Sakura of DOOM

This is why I don't make New Year's Resolutions to read less manga: the statistics would come out the next year, and I would laugh in my own face. The scary thing is this list doesn't include random scanlations or recent chapters of series I follow, and it's still at 275 volumes!

As usual, these are my favorite things read this year, not published this year. I'm also keeping manga separate from comics; this is an entirely arbitrary distinction and depends not only on the paper size of the book, but also whether or not I feel it's going for the manga feel or not. For 2008, I'm going to stick everything together as "sequential art," but since my spreadsheet from last year was set up to separate manga from everything else, no such luck for now.

Sadly, I have skimpy numbers for manhwa, which I am going to try to remedy this year. I was surprised to see I only have two repeats from last year (Emma and Cain Saga/Godchild), though I have four author repeats (Mori Kaoru, Minekura Kazuya, Mizushiro Setona and Yuki Kaori). I liked my runner ups much more than I liked my runner ups from last year, though that's mainly because I've been reading more manga. I know, what a shocker.

Continuing series Naruto, Fruits Basket and Saiyuki (including Reload and Gaiden) fell off my list this year. I don't even have Naruto on my list of manga read, but that's largely because I read chapters as they came out. Possibly reading individual chapters instead of volumes of manga dampened my enthusiasm, although I think a larger part of it is because we're stuck in another long fighting arc I don't care much about. I'm still waiting for my favorite characters to get back into action and very sick of Sasuke's angst about twenty volumes ago, thankyouverymuch. I just haven't read any Fruits Basket this year, aside from rereads, and while new volumes of Saiyuki Reload came out this year (most notably the exciting volume 7), they're all volumes I read last year in Japanese.

The only reason Honey and Clover isn't on here is because the first three volumes a) aren't out in the US and b) follow the anime so closely that I can't quite figure out what to say.

I have individual volume write ups linked via tags for the top ten and runners up, but I'm too lazy to link the entire list of stuff I read. Anything without an asterisk has been written up before; check my tags or memories. If you're curious about something I haven't written up, feel free to ask!

Series alphabetized by author.

1. ( CLAMP, xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle )



2. ( Higuri You, Cantarella )



3. ( Minekura Kazuya, Wild Adapter )



4. ( Mizushiro Setona, After School Nightmare )



5. ( Mori Kaoru, Emma )



6. ( Soryo Fuyumi, Eternal Sabbath )



7. ( Urasawa Naoki, Monster and 20th Century Boys )



8. ( Urushibara Yuki, Mushishi )



9. ( Yazawa Ai, Nana and Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai )



10. ( Yuki Kaori, Cain Saga/Godchild )



11. ( Yumeka Sumomo, The Day I Became a Butterfly )

Also recommended: Arakawa Hiromu, Fullmetal Alchemist; Svetlana Chmakova, Dramacon; Hayakawa Tomoko, The Wallflower; Ogawa Yayoi, Tramps Like Us; Takeuchi Mick, Her Majesty's Dog; Yoshinaga Fumi, Antique Bakery; Yun Mi-Kyung, Bride of the Water God

( Notes )

Total read: 275 (40 rereads)

( Complete list of manga read in 2007 )

This was the first Yazawa Ai manga I read, and it was the one that made me fall in love with Yazawa Ai. I don't think it's the best she's written; Nana's taken that place for me, but this series still holds a spot in my heart. It also helps that the protagonist is one of my favorite manga characters and among the few fictional characters I would love to befriend.

Saejima Midori is a first-year student (10th grade) at the newly-formed Hijiri Gakuen. It's so new that her class is the first class there. Her class eventually gets her to run for student council, saying that Midori is the angel of their class and that she should become the angel of the school (ergo, the title, which roughly means "I'm no angel"). She's got a crush on the rebellious-looking Sudou Akira, and the series is mostly about her relationship with him and the relationships of the kids who make the student council.

All of this sounds incredibly boring, and the angel bit sounds eye-rollingly precious. Also, the art is awful -- the figures look stiff and wooden in some scenes, and Yazawa's still developing what will become her very distinctive style. I think the art gets a little better later on, but it's still fairly rough throughout.

And still, I love this and rereading the first three volumes have made me incredibly nostalgic. Much of the appeal is Midori herself. She's the one in my icon, and the picture perfectly encapsulates why I love her so much. She's one of those people who let every emotion show on their face. When she's happy, she beams. When she's sad, she cries. When she's touched, she says so. And she is happy so much. I love her because she's optimistic and sees the good in everyone and everything, because she is so generous with her affection, because there is not a mean bone in her body. She has her flaws and her weaknesses, but she strikes me as the kind of person who tries so hard and as the kind of person whose happiness is infectious.

While this series doesn't privilege female friendship the same way Nana does (the Akira/Midori romance is the central relationshpi of the series), Yazawa's keen eye for character is still there, and one of my favorite relationships in the series is that between Midori and Mamiya Yuuko, the somewhat icy, grumpy, antisocial, awkward girl who's the secretary of the student council.

So far, several plot complications have already come in, and since this is high-school shoujo, we've already had a school festival and a play. But I love the characters so much that I don't mind; there's less of an emphasis on hijinks (let's put the hero in drag!) and more of an emphasis on the rhythms of the school year, on the emotional highs and lows of being a teenaged girl, on friendships and schoolwork and clubs.

Highly recommended.