underhyped manga and anime

[stelok]

While there are overhyped manga and anime, I have noticed there are lots of good, story-wise and artwork-wise entertaining manga and anime which don't seem to have decent hype. Underhyped manga and anime rarely get any attention which they should deserve.

What is the most underhyped manga or anime? The ones you think are praise-worthy but are rarely discussed?

Here are my favorite underhyped 3 manga series

Home by Ueda Rinko- set in the year 1614, a samurai bodyguard who is escorting a Japanese delegation to Spain is befriended and nursed by a Spanish woman after being betrayed and left dead by his own comrades. It's a shame that the last two chapters are still unscanlated. Ueda Rinko's artwork style is beautiful, clean and polished.

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/8773/homevol01ch0123jm6.jpg
Shot at 2007-11-10

I'm Doushirou- a Japanese boy who was kidnapped by his father from his mother and taken to Nevada where he grew up. When the boy is reunited with his mother and his older brother, they were surprised to find that the boy is acting like a samurai who is under misguided belief that the modern Japan was still in feudal era.

Sensei- a 17-year old female student named Shimada Hibiki falls in love with a male teacher. There are 20 volumes, unfortunately only 4 out of which, were scanlated.

School of Water Business- the manga is about a high school that trains school drop-outs and former expelled students to be future hostesses and waitresses.

Pretty Face- in the manga a young high school male student wakes up after a year in coma since the bus accident only to find that his disfigured face replaced with a girl's face. He agrees to pose as the twin sister of the girl who has a crush on him.

Underhyped anime:
Love Get Chu
Lovely Idol
REC
Macross Zero
Tactical Roar
Angel Tales (Tenshi no Shippo)

[Rod G]

Pretty Face- in the manga a young high school male student wakes up after a year in coma since the bus accident only to find that his disfigured face replaced with a girl's face. He agrees to pose as the twin sister of the girl who has a crush on him.



Believe it or not,THAT one has been licensed by VIZ.

[The Xenos]

While certainly not for the teenage crowd most manga is, there are a bunch of old seinen titles I like. Pretty much all the old Viz Pulp titles are quite neat.

Ryoichi Ikegami's work in particular. Sanctuary, Strain, Offered. A bit pulpy and messed up, like 70s exploitation films, but certainly interesting. Oh and I want uncut volume reprints of his Spider-man manga.

Does Blame! get any fanfare or is it more of a cult following? I can't tell because I'm such a Tsutomu Nihei nerd. See my avatar. Just be glad I don't post my cosplay. Yeah, that was brilliant. Cosplay as an obscure character like three people in all of Otakon know. Ha.

Planetes was a blip when the anime came out. Yet it never got too popular. And even when I hear of it, half the time people use the fansub mistake title of Planet-ES. Dammit. Read the manga. Hell, even the show showed it was Planetes from the Greek word. Such a good anime and manga. They diverged, but both were quite good.

Do fans still know the Trigun manga is still going on or did most people quit with the anime back in the day?

Eden: It's an Endless World is a neat cyberpunk / near future sci fi book. I missed a volume, so I fell behind.

Lament of the Lamb was a bit dry, but an interesting drama and almost a horror book. It takes on vampirism as a realistic disease.

I admit that most all those are in print in the US. Though I think the Ikegami books are out of print. And some of Nihei's newer books aren't in the US.

[HectorP]

Do fans still know the Trigun manga is still going on or did most people quit with the anime back in the day?

I'd find it weird if interest for such a series waned just like that. I mean, I know it's ongoing, and I haven't even watched the original anime series.

[Renzo]

A small list of underappreciated anime:

Now and Then, Here and There
Paranoia Agent
Rune Soldier
Kino's Journey
Planetes
RahXephon
Tehxnolyze
Twelve Kingdoms

[jabrams007]

Ryoichi Ikegami's work in particular. Sanctuary, Strain, Offered. A bit pulpy and messed up, like 70s exploitation films, but certainly interesting. Oh and I want uncut volume reprints of his Spider-man manga.

I have to agree 100% with this! Sanctuary is one of my favorite mangas of all time. I really wish Viz would reprint these since my copies are kind of falling apart.

