How Do I Get Into Manga/Anime?
If you were like me growing up, Toonami on Saturday nights was something special. As a kid, I wasn’t allowed to watch tv during the week, played sports Saturday mornings and had church all Sunday, so new cartoons on Saturday night is what I lived on. For the uninitiated, Toonami is Cartoon Network’s action-based programming that started at 6 and would go off at 2am. The best part? I was allowed to stay up and watch it until I eventually passed out. Of course, this meant that I would start with shows like Justice League Unlimited and finish with shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Cowboy Bebop. As a kid, I hadn’t even realized it, but I’d already gotten my first taste of anime.
Anime is a nickname for Japanese animation, and it’s been ingrained in Western culture for the last 50 years, give or take. For me, it’s been around since almost the beginning. I remember on those rare Saturdays I was at home, I’d get a glimpse of One Piece & Shaman King on Fox Box and Yu-Gi-Oh & Pokemon (when I was allowed cause Christian parents don’t like demons) on KidsWB. While I was unaware that all of these were anime, my parents definitely weren’t. They banned most of it, which in turn, made me watch it all the more in secret. Especially the most popular one, Dragon Ball Z.
In ‘06, I was at Jon & Josh’s house & my dawg Kendall showed me the Naruto & Sasuke fight in Japanese for the first time. This is when it all clicked. I realized that half of the shows that I enjoyed as a kid were anime, and that there are probably more that I needed to check out. At this point, I found the Toonami Jetstream website (lol remember that) and began my Naruto journey from there.
Naruto is a story about a young, knuckleheaded, hyperactive ninja who starts as an outcast and has dreams of becoming the leader of his village. As a guy who’s always been into ninjas, this very easily became my shit. I started over from the beginning, and while the show was 50 episodes in (Chunin Exams), Jetstream only had the first 16 online, and they released weekly. This was unacceptable for me, because I needed to catch up immediately.
My story of getting into anime and manga is a testament to my lack of patience. Unfortunately, I’ve never been much of a patient person, but in this case, it worked to my advantage. Youtube had just been bought by Google, but the big corporations weren’t entirely sold on it yet. So when young E typed “Naruto episode 16” in the search bar, it actually showed up because the corporations weren’t checking to see if fans were uploading episodes or not. I tried it out, and just about any show that I wanted to watch free. By the time I started doing this, I was 13 and living with my aunt & uncle in Seattle, so I didn’t have to worry about my folks tripping about it either. I blazed through the first 80 episodes and entered the world of ninjas, demon foxes, omniscient eyes and pervy sages. I was entranced.
I think I caught up to Toonami right towards the end of the Sasuke & Gaara fight in the Chunin exam finals tournament. IYKYK what came next, and yet again I found myself wanting to see more of Naruto and not wanting to wait, so again I turned to YouTube. This time, I ran into a barrier, the “dub” episodes stopped, and only “subbed” episodes remained. For those who aren’t sure:
Dub: The audio is english
Sub: The audio is a different language, but has english subtitles.
Before this, I’d always been that weird kid that put subtitles on anyway because I didn’t want to miss any dialogue, big or small. The transition to sub didn’t bother me much, and I breezed through the first 220 episodes of Naruto, and got through the first 7 episodes of Shippuuden (Part 2).
At this point I again ran into another roadblock; I’d caught up to the anime in Japan, so there were no new episodes. At least, not on demand. I now had to wait for the episodes on a weekly basis. New episodes came out in Japan on Wednesdays & they’d usually be translated by Thursday afternoon. So I’d come home from school on Thursdays and watch the new Bleach, Naruto and One Piece episodes. This was fine for a time, and probably would’ve been fine forever had I not seen people in the comments of new episodes talking about being excited for what’s next. Looking at the threads of comments, I’d learned that they’d gotten this far by reading the manga, which is ahead.
Let’s back up a little bit, because not everyone reading this knows how manga/anime are related. A manga is a japanese comic book usually written and illustrated by the same person (mangakas). Most anime start as manga, which is published in Japan and translated to English. The more popular a manga gets, the more likely that it’ll be adapted into a show. Being a famous mangaka is a very well respected profession in Japan. You’re seen as higher class and celebrated as such, as long as your work does well. Many mangakas work never becomes animated, so those whose work does and lasts until completion are held to a very high standard. Many of them work themselves into physical illness trying to keep up with the demand of publishing on a regular basis.
At this point, Naruto had been going on for years in the manga, so I started reading from the current Sand Village arc and got all the way up to Sai’s arrival in the Leaf Village (those that have seen Naruto would know) before I caught up and had to read weekly with the Japanese schedule. Of course when I caught up to Naruto, I decided to read something else, and then something else, now I’m to the point where I’m not sure how much manga I’ve read, but at this point I’ve been doing it for 13 years and have enjoyed almost every bit of it.
I’ve now gotten to the point where I’ll just browse through different manga and start one that looks interesting enough to me. That’s actually how I ended up reading My Hero Academia before the show was announced. There’s honestly not a feeling that compares to hearing a manga that you love is being adapted into an anime. That feeling you get when you watch the first episode is unmatched.
