Is anyone's favourite manga not Dragon Ball?

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Dragon Ball is most definitely the series I have on my mind the most. I enjoy discussing it more than any other series. But sometimes, other fandoms will suck me in, and I'll forget about Dragon Ball and Daizenshuu EX for awhile. But I always end up back here... so perhaps, it is my favorite series. It's definitely the one I've stuck with for the longest.

Other obsessions include: the Evangelion series (especially in recent years, with the new films), Berserk (very excited for the supposed new anime series), Gantz (haven't read that in ages, though), Fullmetal Alchemist (for a couple of years, I pretty much ignored everything else and was obsessed with that series), Urasawa's works (Pluto and 20th Century Boys) and last, but certainly not least, the works of Osamu Tezuka. Once I started reading Black Jack, I began obsessively buying all of Tezuka's translated manga. I considered him my favorite author, for about half a year. But in the end, it always comes back to Dragon Ball...

[Nazi Cola]

Seeing as how I never truly read any other manga, yeah, DragonBall would be my favorite. I've read parts of other mangas here and there, but they never interested me, especially Naruto and One Piece. Bleach I'm considering going at again, since the anime is quite spectacular IMO, so I'm thinking the manga can't be too much different (I hope).

Now that I actually found most of the volumes of the DBZ manga at an amazing store I never knew existed, I can actually read it (and not fucking fanslations on the internet) and I'm sure I'll love it even more.

[Kaboom]

From an as-objective-as-possible standpoint, I consider One Piece an overall better manga than Dragon Ball. The story, and the vast wealth of characters' roles in it, are just so much better employed and planned out than pretty much any other shonen title I've seen.

EDIT: YuYu Hakusho is waaaaay up there, too.

But DB is still my favorite, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

[Godo]

When it comes to Dragonball, it sometimes feels outdated when it comes to the complexity of the characters and the twists in the story. I have no problems with the art, because of the story is good, you won't notice the art much at all.
But compared to other manga, Dragonball will always hold a place in my heart, and every so often I find myself watching the episodes and read the manga for the hell of it.
Simply, Dragonball is a manga that always fits your mood. It's not overly pretentious, and not too complex. You can enjoy it anytime.

But mostly, I like to read other stuff too, since reading only one manga can be repetitive.

My favorites so far are:

One Piece (I like the adventurous feeling and humor, and pirates are awesome.)
Naruto (I like the whole ninja thing. When I become big, I want to become a ninja.)
Liar Game (Psychological manga. Brains all the way. No time for relaxation in your mind.)
Hunter X Hunter (I like how the main character isn't really purely good, and that he is an adult in his mind, even though he still is a kid.)
Fist of the North Star (People exploding FTW.)
Katekyo Hitman Reborn!! (The main protagonist really doesn't want to be a mafia leader, but is more or less forced to, and shows lots of feats of badassery along the way.)
Hajime No Ippo (I have always had a soft spot for boxing, and I like how the manga is filled with more realism, even though it's a shônen manga.)
Gantz (Aliens exploding FTW.)
Franken Fran (Bizarre humor and lots of gore. Can it become better?)

There are probably a lot more there, but these are among my favorites, with Naruto and One Piece at the top.

The only one I can't stand is Bleach, as I find it repetitive many times (don't shoot me, I know!).

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

@Godo: Whats wrong with the art in DB? (Maybe I'm so tired, I'm mis-reading your post...) I think the art's fantastic. And Toriyama draws the most amazing, and easy to follow, fight scenes I've ever seen. Any other Shonen battle manga, I get confused at times. Especially Bleach! I'll just sit there and go, "...What am I looking at?"

Speaking of Bleach, it had great potential. Kubo's first series, Zombiepowder., was pretty sweet. The start of Bleach was similar (great mix of plot, humor and action), but it's entirely a battle manga now. I stopped buying the manga long ago, but I still read the newest VIZ releases at the bookstore now and then, simply because Kubo's characters are so cool and stylish. But yeah, the fights are very repetitive now...

Oh yeah, Hunter x Hunter. I totally forgot about that one. In a lot of ways, it's better than Dragon Ball. Easily one of the greatest Shonen in history.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Something I find it strange (or maybe not strange at all, since I haven't read much manga)...a lot of people seem to dislike the mangas that appear to attract the most attention or popularity, such as Naruto, Bleach and Death Note. Why is this? Not bashing anyone (seeing as, like I said, I've never read much manga apart from DB), but I just want to know.

