The EX Holiday Gift Guide

The EX Holiday Gift Guide (continued)
And next up, we have Domestic Manga:

Shadow Lady

Five Star Stories

Pokemon

Charles McCarter: SHADOW LADY. It's light and fluffy, but it's fun. Katsura is pretty good at story telling, but he's gotta lay off the Batman motifs a little. Overall, though, it's a fun read. And Demo reminds me of someone I know...

Michael Poirer: MAISON IKKOKU. For years now I've been haunting my local comic suppliers, eagerly awaiting each new English installment of this terrific series and I'm afraid that we're quickly approaching the end. That makes me kind of sad, because I've always felt that MAISON has been the best mix of humor and melodrama in Takahashi's amazing Pantheon.

Kenneth Lee: FIVE STAR STORIES. Nagano Mamoru's classic manga gets translated into English! After so many years, the epic space-opera-esque saga comes to American soil, courtesy of Toys Press / Kinokuniya Bookstores. Exquisite mechs, strangely beautiful women and an extremely complex, rich story all combine to make this an engrossing manga epic.

Mark Johnson: The domestic manga scene has been a bit slow, as I am waiting for more graphic novels rather than getting a small weekly fix of 30 page comics. I would like to check out SHADOW LADY in graphic novel format, am waiting for the end of MAISON IKKOKU, and am a sucker for the character designs of GEOBREEDERS. The FIVE STAR STORIES books from Kinokuniya are great too. But my best present would be the last issue of the GHOST IN THE SHELL domestic release from way back when, as it is the only one missing in my collection! (which explains my bitterness of collecting comics...)

Eugene Moon: MOBILE POLICE PATLABOR Viz Graphic Novels. Written and drawn by Yuki Masami, this series chronicles the life and times of Izumi Noa and the Special Vehicles Division 2. Fun and light, this series is one of the recent classics in the world of anime.

Edward Kwon: Another vote for FIVE STAR STORIES. This epic series spanning thousands of years, filled with Mortar Headds, fatimas, kings and queens would make a nice stocking stuffer when I have the time to read.

Maria Rider: POKÉMON: THE ELECTRIC TALE OF PIKACHU Viz Graphic Novel. Written and drawn by Ono Toshiro, this is the first series of comics released from Viz. It's an interesting tale of Ash Ketchum and his adventures with a rascally Pikachu that he found in the walls gnawing on he electrical wire in his house. Interesting art, which is completely different from the anime series.

Rika Takahashi: BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL. I admit that I started buying AFTERNOON partially to see the latest developments in the "original" (i.e. import) version. Samura is one of the most detailed "pencil-touch" (as opposed to "obvious it's ziptone") manga artists out there, and he also knows how to tell a story. Furthermore, what I've seen of the translation is pretty good to boot!
THE SANDMAN: DREAM HUNTERS. Okay, so this isn't a manga. It's a graphic novel... or rather, a novel with pretty cuts. But it's worth every penny, even if you've never read any of the SANDMAN comics, for the gorgeous illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano.