Okay, I’ve finally gotten around to composing the list of manga series I’ve dumped after a fairly significant investment of volumes (inspired by John Jakala). Looking at them, the common thread seems to be novelty wearing off. And this doesn’t count the series where I tried a single volume and decided to give it a pass, because I’m terrified that any mention of them would lead to people swearing that things improved later and that I’m really cheating myself by not reading a little farther. Because I’m totally susceptible and would find my B&N member card and car keys and say, “D’or, okay!”
Absolute Boyfriend, by Yuu Watase (Viz – Shojo Beat): There’s just something depressing about the premise here. If the heroine had come out and said, “Listen, he’s hot, he’s devoted, and he’ll never cheat on me, you lowly human, and I don’t feel like working very hard on a relationship,” that might have been one thing. But the suggestion that there’s actually some kind of competition-fostering inner life to the robot guy is just something I don’t see.
Case Closed, by Gosho Aoyama (Viz): This is a perfectly pleasant mystery series with a cute premise and absolutely nothing in the way of forward momentum. What finally broke me was the knowledge that the series is still apparently going strong in Japan with some 60 volumes in print. I couldn’t see myself making that kind of commitment to something that was just reasonably entertaining.
Cromartie High School, by Eiji Nonaka (ADV): I’ll chalk this one up to too much of a good, weird thing. I just couldn’t quite keep up with the releases, as there was always something with an ongoing narrative that I wanted to read more. It’s funny and weird, and I’m fairly sure I might check in with the series again at some point when I need a disorienting laugh. But it doesn’t feel like something I need to “subscribe to,” per se. Am I spoiled? (On the bright side, it’s like the only opportunity I’ve ever had to link to ADV’s web site without it being in the context of not being able to find information on a series.)
Iron Wok Jan! by Shinji Saiyo (DrMaster): I’m really making a lot of you weep for my taste, aren’t I? I’m not doing it on purpose, I swear. And again, I like what I’ve read of the series. It just didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and I guess I need narrative momentum more than I thought. Like Cromartie, though, it’s always possible that I’ll pick up a couple of volumes on a rainy day when I need outrageous, over-the-top culinary action.
I’m trying to decide whether or not to count Shuri Shiozu’s Eerie Queerie (Tokyopop). It’s only four volumes long, and I made it through two of them. The first was really promising, the second was creepy in all the wrong ways, and I have no idea about the third and fourth and plan to keep it that way.
And just for bonus points and to give more people the opportunity to tell me how foolish I am for even considering such a reckless course of behavior, here are some series that are on the bubble:
Eden! It’s an Endless World, by Hiroki Endo (Dark Horse): Seriously, if I wanted to read about gangsters, prostitutes and illegal narcotics, there are approximately one billion choices out there in the world that didn’t bait-and-switch me with a thoughtful sci-fi introductory run. This is not what I was led to expect from the series, and I find myself irritated to a possibly unreasonable degree.
(Update: Myk speaks… from the FUTURE! Or in this case, Germany, where more Eden is available, and he confirms Huff’s assurance that the hookers-and-blow mini-arc comes to an end and things get back to abnormal. That’s good news, but I still think that wedging this story into a landscape where the vast majority of the population has been turned into crumbled Swarovsky figurines was a really, really bad, self-indulgent idea.)
Kindaichi Case Files, by Kanari Yozaburo and Sato Fumiya (Tokyopop): You know what could get me more invested in this series? A forward time-jump that gets Kindaichi out of high school and into a different setting with a different dynamic. He can still be a slacker, but I think moving him to a different stage of his life would revitalize things. I feel like there needs to be a sense of time passing that isn’t limited to references to previous cases.
(Still no Tokyopop links available, as 2.0 is still in limbo.)
