Who's the greatest swordsman? (Gamaran recommendation)

Gama Kurogane



Iori Sengoku

I've always enjoyed stories about samurai and ninjas growing up, things like Ninja Scroll, Samurai Champloo and even Afro Samurai have always stood out to me, so ive always been looking for a manga series that grasp me in that same way. Gamaran essentially captures whats makes samurai/ninja anime so good and puts it on paper without losing quality, and it also breaks many traditions that most series fall into.

The story follows Gama Kurogane, who is the son of a legendary swordsman Jinsuke Kurogane, an atrocious man who truly lives by the sword, killing off his own trusted students and at his dojo, leaving his son Gama at the dojo with the survivors he deemed "too weak to kill". The story is pretty typical in my opinion, but that doesn't mean its not good, its actually a very fun, the story starts when the son of the Daimyo, Naoyoshi Washitzu who ventures to find the strongest martial arts dojo in the country. Hearing the tales of Jinsuke, he seeks the dojo he originally belonged to which was the Ogame School, betting that it could definitely be the strongest dojo. When he gets there he meets Gama and his henchmen eventually start a fight with him. Long story short Naoyoshi is the son of the daimyo who has like 43 kids but he is the runt among them all since his mother was just a mere commoner. The Daimyo is having a tournament to find his successor so his kids have to find a school to to be their sponsor for a martial arts tournament alled the grand tournament, eventually he convinces Gama and the Ogame to enlist on his behalf. Eventually it leads up to Ogame school and the martial arts alliance againsts the Muhou School, a new school of the most powerful martial artist in the country all under the control of Jinsuke Kurogane.

1. The number one thing i enjoy about Gamaran is the fact that since it IS fuedal Japan, there is a TON of variety, most of the opponents use different weapons, mutliple fighting styles and techniques and live by difference mantras. Hardly anyone in this series is the same as the other, even when the characters are family members hey're completely different .

2. Character development is one of those things that are highly important to me when i find a series, Gama does not develope too fast throughout the series either, this series does not suffer from the "main character losing to an opponent, learn one new thing and all of a sudden totally overwhelm the same opponent within a week". A lot of time passes in the series and the characters that have overwhelmed him in the past aren't so easily beat, hes has to learn several new techniques, master his own movements and mentally grow before he even encounters them again. This doesnt just apply to Gama alone either, all of the characters in the story are constantly developing, hitting walls and finding ways to break them down, and it's not done very quickly either.

3. Probably more important than anything else in the Gamaran is the fighting, when it comes down to if if the fights are boring/too predictable in a fighting manga its just not gonna hold up. There isn't much build up for some of the fights in Gamaran, but the intensity of the fights are at an all time high the whole way through, each one getting that much more intense, the amount of suspense that goes into these clashing blades really pulls you in. Alot of the fights are so fluid and intense that even though i was reading them, it felt like I was actually WATCHING an anime or like i was fully pulled in to a fight happening right before my eyes. Gamaran certainly one of those mangas that would be immensely popular if there was an anime to go with it, the fights are really the bread and butter of this series.



shinnojou

Ichinose







the manliest manga!!! (recommendation)

This is really one of those series i really enjoy because its world is so different than places in other series, it is literally a mans alice and wonderland. A world where only true strength reigns and the only way to a mans heart is through his stomach, a world where food is a treasure of the highest value, and the animals and vegetation that produce these foods require a bounty hunter with the skills and strength that match the value of these treasures. Toriko is the kind of character that definitely falls within the guidelines for this manliness.

The series is about a famed young gourmet hunter (bishokuya) named Toriko, who is known as one of the Four Heavenly Kings, a group of four promising young hunters who do work for the IGO, a global organization dedicated to distributing food, maintaining order in the world , and protecting people from dangerous animals and world class criminals. Throughout his adventures he befriends a frail, aspiring young chef named Komatsu who wants to build a name for himself, while appearing somewhat cowardly he proves through his resolve that he is willing to stand up and risk his life for ingredients and for what he believes in his heart. As we follow Toriko and Komatsu on their adventures we see several examples of exotic beast and vegetation, we come across 2 of the other Heavenly Kings: Coco, the fortune teller and Sunny, a man with massively long hair who has an obsession with being beautiful. We also come across the bishokukai (gourmet corp in english) a group of superpowered villians who place no value in preservation and want to seize all the food in the world and keep it amongst themselves. They also seek to control the world by acquiring the most powerful food in the world called GOD. The series basically revolves around Toriko hunting the most desireable foods in the world either for IGO to preserve or as a hunter for hire, and his battles with the bishokukai that are constantly seeking these foods for there own evil intentions.

