Hajime no Ippo

Manga


This manga, created by  Jōji "George" Morikawa and ongoing since 1989 (!), is one of the best I've read so far which is really something coming from me as I'm usually not all that fond of sports manga. This particular manga however, was able to keep me interested for a very long time, 945 chapters to be exact.


It's about a young boy named Makunouchi Ippo, who starts out as a weak character. He's part of a single parent family and spends his free time helping out the family business. Because of this he often gets bullied after school until one day he's saved by a professional boxer. After this fateful meeting, Ippo enters the world of professional boxing facing his enemies head on one at a time.


The supporting characters are also worth mentioning, they provide comic relief for the series. Where Ippo is a bit gullible and sometimes even plain boring, the supporting characters are always up for some mischief causing many hilarious situations.


Anime

The anime adaptation is called 'Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting' and started airing in 2000. The series consists of 76 episodes which stay true to the manga. Apart from the first season, 2 OVA's were also published, 'Fighting Spirit: Champion Road TV Special' and 'Kimura vs. Mashiba'. In 2009, 7 years after the conclusion of the first season, the second season called 'Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger' aired. One of the voice actors confirmed in 2009 that a sequel to 'New Challenger' is being planned, but so far, no official news has been published.

Manga Sites

So when OneManga got shut down (R.I.P) I was getting fairly desperate. OneManga was by far my favourite Manga site, as it contained almost every manga I ever read. I've tried many other sites, but in my opinion, none of them were nearly as good as OneManga. A lot of them didn't host every manga I was reading and I really didn't want to hop from one site to another just to keep track of every manga I follow. What's more, most sites used an interface that kept bugging me, not to mention their navigation, it was downright horrible in most cases.

When I finally had given up and decided to stick with one of the sites I used before OneManga captured the first spot, my friend gave me the following link:

Manga Fox: Read Manga Online for Free!

It still isn't as good as OneManga of course, but it has almost every single manga I follow. The navigation is slightly better than all the other sites out there, but more importantly, it has an incredible amount of manga. The only thing it doesn't have are the smutty manga, though some do contain sexual content to some extent.

In case the manga hosted on MangaFox doesn't satisfy your otaku needs, you could always give MangaTraders a try:

MangaTraders

This site hosts every single manga you can imagine, even the disturbing ones. There is only 1 downside: you have to dowload the manga per chapter or volume, and you can only download 1 piece at a time.

The last site I would like to share is mangastream:

mangastream

This site does not host many series, but they do host my favourite manga and they are the first to upload it every single week. If you're looking for fast and accurate updates on Bleach, Naruto, Hajime no Ippo, Fairy Tail, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, One Piece, Claymore, D.Gray-man Skip Beat!, and Toriko, this is where you want to be.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is published as manga and anime and written by Tomoko Hayakawa. Alternative titles for this series are 'The Wallflower', 'Sunako of Many Forms', 'Perfect Girl Evolution', 'My Fair Lady'. This is shoujo manga (which means it's directed mainly at girls and women).

Plotline:

Sunako Nakahara is the main character of this series who is supposed to evolve into a perfect lady, that being said, Sunako is not at all lady like. Instead she seems to be socially retarded trying to live secluded from society in total darkness while watching horror movies. The horror movies are nothing compared to Sunako though, she seems so scary that lamps burst, people faint or start screaming about ghosts, and that's just when they see her face.

Sunako moves to a mansion that belongs to her aunt who is always out of the country. There are four gorgeous guys living in the mansion though, and they've been given the mission of turning Sunako into a lady. If they succeed, the rent will be free, if they fail, it will triple. Can they turn this dark, absent minded girl into a perfect lady?


I like this one very much, it's one of my favourites. Many hilarious scenes, nice fights, and cute guys!
Unfortunately the anime series has ended. However, the manga is still ongoing.

Claymore

Claymore manga is written by Norihiro Yagi, the genre could be described as fantasy/horror.

Plotline:

Claymores are powerful female warriors part of an organisation and are called so because of the large swords they carry, people also refer to them as Silver-eyed Witches. Their sole purpose is to defeat the Yoma, these are demons that feed on people and take their form as disguise.

Claymores are half human, half Yoma, as
the organisation inserts Yoma blood into young girls in order to grant them the necessairy power to sense and destroy the Yoma. However, once a Claymore uses too much of her Yoma power and crosses the limit the Yoma half takes over and they become an "awakened being" gaining an incredible amount of power and the desire to eat guts.

The organisation exists of 47 Claymores (and the people who boss them around obviously), number 47 being the 'weakest' one and in this case, the main character Claire. Even though she wears the lowest number, she is not at all the least powerful. Claire became a Claymore after her only friend (a Claymore, the strongest number 1 in history - Theresa of the faint smile) got killed in front of her by an awakened being. The one thing she strives for is to defeat the one who killed Theresa.


Personally I love this manga/anime, it's beautifully drawn, the atmosphere is a bit grave yet appealing, the main character is well put together and the fights are incredible. I really recommend this one, although, if you tend to be more into the humorous style, this may not be for you.