What manga series would your friends be most surprised that you own/have read?

What manga series would your friends be most surprised that you own/have read?

For me it would definitely be Battle Royale. It’s a very graphic and violent series, but it’s still really good. I still have to finish the series, so no spoilers please.

I've also read the first volume of Basilisk and I've watched the entire anime series.

I guess it would be my BL manga titles. Some of my friends would find it weird that I am reading a manga about two guys in love and doing all that stuff together.

>3 HatsumiShinogu: Same here. I know that my BL/yaoi collection and all my gay lit novels would raise a few eyebrows with my friends. I'm pretty sure my husband and oldest son (he's 18) already have some idea about my collection although they wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

I just stated to read yaoi and do not own any yet.

At the last convention that I went to they have a "library" where you can sit down and read manga, so I decided to try Fake. I really liked it, but no one was selling the series in the dealers room :(

I own tons of BL, but the people who sorta know what manga is know that I read it (some friends, husband) and aren't shocked. People who just think I horde mountains of Japanese comic books (other friends, family) probably would be surprised by it? I bet my sister would be amused that I have a "kink."

>5 novelandmangacrazy:
FAKE is a great BL title. I own all the seven volumes and enjoyed them all. I highly recommend it to any BL fan.

>7 HatsumiShinogu:
Fake is not sold in any local book stores, so I would have to order it online. Maybe I'll buy if with possible money that I get a Christmas. My exams are coming up soon, so I won't have much time to think of any book other then my text books anyways :(

Well...I'm new here, so I'll probably be going through and reviving some old threads. *looks up at the original date* Okay...some REALLY old threads. *laughs* Anyway, at first I wasn't sure how to answer this because I read such a wide variety of manga and all of my friends/relatives know that. My tastes range from Kizuna to Choco Mimi to Berserk. But as I sat thinking about it I realized that there were a couple of series that even surprised me. ^_^;

That being said, I would probably have to go with Hot Gimmick and Sensual Phrase. Usually I don't care for the 100% girly shoujo romances and I especially don't enjoy them when the girls are all helpless and complacent. And yet that's exactly what both of those titles are about. O_o Upon asking myself why I still own them the answer is actually pretty shallow - for all the hot guys, of course! ;P

>9 purpledragon42:

Though I have heard of Hot Gimmick and Sensual Phrase, I don't know what they are like, so it's hard to comment.

I guess, most of my manga is shoujo. The manga that stands out more would be more violent and graphic stuff. I also just remembered that I have a few series in the basement that are not my usual reads. I don't even like them, they were a complete wast of money. One of the titles is Love Hina. I just don't like the girls with their big boobs.

I've also read some Yaoi.

>10 novelandmangacrazy:

Hmmm...how to describe them...

Hot Gimmick is what I would call a "Slice of Life" drama; nothing really unusual happens...unless you count an overabundance of angst. ;) The main character is a bit of a wimp (the main reason I think people would be surprised I own it, since I prefer strong female leads) and the guys in her life tend to be very domineering and she lets them push her around. ALL.THE.TIME! One of them, at one point, even tried to set her up for a gang rape...and she still wanted to be with him afterwards! O_o Anyway, I mostly bought it for the artwork, which for some reason I found particularly appealing - cute facial expressions, clean lines, etc. And I guess I kept reading because I enjoyed the relationship between the main character's sister and her best friend. :) Oh, and her brother...I liked him, too. ;)

Sensual Phrase is about a young girl who catches the eye (and ear) of a popular pop idol...not exactly "slice of life"...but I can't remember anything out-of-the-ordinary happening during the series, so...*shrugs* Anyway, she's INCREDIBLY insecure in just about everything she does (another weak-willed woman) and she gets herself into a lot of bad situations because she's not willing to (or incapable of) standing up for herself. The male lead is ALWAYS coming to her rescue, etc, etc. I imagine that this title would be popular with Twilight fans, despite the lack of supernatural events.