[Savage68]

The extreme cases of this are fairly ubiquitous on the Internet. It's the "I Pretend To Hate It Because Other People Like It" syndrome, and it happens in one of two cases:

• You dislike a popular series.
  
  Here, someone isn't a fan of, say, One Piece, while they see that everyone around them is. So they'll turn whatever reasonable complaints they have for the series all the way up to 11 as an attempt to counter everything else. They're trying to drown out the praise, basically.
• Your expectations weren't fulfilled.
  
  In this case, you started on a series because so-and-so recommended it to you, or because you've been hearing that it's worth starting. You've got this idea in your head that the series is deserving of it's praise / popularity, but when it falls short of that, you aggrandize it's faults.

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

I like DB as the next guy in all but there are mangas much better. I used think that "Oh my God that DB/Z/GT is the greatest anime I ever seen my Life" when I was 13 or 14 before I discover better series.

That's pretty much exactly how I feel. Back when I was DBZ obsessed, I didn't even want to watch the other shows on Toonami because 'they're not DBZ', and I didn't think I'd find anything that could compare. Once I started branching out a bit more, first with some typical Shounen fair (Yuu Yuu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Inu Yasha), I started liking them more because I felt the stories and characters were better developed...then I started branching out a bit more when I started buying non-DB Manga (Gravitation, Fushigi Yuugi; though I discovered Shoujo was not for me)...and over time my interest in DB started fading more and more because other series' were more interesting by comparison.

DB will always hold the spot of 'untouchable' for me because it was my first, and what got me into everything else, but it's not even close to my favorite Manga. My absolute favorite is GetBackers, which is technically Shounen but always felt like it had a more Seinen feel to it IMO, and I tend to find myself liking those types of stories more. These days, I can get into a Shounen sometimes if it seems good at first, but I lose interest rather quickly because they all seem to conform to the same tropes (and if I have to sit through one more Goddamn tournament arc, I swear...), and it gets old. Manga like GetBackers, FullMetal Alchemist, Death Note, Slam Dunk, Kuroshitsuji, etc...they tend to interest me a lot more than the DB-inspired action Shounen like Bleach and Naruto (both of which I loved at one point, but by now have gotten stale), where the battles seem to go on for 20+ chapters.

"Hahaha, I have the upper hand!! You will lose!!"

"No, here is my new ultimate technique!! Now it is I who have the upper hand!!"

"No, impossible!! But let's see if you can beat my last resort...!! Wahahahahaha!!"

"Oh noes, there's no way I can win now, unless one of my friends comes in and bails me out!!"

"Haha, it is I, your comrade, here to bail you out in the nick of time completely unexpectedly!!"

Rinse and repeat. I've just grown tired of those plots, I guess.

[Savage68]

"Oh noes, there's no way I can win now, unless one of my friends comes in and bails me out!!"

"Haha, it is I, your comrade, here to bail you out in the nick of time completely unexpectedly!!"

Fullmetal Alchemist plays this card in stride.

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

"Oh noes, there's no way I can win now, unless one of my friends comes in and bails me out!!"

"Haha, it is I, your comrade, here to bail you out in the nick of time completely unexpectedly!!"

Fullmetal Alchemist plays this card in stride.

I never said any of the series' I mentioned aren't guilty of those and other tropes as well, it just seems to me that most of the series' I'm drawn to don't overuse the same old gimmicks as often as others, and have enough else going for it to balance it out - compare FMA to, say, Bleach, and the differences in that sort of thing are apparent.

[Savage68]

You'll find those differences when you make any comparison between a bad series and a good series. Every animango suffers from the same formulaic repetition, in one way or another. The difference is that shonen series are targeted toward children and seinen series are targeted toward adults. So, while the writing may not be objectively "better" in seinen, it generally boasts richer characters, atmosphere and (usually) art that isn't so incredibly bare-bones.

[Senzu_Bean]

Is anyone else here not really a manga/anime fan in general?

Me! I only have interest in Dragonball and that is all within the manga/anime subject. Heck, I only start to be interested in Dragonball again because of DBM.