1. one of the things that makes Toriko interesting is possibly the things that make it unappealing to most people and that is its creativity. They took a major risk on making a series that revolves around food, and alot of people refuse to take it seriously, but in my opinion its no different than chakra, chi, energy and even magic. Food is just the medium for all these thing in this world. These exotic fruits and animals arent just exotic and magical based on just its rarity, the foods have special nutrients in them called "gourmet cells", these gourmet cells resonate in your body and can cause reactions that cure diseases and a multitude of sicknesses and even make your own cells stronger and give special abilities. Most of the hunters and leaders of the IGO and ALL of the members of the bishokukai have either eaten massives amounts of foods with gourmet cells or had them put i their body to the point where if they don't stay eating massive amounts of food or eat foods of high quality gourmet cells, the cells begin to eat the other cells in their body, then also eating each other, killing the host as well. Some hunters forcefully keep themselves near starvation while hunting for extremely high quality ingredients hoping that when they do encounter it and eat it, the gourmet cells in the body have a massive reaction to the food and causing cell evolution, giving them massive power boost. I thought it was an innovative way to do the same thing other series do when it comes to powers by not just making it about "concentrating energy or chakra" Toriko tips the scale when it comes to creativity.

2. the story of Toriko takes place in a world so massive that through the whole series up until the most recent chapter only took place on about 30% of the planet, everything outside of that radius is known as the "gourmet world", an uninhabited world where the most powerful beast resides. In the known world toriko inhabits, the creatures have a certain capture level to determine there strengths, and Toriko hits his first roadblock on strength with creatures of a capture level of around 40 or 50. It then again around 70, then 100, and so on. He steps into the gourmet world one time and even the lesser creatures of the gourmet world have a capture level above 500. The whole story so far with over 250 chapters has only taken place on the weak, human inhabited part of the planet. SO much more room left to grow as a series.

3. Alot of things in Toriko are pretty much fantasy creatures, it also keeps alot of lightheartedness because the writer was originally inspired by the story of One Piece which is argueably the most successful japanese manga of all time and has even has special cross over episodes where both the worlds are combined. All of the attacks in Toriko are named after random cooking techniques or utensils. Torikos main attacks, called fork (a piercing attack done with a straight hand that punctures its targets) and knife (basically a karate chop that can sever limbs) definitely sound silly, but its sillyness makes the series more enjoyable. It a constant reminder to me that these stories are supposed to make us laugh and be enjoyable, and I put Toriko in my top 10 of most enjoyable series i've read.

list of read manga

Naruto

Bleach
One Piece
Uzumaki
Veritas

Magi
Historys strongest disciple Kenichi
Claymore
Gantz
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
The Breaker
The Breaker new waves
Eyeshield
Hajime no ippo
Hunter x Hunter
Negima
UQ holder
Toriko
kuroko no basket
defense devil
fairy tail
soul eater

katekyo hitman reborn
kekkaishi
psyren

terraformars
deadman wonderland
noblesse
attack on titan
beelzebub
tough
cage of eden

dgrayman
gamaran
blue exorcist
basilisk
hungry joker

laughter at the end of the world
saint seiya lost canvas
fist of the blue sky
soul eater not
soul eater
shaman king
silver spoon

heroic tales of arslan
shaman king flowers

 

Original Mangsta!!

           The first anime I ever watched in my life was Tenchi Muyo, it was in Japanese so everyone talking just sounded like a bunch of crazy sound effects! But for my age it was incredibly amazing, the art style was better than anything ive ever seen, the action was a lot more fluent and fast paced, and most important it had boobies. Tenchi Muyo immediately raised the standard of cartoons I wanted to watch, I ended up watching series like Ranma 1/2, Fist of the North Star, Ninja Scroll, things FAR out of my age category! I eventually had to stop watching these series and watch whatever I could find on TV, but I wanted Japanese anime, in whatever form I could get it. So I settled series such as Samurai Pizza Cats and Sailor Moon and Ronin Warriors. The Series that's REALLY pulled me in when I was young was Pokémon, I was truly in love with that cartoon. It was ridiculous... I remember one time I had to leave to school early cuz my brother wanted to get to school early to go to the computer lab. He wanted to leave the moment the episode started and I was furious!  I literally RAN from my house all the way to my friends house who lived across the street from the school, (my middle school was over 2 miles away)! And somehow I still managed to finish the episode. This was the beginning of me becoming an anime fanatic, and I expanded in other series such as Dragon Ball Z, YuYu Hakusho, Gundam Wing, Tenchi in Tokyo, Digimon, Outlaw Star, Big-O, Monster Rancher and Escaflowne.

