Graphic novel read in May 2025 - Manga madness
The month of May was mostly about manga for me.
Chainsaw Man: Part 1 (vols 1-11) by Tatsuki Fujimoto (9.5/10)
Ping Pong by Taiyo Matsumoto (9/10)
Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba (9/10)
Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo (9/10)
A Girl on the Shore by Inio Asano (8/10)
Dorohedoro vols 2-3 by Q Hayashida (rapidly improving to 8/10)
Golden Kamuy vols 2-3 by Satoru Noda (rapidly improving to 8/10)
17-21: Tatsuki Fujimoto before Chainsaw Man by Tatsuki Fujimoto (8/10 for Love is Blind, 7/10 for the rest)
A few months ago I decided that I wanted to explore manga a bit more. I had read some before, mostly samurai-related manga from about 20 years ago, and I wanted to see what was available now.
On a whim, on Free Comics Book Day, I picked up a copy of Chainsaw Man vol 1. Five days later I had read all 11 vols of Part One and sat shell-shocked by the experience.
Now I get it. Now I get why the Chainsaw Man subreddit has 1.4 million members (for comparison, the Batman sub has half that many!). Now I get why the manga sections in book stores keep expanding and get more space than Western comics. Now I get why great review sites such as u/TheDaneOf5683’s goodokbad.com praise manga so much.
I hope to do some in-depth reviews in the future to explain what exactly struck me about the titles I read. But in the meantime, if you are at all serious about quality comics, you can’t sleep on manga.
The one non-manga title I read in May was Daytripper and it was also outstanding. I think it’s one of those rare books that I could recommend to anyone. It’s entertaining, but also might just change your life.
Link to reddit discussion here.