Many people are concerned that reading manga ahead of an anime will ruin their experience because they already know what’s coming. In some cases, I could understand that but in most cases, the anime takes time to expound upon smaller details that you might’ve missed in the manga. I know this happens to me literally all the time, but then again, I forget everything anyway.
So before we get any further, let’s do some groundwork.
Manga is read from right to left, and top to bottom. It takes a little getting used to, but once you do it’s nothing. Follow the arrows above for an example.
Manga isn’t that hard to get into, honestly, it really is just finding a place to start. For most people, I suggest finding a current anime that you like and starting the manga once you catch up with the show (like me). If you’re not sure where to start, I’ll list some of my favorite ongoing (as of Oct 2020) anime that i’d recommend below, so you can watch all you can and start reading. If you have any problems finding which chapter to start reading from, shoot me a message somewhere and I’ll do what I can to help you out.
Okay, let’s get started.
1. Attack on Titan: If you’ve ever spoken to me about anime, I’ve probably mentioned this in some way or another. I’ve already written about it here, but I have to recommend it here first because it’s the first anime/manga combo I always suggest. If I’ve ever recommended you the show, I know I’ve recommended the manga. As of now, the last season is set to start on December 4th, 2020 but if you want to get a peek of what’s coming next (you do) then I’d definitely suggest reading this manga.
Where to watch: Hulu, Netflix, Crunchyroll
Where to read: Season 4 is going to begin with Chapter 90. (133 Total Chapters)
2. Jujutsu Kaisen: Jujutsu Kaisen is a new favorite manga/show of mine, I’m not sure where the hype from this one came from but I’m more than glad to be apart of it. The show follows Yuuji Itadori, a reckless kid on the track team that accidentally gets caught up in the occult and becomes the host for Sukuna, a curse whose only goal is mayhem. Yuuji is approached by an academy of sorcerers who give him an ultimatum: help collect the rest of the pieces of Sukuna or be executed on the spot. From there the show escalates to high octane battles in varying locales with hands being thrown every time. I personally think it has fight choreography comparable to the best martial arts mangas out there. Jujutsu Kaisen’s anime actually just started on October 2nd, so if you want to get down, now is most definitely the time. I personally think this will be a late contender for anime of the year.
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
Where to read: Since it’s just starting, I’m not sure where the season will end. You can start reading it here, though.
3. My Hero Academia: My Hero is probably one of the most popular anime that I see new people getting into, and I can’t say I’m mad at it. As I mentioned earlier, I followed it as a manga and watched it turn into the show it is today and part of me truly enjoys that. It’s a show that follows Izuku Midoriya, a kid born with no powers in a world where 95% of the world does. Midoriya, nevertheless wants to be a hero and is affirmed when the number one hero becomes his mentor. I personally give My Hero alot of flack, (some of it deserved) but I’m not going to act like I don’t still really enjoy it. If you watched the anime, you saw that Endeavor & Noumu fight and are probably aching for more. There’s so much more coming. Shigaraki’s (the villain) backstory is super dark, but not trauma porn like some...others. My favorite parts of the show/manga always involve the League of Villians. Definitely would suggest this to anyone looking for an entry point.
Where to watch: Hulu, Crunchyroll
Where to read: Season 5 is going to begin with chapter 192.
Those are three examples, but there are plenty more. Of course, I’d like to take this time to talk about my favorite of them all, One Piece. I know before, I spoke up the One Piece anime and advised everyone to watch it on Netflix, but I still truly believe that the ultimate way to experience One Piece is to read it in color. People give it a lot of hell because it’s long, but reading it is the way that it was intended. The anime started for OP was announced in its 100th manga chapter, and it eventually caught up to the manga. So, instead of taking a break like seasonal anime, they decided to stretch each episode and sometimes use filler.
A filler episode is exactly that, an episode put into an anime to fill time so it doesn’t catch up to the manga. I personally hate filler, I’d rather the show go on hiatus for a couple weeks or a couple of months before I’ll watch it at my big age now. When I was a kid, I watched each and every episode of Naruto’s filler after the Sasuke retrieval arc because I didn’t know it was filler. Since then, I haven’t rewatched any of those filler episodes.
Some anime, rather than use filler, actually change the show, rather than spoil the anime’s ending. This is another practice that really gets under my skin, because I’ve seen it ruin a couple of my favorite mangas (Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist, etc). With that being said, my favorite manga and my favorite anime lists are actually quite different.
As of Oct 2020:
Top Five Manga
I know I technically cheated when i put Feng Shen Ji in my top five manga, when it’s technically a manhua (chinese made) but this is my site and there’s no way I could leave this out.
Anime & manga can be daunting as hell to get into. It’s one of the largest most widespread mediums in the world, and every viral tweet has somebody with an anime avi making a reference you definitely won’t get if you haven’t seen the show. I think most people on the outside looking in see goofy humor, very cool action scenes with generous explosions and blood and wonder where they can hop in, if it isn’t too late to get into it all.
It’s never too late.
-E.
P.S.: If you’d like to read any of the manga I’ve linked above on your phone/tablet, follow the instructions below:
Download the MangaStorm app
Copy any of the links above
Click the ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the app
Paste the link and click “add to favorites”
Enjoy.
Please be sure to support the mangakas and buy their work if you enjoy it. They quite literally work themselves to death over this.