     As I got older I started to refine my anime taste, I was too cool for Pokémon (but not to cool to  play the games after class in the high school library) and DBZ was too corny for me. In my first year of high school I lucked up and found a Japanese Anime Club where people there introduced me to series like Trigun, Kodomo No Omocha, Flame of Recca, that year we  had to sell candy  to raise money to go the Anime Expo together, This was before it got so big it had to be moved to Los Angeles, it was totally overwhelming! It was SO crowded!! Ive never seen a  cosplayer before so it was really exciting for me, and I talked this adult into buying my first sword for me in the exhibit hall! That year I found out about Shonen Jump magazine and I found out about new anime like Naruto, One Piece and Shaman King. Every year after that I've gone to I make sure I find several new series to watch. As I got older I decided to rewatch some of the old series from back in the day like Ninja Scroll and FoTNS so I can finally learn the story properly and enjoy them the way it was intended, This pulled me into more adult themed series like Jojos Bizarre Adventure, Blue Seed, FLCL, Blue Exorcist, and Deadman Wonderland. I am a big fan of short anime series and movies, my favorite anime movie of all time is Princess Mononoke, Summer Wars is a special second for me as well. When it comes to short series id say Eden Of the East is my favorite, my wife and I had a wonderful time watching that together. I am a really big fan of anything Hayao Miyazaki touches, he is a brilliant story teller and Princess Mononoke is one of the best anime movies of all times, I DARE you to argue with me!!

ill never forget MY FIRST TIIIME

Hey! my name is Marcus and welcome to my blog,  and the first thing you should know about me is my story...

       The first game I ever played was the infamous Mario Brothers,  and it was about as annoying as going to jail (though I have never been.. ahem), all I can remember is trying to run as fast as possible throughout the entire stage and getting pissed when not being able to time the jumps properly. I was literally leaning to the side in real life thinking it was going to make Mario jump further, and jumping  off the floor with the controller in my hand  thinking it would make Mario jump higher!! (Not cool at all). At around the age of 4 this  game had me going INSANE (it was probably the start of all my hyper craziness. Heh..)!!! but nonetheless it started the interest.

       Shortly after I got into playing games like Battle Toads, Mike Tysons Punch-Out  and Metroid, but the game that truly started my digital thirst of gamer-ism  was Final fantasy 2,
 I was only 6... I couldn't read for scrap(actually shit!!!) but for some reason I wanted to play the "Hell outta this game" because it was totally different from  any other game, seeing  Rydia summon that titan which knocked a mountain onto the main character Cecil  just blew my mind (like waaaaa). I had to watch my brother play this game but the sucky thing about that was ..since I couldn't read that well, plus the little reading I could do was far too slow for him so he would never wait for me to catch up with the captions (he was cold as ICE! smh..) and he refused to read the captions out loud too (being stingy with the story line) so I never knew what was really going on in the storyline, so I told myself  "Marcus...its time to learn 2 reed" so I can find out the whole deal with that mountain thing cause I really wanted to know!!! So like the tune of   "Eye of the Tiger" in my head, I was determined to learn  how to read or at least read faster so I don't get left behind. After a little while my I determined reading was awesome!! So I just snuck and played my brothers save file and finally figured out why Rydia threw that mountain on Cecil (which was actually more of a landslide), and found out he actually unwillingly deserved it at the time!! Eventually I accidentally saved over my brothers game file and was found out! So he finally gave me my own save file so I can play on my own! lol, good times!!

     At that time I realized  that RPGs were my favorite game genre, which over time led me to play games like Ogre Battle, Mario RPG, Secret of Evermore, Final Fantasy 3, Secret of Mana, and Breath of Fire. Later over the years (as technology improved) I got pulled into MMORPGs like City of Heroes, Age of Conan, and Everquest 2,  but the one  MMORPG that carried my gaming thirst over to the next level was World of Warcraft, not because the storyline, graphics, and gameplay were awesome.... it was the PvP !! It was the only thing that mattered to me!! For the longest time I only had fun playing the shaman and windfurying lives to no end!! Besides that, exploring the whole world on foot, sneaking into enemy territories, doing  instances, chilling at  the auction house (trying on random players gear) , starting  guilds,  ganking the alliance mid quest and raiding for dem EPICS. I also had the opportunity of playing with my lovely wife who also enjoyed the game, so I never got in trouble for playing. :)

         Currently I've been into Pokémon XY, Elder Scrolls, League of Legends, StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, they are really enjoyable games for me, and I really am enjoying the competitive aspects of these games (especially Pokémon). I enjoy playing many games with friends or just random people online, im really excited because im waiting for a TON of new fun games to come out. ill be talking about them all here.