Another great Viz manga that is sadly out of print is Eagle: the Making of an Asian-American President. A little melodramatic, but the closest I've ever seen comics come to West Wing like political drama/commentary. With the election coming up next year, now would be the perfect time for Viz to reprint this.

Warren Ellis once described Eagle as: "A wild tangle of sex and secrets and hate and Machiavellian intrigue. It's Primary Colors in a really bad mood."

Here's a link for anyone interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle:_The_Making_of_an_Asian-American_President

I'm also really excited about Viz republishing Slam Dunk. My first taste of a sports manga and I loved it. The writer/artist Takehiko Inoue, the same guy who does Vagabond did an amazing job of capturing the action and fluidity of basketball, something I wasn't sure comics were capable of doing.

Here's hoping the new Viz editions are better than the Singaporean tpbs I picked up at Books Kinokuniya while I was living in Japan.

Slightly off-topic, but has anyone else noticed that most manga released now is geared towards the young "teen" market? Most of the (i hate to use this word) adult or more serious mangas are sadly out of print. While most western comics are geared towards readers in their 20's or older, I'm afraid that manga might be falling into the opposite trap of really only catering to the teenager demographic. I think if some of these more "mature" mangas were still in print and more widely available, manga might be able to break away from its "big head/eyes" stereotype that most people think of. Comments? Opinions?

And on the Anime front:

Gasaraki doesn't get nearly enough love. One of the best and realistic mecha animes out there. It's got it all, action, intrigue, drama, politics, religious mysticism. One of my favorite animes from the 90's and unlike anything else out there.

[Liberty Belle Fan]

I have always been a fan of a quirkly little series called the Violinist of Hameln (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_of_Hameln), that actually had a manga/anime that were quite different from one another. There was also a SNES game developed about the title several years back as well. Check it out if you ever get a chance, quirky, fun, and hilarious!

[Ramiel]

Kino's Journey
Nerima Daikon Brothers
Betterman
Darker Then Black
Tehxnolyze

[Grunty]

While certainly not for the teenage crowd most manga is, there are a bunch of old seinen titles I like. Pretty much all the old Viz Pulp titles are quite neat.
...

Eden: It's an Endless World is a neat cyberpunk / near future sci fi book. I missed a volume, so I fell behind.

Well it is not bad thats true and has some very intresting settings and story ideas but i can't get around the high amount of depressiv subtext.
Note:That i not comment about the violence since seinen manga all have the possebility of high amount of gore even thought i rather dislike this.

Not only does every character who tells his/her history to others directly (if other tell it or if it apears in flashbacks like the one of Kenji and Sophia they become an exeption from the role) has a 0% survivalchance (they can still survive several volumes like that prositute Elijah meets in volume 1) but also that the whole story has a "we are all finished, give up all your hope" feeling, making reading it for me extremly difficult. Since normaly, while having a liking for cyberpunk storys, i am a more possetiv thinking ("the real world is bad enough why fill fiction with it as well?").

By the way i have to note i never bought a single volume but know about it from reviews of manga fan sites (and sometimes looked in one, in bookshops).

However i think you can say the same about Blame too which you also noted as good Manga.

Pretty Face- in the manga a young high school male student wakes up after a year in coma since the bus accident only to find that his disfigured face replaced with a girl's face. He agrees to pose as the twin sister of the girl who has a crush on him.

Oh i know that one. Not bad at all has some funny parts and has an open ending (somewhat like that in some mangas) that on the same time has still some ending feeling.
However its no wonder its not hyped after all i only know about it from fan translation sides and it hasn't (at least in my country) apeared.

Anyway about underhyped mangas.

Is Black Lagoon hyped?
Its one of the mangas i only accidently found in a shop but begann to enjoy quite alot.

Also personaly i like Battle Angel Alita and Last Order but notice that its not very well known in our parts of the world.
It has a nice cyberpunk and in some degree post-apocalyptic feeling around it. But while other like Eden for example tend to by mainly dark and depressiv this one has its light hearted moments as well.
And yes for those who know about Last Order i also have notice that it became even less darker and more light hearted as well as in some degree strange (Anomaly in Volume 11 is especialy "strange").