Anyway, neither one of them are -bad- stories, they're just not my general cup of tea...and yet for some reason I enjoyed them...*laughs* Go figure! :)

> 11
lol.. for kaikan phrase, i would consider the celebrity status outside of the 'slice of life' genre. the stuff that happens and the stuff they do isn't something that would necessarily happen to anybody off the street. it's also mostly categorized for smut (which pretty much 99.9% of shinjo mayu's stuff are).

i haven't really read hot gimmick so i'll leave it at that.

> 10
btw... love hina is not shoujo. XD i never really liked that series much anyway.. then again, there are only a few 'harem' stories that i like.

>11 purpledragon42:

"I imagine that this title would be popular with Twilight fans, despite the lack of supernatural events. "

lmao

>12 lilasia:

I know that Love Hina is not shoujo. I just said that most of my manga is shoujo.

Anyways, what is the name of the category that Love Hina would be under?

It's listed as shounen on mangaupdates, though I would have thought it would have skewed towards the older bit of the demographic. http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1227

Definately BL/yaoi. I don't own any right now, and I have to be careful whenever I read them online so that my family and friends don't see it. A few of them no, and I like to mess with them and talk about yaoi. Their reactions are hilarious.

Junjou Romantica is my favorite by far, but I also like Kirepapa and Loveless and alot of other ones I can't think of.

Well.

Actually a lot of people are surprised to know that I read manga, period. My husband is my only accomplice in my "closet addiction". We hunt for manga and toys together on our days off. ^^

As for the actual series, it's probably Gals by Mihona Fujii. The covers, character design and dialogue screams "kiddy", but I found the story flow and character interactions enjoyable.

>14 keristars:
I agree. I think that the demographics should be much older.

>15 hmmiller:
no one knows that I have read some yaoi except for people on LT.
My mother does know that I have stuff rated M (very little) but she does not ask any questions and I don't open it near her.

>16 KiTTY2babe:
Most of my friends don't like manga/anime, but most of them know I read it.

I think the most out-of-place manga in my collection are the shojo ones, like Sugar Sugar Rune and Here is Greenwood. All of my friends/relatives know about any BL, loli, or overly violent manga I have - so it's probably the relatively calm and innocent ones that would be more shocking to them.

>18 sriq:
Ya I can totally picture that. I guess I have some girly manga too, but most of my friends who read manga know about it since a few of them have borrowed the series.

Definitely Loveless. I'm not much of a yaoi reader but i picked up the first volume and fell in love with the plot. I have the first five volumes so far!! Definitely recommend it.

>20 platsdevil:
I have heard of Loveless but have not read it. If I want to read some yaoi, I'll keep it in mind.

For me, I'd say it's the few BL novels and manga I have, and then, on the almost opposite side of the spectrum, Guardian Hearts and Sumomomo Momomo.

My friend sort of exclaimed something to the effect of "is that pr0n!?" kind of loudly at a graduation practice while I was reading Princess Resurrection (Reiri's fault.)... So, based on their reaction to that, I think something like Guardian Hearts (panchira.) and Sumomomo Momomo (Sanae's battle outfit), or もえたん (電撃コミックス) (loli.) would surprise them more. (and not in a good way T_T)

>22 Iyoko:
that's funny. I don't generally read manga in front of others, but if I do, I am vary conscious of my choice of series in order to avoid that type of reaction, lol.

I'm a 40 year old man with two kids but I loved Vampire Knight.

Am I just weird? LOL.

It's nice to know other 40 y.o. parents enjoy manga lol! I'd say totally not weird (unless I'm weird too!)

>24 Echobrain: & 25

I agree, totally not weird. I wish my parents read manga too. That way we would have more manga/anime in the house. Do your kids read manga as well?

To be fair, my girls are 3 years old and 3 months old but I do hope they'll become hungry readers as they get older, including manga. :-)

>26 novelandmangacrazy: - I had convinced my 10 year old to read a few manga. He likes Kingdom Hearts and Zelda, but since he discovered the Warriors, Beast Quest and Animorphs books he's kind of given up on them.

There were a few Warriors manga he read, but he seems to like the novels much better.

My 19 year old son refuses to even try manga. On the other hand he is currently reading the Twilight series which I guess is kind of unusual for a boy so I can't say he's totally closed minded :-) I keep hoping he'll change his mind.

I'm 30 with a 14 year old sister - once I was able to get her reading AT ALL (from 0 to 60 overnight practically), I slipped some manga in the books I loaned her and then she started discovering series on her own. When I took her to the NY Comic Con she really liked the anime/manga stuff ^_^

Of course, I have a large manga collection (mostly in Japanese) and my significant other collects American comics, so we cover a wide range of graphic lit in this house.

I might have done too good a job in getting her to like reading because she has her own paid LT account now *proud*

Getting kids to read is great, whether novels or manga :D

There's not my friends don't know about what I read. They know that I just about love any manga that's thrown at me. From love stories to violent and funny manga. Though they would be suprised to know I watched and read Junjou Romantica and enjoy to read blood and gore manga.

Oh, haha. I'm generally into shoujo manga and I think most of my friends would consider me a sort of 'pure' type (or something, I don't know, haha). But back when I was 14-ish, there weren't a lot of manga series out (it was 2003, so there were a lot more than a few years previous to that, but not as many as now). I somehow got interested in some ecchi harem-type manga like Ai Yori Aoshi, Seven of Seven, & Mahoromatic. A little later I was really into Negima. I also was a huge fan of Chobits, back in the day, but since it's CLAMP it's not exactly the same as the others.

Looking back on it, it's sort of funny. I think I liked them (and I guess I sort of like a few of them now still) because the artwork was really cute. In the US comics for guys are not filled with cute drawings, but that's totally acceptable in Japanese manga. But when I look back, some of the ecchi storylines & drawings are sort of disturbing....

>32 HollyMS:
I read volume 1 of both Ai Yori Aoshi and Chobits, but I did not like either one. I guess they just weren't my thing.

I honestly don't think I'd like Ai Yori Aoshi if I read it today. I haven't read it for 7-ish years and I was 15 back then....haha. I haven't read Chobits in years either, but I always thought Chi was really cute (and it's not a particularly long series) so I think I'd be ok with it.

>34 HollyMS:
It's been years since I've read the first volume of both series. I might be willing to try Chobits again, since it's a short series, so many people seem to love it, and my library has is. However, I don't think that I'd want to try Ai Yori Aoshi again.

>34 HollyMS:&35
I loved Chobits. It could partially be because I'm a huge CLAMP fan, but I found it a very engaging story.

For me though, I think everything I own would probably horrify my father, but other than that, I'm incredibly open with my friends & family. I own a lot of yaoi/BL so probably Sword of the Dark Ones. I picked it up because the artwork appealed to me but it doesn't seem to fit into any of my usual likes.

Kingdom hearts

emma and brides story when ever I or my best friend mentions to other friends that I read both they sometimes seem a little wearied out but then when it is mentioned that I'm a history major it suddenly seems natural that i read both.

>38 bakabaka84:
I don't find it weird that you read Emma and A Bride's Story. They're even written by the same author. I tend to read more shojo but I also read Battle Royale. To me those are bigger opposites then Emma and A Bride's Story.
I love Emma and had considered reading A Bride's Story too. So, I'm assuming you like it? Does the series end after 5 volumes?

>39 novelandmangacrazy: I do like it and in some parts feel that the story telling is stronger then Emma. As to weather it ends after vol. 5 I don't know I'm only on vol. 2 myself.

I love A Bride's story, it's just as beautifully drawn and well-researched as Emma and the setting is unusual and fascinating. It's more like several interconnected stories than a single narrative like Emma though, so a bit different.