Manga Bizarre manga concepts that turned out great!

[Okita]

There have been many manga that made me lift my eyebrow in incredulity, series that has core theme that seems truly out of it or just plain pointless. A couple of years ago, if anyone had ask me if I would enjoy reading a manga about Go, I would have laughed my head off at the absurdity, Hikaru no Go changed that and shut my cynical view point like a sledghammer closing an air-tight coffin.

Since then I've taking more interest in series that I would have initially ignore due to the core theme or concept sounding incredibly lamn on paper, series like Yukikate Japan sounds laughable or at least incredoubly stupid on paper. I mean cooking as an anime show isl worth considering, but restricting yourself ONLY to baking bread???

But guess what? I read the series and am now an avid fan, it doesn't have anything ground breaking, but the storyline tends to be addictive like drugs tends to be addictive. ~_^

So what other bizarre concept for manga have you expirience and enjoyed? What other series had a totally absurd or lamn souding premise that turned out far more than anyone might bargain for?

Please share your thoughts...

[Camlaren]

I have to agree on your thoughts of Hikaru no Go, though I haven't read the entire manga, I do have the entire manga on the computer (I've seen the whole manga though). When I really got into Hikari no Go was the anime was when it was in the top 10 on animenfo.com ... I couldn't believe how captivating and exciting a series focused around a board game -- like chess non the less -- could be so incredible!

Anyway, back to your question =P Looking though the list of manga I've read, it's actually pretty small, only around 30 series... and most of which are very popular, or their concepts aren't odd/stupid to me.

The one that comes to mind though would be Death Note, the idea at first didn't seem appealing, a person killing people isn't my kind of manga. Not only that but the method he was doing it seemed sort of lame, with a book called Death Note, where once you write a person name and picture their face in your mind, they die within 40 seconds... but so far it's proven me VERY wrong, it's an amazing manga that just by watching the lead investigator and the murderer duel it out in a battle of wits leaves you at the end of each chapter hanging on wondering what will happen next ^__^

Ok, so I know that's not the exactly the type of idea you're going for... but can't really think of anything that has a "core theme that seems truly out of it or just plain pointless", sorry! Plus, you're already reading Death Note, so you already know how great it is :)

[Juusan no Kikyo]

Heh, yeah, I thougt [I]Hikaru no Go[/I] would be kind of silly when I first heard about it in Shonen Jump... But now, it's one of my favorites! (Gee, where have I heard that story before?)

But, the one I was the most cynical about was [I]Yu-Gi-Oh[/I], suprisingly enough. Before I started watching the first episode, I thought, "A show about some guy playing a card game? Oh, honestly! That's so lame!"

But look at me now. My custom title is even... well, you can see it for yourself...

Just one episode changed my mind. Strange, huh?

Dinosaur Ryuuzaki (A.K.A. Rex Raptor,) Bakura Ryo, and The Other Bakura are my favorite anime/manga characters of all time!

I'm also addicted to the card game that Bandai has managed to make a buttload of money off of!

But, really, that's not the reason I've fallen in love with the series. It's the moral values (Even though The Other Yugi's moral rants annoy me sometimes), the closeness of Yugi and his friends (Sometime I just can't help but say "Awww!"), and the psychos. (Oh, come on. They're hilarious!). D.R. isn't the reason I fell in love with it, but he helps keep me there. (Gotta love the Dino Duelist! :p )

Well, there you have it. My long, pointless rant about my favorite anime/manga (Next to FLCL,) [I]Yu-Gi-Oh[/I], and how seeing one of it's episodes made me relize that it's more that just card games and lame special effects; it's about friendship.

And psychos. Can't forget the psychos.

[MangoPenguin]

I have to admit, first of all, that I was not a fan of manga until about...going on a year ago. I was into anime from 1995, but manga never appealed to me--I love color, and I have a short attention span; it's difficult for a manga to hold my attention nearly as well as anime.

But one fateful day about mid-November of 2003, a friend of mine introduced me to what would soon become my first love in the manga world.

Now, I ask you--does it not seem a little odd for an entire manga and anime series to be based around a boy whose body is made of rubber? A rubber-boy...who, coincidentally, cannot swim a lick, but whose ultimate goal in life is to become a pirate. Along the way in his strange venture he meets others--a late-teen boy who fights with a sword in each hand and one in his mouth; a girl who was once a slave to a half-man, half-swordfish; a chain-smoking boy with a penchant for cooking and a fetish for females; and a boy whose greatest claim to fame is telling lies. Among many others whom I will not list for fear of spoiling those who haven't gotten that far yet.

One Piece--an amazing anime and manga series that introduced me to a love of reading comics backwards. I've currently gotten to about episode 100 of the insanely long anime series, and about chapter 180 of the 330+ -long manga series. And you know what?

Strange as the entire concept is, it never ceases to be awesome.

(And just for the record, I really dread its Americanization on the Foxbox.)