[The Xenos]

Alita is more of a fighting genre manga. Eden is more realistic and more of a drama with social and political issues. I think that's why some would say Eden is more depressing, it's less escapist. It's more near future and literally more down to Earth. Ghost in the Shell, especially Stand Alone Complex, is closer to Eden than Alita.

Still, I love Alita. It's pretty crazy. Though now that I think of it, Alita shows some rather depressing moments and real world political issues even if it is set in the far future.

[Yun Lao]

Do fans still know the Trigun manga is still going on or did most people quit with the anime back in the day?

I noticed this as well, which is a shame since the manga is most kick ass.

[yeoman]

Rune Soldier

You know, I just finished watching this. A friend recommended it, and the box set was cheap. I felt the very end just kind of sucked in execution, but the vast majority of the series was very entertaining.

RahXephon


Ah, Evangelion, the good version.

[yeoman]

Patlabor doesn't get anywhere near enough love.

[K.O.V.G]

Theres alot of underrated anime and manga that I read and to tell you the truth most of it is better than this poplular or mainsteam stuff.

Shigurui being one of them, Tough being another.

[jesse_custer]

I can't think of a more overlooked anime than Cyber City Oedo 808. Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, it's a three-episode series about a group of criminals--very prolific criminals, in fact--entering a new social program where they catch bad guys themselves in exchange for reductions in sentences. The animation and soundtrack are very good, and it's amazing how much this little series influenced the world of anime. Kawajiri would recycle a few ideas for Ninja Scroll, and Cowboy Bebop has more than a few similarities with Cyber City Oedo. Watch this now.

[Totoro Man]

I don't know if it's underhyped anymore, but "Blade of the Immortal" was a really fun manga. it was kinda like 'Samurai Champloo' (in it's most basic concept) before it happened. it's kinda petered out a bit, and lost a lot of it's original zest. but the first 10 or 15 volumes had me hooked all the way.

that's why I can't honestly say it's under-hyped.

I REALLY enjoyed those Patlabor manga... and I'm disappointed that they only translated 2 volumes.

out of Takahashi's catalog, I feel like "Maison IKkoku" and the "Mermaid" series are both under-hyped as these contain her best writing (meaning they end roughly where they SHOULD have ended).

"Battle Angel Alita" started off really good, but I became unemployed before I could ever get around to finishing it. although it gets pretty outrageous at spots--- which I guess makes sense given it was initially created by a 16 year old boy at the time, right? ;)

[jesse_custer]

Blade of the Immortal is genius, and yes, it never gets the credit it deserves.

[Sir Lord Harris Chesterton]

Cyborg 009, there's another. Its goddamn outta' print too now, and I've still the last 5 volumes to collect...

[Violently Apathetic]

I saw that 'Now and then, Here and There' was mentioned and that was going to get my vote, but instead I guess I'll go with Monster or 20th Century Boys.

[Ace]

Shaman King definitely deserves a mention. Apparently it was so underhyped and doing so poorly in sales that the writer couldn't finish it, so currently it has an incomplete ending to the story.

[sun tzu]

Detective Conan. It's successful...But I definitely feel it's severely underhyped.

[Nik Hasta]

Shaman King definitely deserves a mention. Apparently it was so underhyped and doing so poorly in sales that the writer couldn't finish it, so currently it has an incomplete ending to the story.

I agree!

Shaman King is a great new take on the typical Shonen hero story and is really innovative with both its story and characters.

Takei just doesn't seem to be able to hold down a series until the end.

It's not like he hasn't got time on his hands...

And yet we still don't have an ending! :evilangry

[Len Ikari145]

I agree!

Shaman King is a great new take on the typical Shonen hero story and is really innovative with both its story and characters.

Takei just doesn't seem to be able to hold down a series until the end.

It's not like he hasn't got time on his hands...

And yet we still don't have an ending! :evilangry

He actually said in one interview that he plans on finishing the story someday.

"Someday" better be soon, Takei.:mad:

I also feel that Ergo Proxy is underhyped. Though that maybe due the fact that a majority of people found it more confusing than Evangelion in certain regards. :p

And I agree with Yeoman. RahXephon was definitely what Eva should've been(It and Eureka Seven).