there's a tankubon out yet.

[hiwatari-ivanov.livejournal.com]

Vagabond is simply, The most beautifully illustrated manga out there. Inoue Takehiko really outdid himself with all the detail which is all hand drawn, no screens whatsoever. Which is probably why he takes a while to put up new chapters. He's a very fussy manga-ka, I've heard.

It took me about two days reading the entire collection so far when I stumbled across it, I didn't get any sleep!

If you can get your hands on his artbooks - especially 'Water', it is definitely something worth studying. Worth the money too. He's absolutely amazing with watercolours.

/Takehiko fan craze.

I'm glad you enjoy it. Not a lot of girls particularly enjoy the seinen genre, but Vagabond is a pure jewel in my opinion.

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

fussy is good when it turns out that kind of quality. :3

im on ch 58, but i read it in bursts. if i had time im sure i would read it all in one sitting. XD

I do like seinen. maybe its because im older, but yeah i follow almost equal numbers of seinen and shojo/josei. i just dont like when its gratuitously ecchi. Like, boobs is fine, but when it has 'ecchi' in the tags, as in thats one of the selling points, I probably wont be into it.

[zelha.livejournal.com]

I gotta tell you, this layout looks fantastic! :D

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

thanks! it was time for a change. :3

now go read Vagabond!

[cultofdecay.livejournal.com]

i'll recommend you read blade of the immortal, then:

http://www.mangavolume.com/serie-archive/mangas-blade-of-the-immortal/

you know how much i love naruto. well, i love this 10x more and think it's 100x more intriguing. it also makes vagabond's artwork look tacky.

here's a spoiler from a recent chapter (that ruins nothing about the story):

blade of the immortal

that's my boyfriend anotsu, killin' it, pictured in the bottom frame.

i make the rec because when i was picking up some blade volumes at a comic shop when i lived in london, the dude working there was all 'oh if you love blade, you'll really like vagabond!' i picked up 2 volumes and i'll confess i wasn't as nuts about it, but i can see why the rec was made.

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

oh sweet, that does look cool. Ill check it out.

[hieronymousb.livejournal.com]

Wow! That looks fucking awesome. Lol, it's so funny, because sub_textual was just asking me about historical manga recently, and I was kind of drawing a blank. I'll have to pass this along, if she/others have not read it.

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

It IS awesome. You should check it out too. Im over halfway through it, I just cant seem to stop.

[netheb.livejournal.com]

Why not ? It's maybe a time to switch mangas, since Kishi keeps disappointing me these days. =)
(But I'm not quite sure I'll find a character as smexy as Itachi, hahaha x3)

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say that, because in this manga there are some very beautiful, sexy men. Musashi is one, but the one that really reminds me of Itachi is Musashi's career long rival, Sasaki Kojiro. You'll see what I mean if you read it. XD

[moderndayportia.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much for the rec. I devoured this series in only a couple of days.

I agree with you about the powerful facial expressions. I think Ueda in particular was drawn very well. His face was so open and unburdened in the beginning and now it's so hardened. The plot is a bit rambling at times, but I think waiting for Matahachi to redeem himself will keep me reading.

Did you see it updated yesterday?

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

I saw that. Im on ch 263, 10 more to go which I will probably read tonight, right after this. XD

Ueda was an interesting character to me too. He was a good man who went down the wrong path for the right reasons. What I really love about this series is Musashi's growth. Ive really come to admire him. Not to mention he's dead sexy. XD Also I think Kojiro is so beautiful...theres something about him that I just love. He reminds me of Itachi in a way...that lethal serenity. And the hair. Lol. Its funny because in real life, Kojiro was a very arrogant and somewhat cruel man. But in the manga I really like him.

Im still in awe of the mangaka's art skills.