Today is Midterm Report Card day at Manga Recon, where we each list what we think were the best volumes of manga released in the first half of 2009. This was an incredibly difficult question for me, and there are so many titles I would like to have listed and didn’t have room for.
The volumes that made the top five for me were Hikaru no Go, Vol. 15, Future Lovers, Vol. 2, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Vol. 1, We Were There, Vol. 4, and Pluto, Vol. 3. Check out the full report to find out why and to read everyone else’s fantastic lists!
A few volumes I wanted to mention, but couldn’t: xxxHolic, Vol. 13, One Thousand and One Nights, Vol. 7, NANA, Vols. 15 & 16, Mushishi, Vol. 7, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 18, Fruits Basket, Vol. 22, and Age Called Blue.
One title I hadn’t read yet, but might have included if I had: Venus Capriccio, Vol. 1.
It’s been a fantastic six months for manga! What have been some of your favorites?
Lorena says
July 17, 2009 at 11:21 pmOh, my list is shojo heavy, but for good reason! My favs so far include new volumes of NANA, Fruits Basket, Honey and Clover, and Sand Chronicles.
Michelle Smith says
July 18, 2009 at 11:22 amHoney and Clover made it onto my picks. I suspect that the recent volumes of other shojo faves (NANA, Sand Chronicles, etc.) might have as well if I were actually current on reading those. :)
Melinda Beasi says
July 18, 2009 at 12:23 pmIt is shocking, I suspect, but I haven’t read either Honey and Clover or Sand Chronicles, though I want to very much.
It was hard for me to leave off NANA particularly (and Fruits Basket 22 was such a heart-wrencher!)—I really don’t see how this can be reasonably limited to five. :)
Michelle Smith says
July 18, 2009 at 12:32 pmI don’t think it’s shocking, necessarily. One good benefit to waiting is that each of these series is only 10 volumes long and will be wrapping up in the next year or so. You might enjoy gobbling them up en masse instead. :)
That said, I have them if you want to borrow them. :)
Melinda Beasi says
July 18, 2009 at 1:09 pmI do like to gobble. :D