Celebrating the Overlooked Manga Festival

Drat it all.  I spent way too long at another manga review site!  I'm mad at myself, but I had too much fun to stop. 

Shaenon Garrity is a well-known manga editor, and she put together an amusing, informative set of posts she called the Overlooked Manga Festival.  I agreed with pretty much all of her choices (that I'd read).  The thing that made me keep reading is that she is hilarious in her descriptions.  She brings up plot points and summarizes bizarre twists with R-rated and laugh-inducing flare. 

Also on the site are a few worst manga bits, which are also hilarious and definitely not G-rated.  For example:

"Zyword is sort of like if two volumes of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle were stranded on an island and forced to incestuously breed with themselves for generations."  - Jason Thompson

If you're looking for some seriously good manga you may not have heard of, give these a read.  You might be pleasantly surprised by how many of them are available through your local library system; discover the joy of inter-library loan!  It's good to check these suckers out of the library because they'll choose the good stuff in the future if it gets checked out now . . .

When Bias Is Best

Yesterday I found a great site and blew way too much time reading the funny, smart, honest reviews written by a twenty-something manga fan.  "Slightly Biased Manga: manga only if I like it" kept me entertained in the best way, the way AnimeonDVD's Chris B.'s reviews did back in the day when it was mostly him.

There's something interesting about reading the same person's reviews of a broad range of series.  You can start to see their biases and figure out how your reactions will relate to theirs on the series you haven't seen/read but have been curious about. 

Connie's reviews are usually pretty short and non-technical; they're more opinion columns than anything formal, and that is their strength.  You just need a lot of self-control, or you'll spend too long on the site.  Remember, there's probably always tomorrow.  You can go back and ration the joy to make it last longer. 

So, thank you, Connie, for being great at what you do.  Please keep it up!