[Perfect]

The extreme cases of this are fairly ubiquitous on the Internet. It's the "I Pretend To Hate It Because Other People Like It" syndrome, and it happens in one of two cases:

• You dislike a popular series.
  
  Here, someone isn't a fan of, say, One Piece, while they see that everyone around them is. So they'll turn whatever reasonable complaints they have for the series all the way up to 11 as an attempt to counter everything else. They're trying to drown out the praise, basically.
• Your expectations weren't fulfilled.
  
  In this case, you started on a series because so-and-so recommended it to you, or because you've been hearing that it's worth starting. You've got this idea in your head that the series is deserving of it's praise / popularity, but when it falls short of that, you aggrandize it's faults.

Or they don't like it because it isn't their cup of tea for whatever reason.

@A few others...
Really, this thread is furthering the nostalgia DB stereotype, which is repulsive...

[Savage68]

Uhm... no. I was talking about "the most extreme cases" of this:

a lot of people seem to dislike the mangas that appear to attract the most attention or popularity, such as Naruto, Bleach and Death Note.

Not just, "Why do some people dislike it?" The answer to that would be common sense.

[Perfect]

Uhm... no. I was talking about "the most extreme cases" of this:

a lot of people seem to dislike the mangas that appear to attract the most attention or popularity, such as Naruto, Bleach and Death Note.

Not just, "Why do some people dislike it?" The answer to that would be common sense.

Those people in "general" are kids, from what I can tell. You're stereotyping that people just don't like things that are popular.
Almost always when someone makes a thread on some random forum, they're asked why they don't like a specific series.
Most people might just say, "it sucks". When asked why, some won't respond. Some though, actually will with constructive criticism or complaints. I don't know what you mean by "extreme", since it's just a dislike towards, oh you know, a comic book. People can say whatever on the internet for whatever reason. Trolling...

[nathantheguitarist]

@A few others...
Really, this thread is furthering the nostalgia DB stereotype, which is repulsive... [/size]

Nostalgia is repulsive? Maybe life sucks, and DB was a huge part of a better time in life and watching/reading/thinking about it helps make shit a little better, bud.

Or am I missing the point here? What exactly makes a "nostalgic DB stereotype?" Am I feeling mildly offended for no reason? Please, explain.

[Perfect]

@A few others...
Really, this thread is furthering the nostalgia DB stereotype, which is repulsive... [/size]

Nostalgia is repulsive? Maybe life sucks, and DB was a huge part of a better time in life and watching/reading/thinking about it helps make shit a little better, bud.

Or am I missing the point here? What exactly makes a "nostalgic DB stereotype?" Am I feeling mildly offended for no reason? Please, explain.

1.) No nostalgia isn't repulsive, the stereotype is.
2.) Don't call me bud.
3.) Yes you are missing the point, clearly.
4.) The Dragon Ball nostalgia stereotype revolves around people liking the series as a kid, problem? No. Here's the problem, as the person gets older they move on to "better anime/manga", usually saying that the themes and characterization and just about everything else in the series is just plain awful, and that they would never like it, had they not as a child. This is the common belief that every fan is like this and that anyone who isn't is full of "shit".
5.) Yes, yes you are.

[Zephyr]

Uhm... no. I was talking about "the most extreme cases" of this:

a lot of people seem to dislike the mangas that appear to attract the most attention or popularity, such as Naruto, Bleach and Death Note.

Not just, "Why do some people dislike it?" The answer to that would be common sense.

See naturally, I'm simply indifferent to these the way I am with One Piece. My cousin however, is absolutely obsessed with them. Constantly hearing about them, coupled with not seeing what's so great about them every time you try to watch them, slowly turns that indifference into pure hatred. (I tend to be the same way with popular music and TV shows as well. Shoot me.)

And I don't enjoy Dragonball purely for the nostalgia. The character designs, the setting, and the intertwined backstory of most of the major characters all add to my enjoyment factor. But I'd be lying through my fucking teeth if I said nostalgia wasn't at the core of all of it, and I'm not the least bit ashamed of that.

[Kid Buu]

DB is my #1.

I don't see how any one on this forum could dislike / used to like, but now dislike DBZ. I mean what are you gonna say? "I don't like DBZ, but I wspend my spare time on a DBZ forum?"

[Savage68]

Those people in "general" are kids, from what I can tell.

Alright?