Genres of Manga: Romance

And Example of a Romantic Manga.

Unlike the majority of American comics, manga can be much more than simply a hero of some sort beating the hell out of a villain in a repetitive storyline. Manga has many genre’s, and my purpose here is to give a good explanation/summary of what these are.

So, this time we’ll talk about romantic manga which actually has many more genres than any other form of manga.

Let’s get started:

Ecchi: This is a more…Perverted form of manga you could say. In ecchi, typically it would involve the female characters wearing some form of skimpy clothing, flirting conistantly, making sexual refrences, and using sexual humor. Though, ecchi doesn’t usually have a great deal of nudity. This manga type generally targets mid-teenage to upper-teenage males as a reading audience.

Shoujo: This type of manga is basicly a story wrapped around romance and drama, much like a soap opra you could say. This is usually a more complex love story than other types of romance and can be divided into a few sub-categories. As you would guess, most shoujo typically targets female’s of all ages really as a reading audicence.

::Shoujo Sub-Categories::

Yuri: This genre of manga, well let’s be blunt. This genre of manga is based upon girlXgirl love, or lesbianism as I like to call it. Much like shoujo Yuri generally is wrapped around one or many romantic stories and some form of drama, it’s basicly more of a sub-genre as you can see. Though Yuri is known to contain some form of sexual nature, a bit stronger than what you’d see in ecchi such as a sex scene or two and nudity. This genre shockingly did and still targets females from upper-teens to adults.

Yaoi: This is the genre I find a bit…Disturbing. But I’m a guy, so you should expect that. Yaoi is basicly the opposite of Yuri, yep, you guessed it. Its guyXguy love, I can’t use the term gay b/c many people would offended for some ignorant reason. But anyway, this manga like Yuri is based around one or many romance stories wrapped around some form of drama. Another element this genre shares with Yuri is unlike ecchi it has a much stronger sexual nature ranging from a few sexual scenes and nudity. This manga is actually intended for females from upper-teens to adults.

Shoujo-Ai: Really there isn’t much difference between this genre and Yuri, this is considered to be “softer” girlXgirl love. Unlike Yuri, Shoujo-ai contains virtually no sexual nature except for an occassional ecchi element. I mean you would still have the kissing and all of that lovey dovey crap as well, just no sex. Much like Yuri is is also intended for a female audience, only this time ranging from younger-teens to adults.

Shounen-Ai: Much like Shoujo-Ai Shounen-Ai is not much different from Yaoi. It’s as you can guess at this point a “softer” form of guyXguy love. Much like Shoujo-Ai it contains virtually no form of sexual nature other than the occassional ecchi element. This genre of course targets a female audience ranging from younger-teens to adults.

Josei: This is a somewhat, stronger form of shoujo you could say. Long storys short its more realistic and explicit than regular shoujo manga, its less idealistic as well. This manga mainly targets older women as a reading audience, simply because its not the crappy happily ever after story as much romances turn out to be.

::End Of Sub-Categories::

Hentai: Last, but not least comes hentai. Hentai is essentially manga pornography, filled with nothing more but sex, sex, and more sex with each chapter and page. What more do you need? Sure there is a form of story behind it, but its intention is basically is to provide ‘entertainment’ for male audicences. As I said, hentai’s intended audience is for more mature males ranging from eighteen to late twenties though I’m sure a lot of teenagers read it as well.

And, well. That is all for the different types of Romance Manga. I could go into detail and possibly list all of the types of hentai, but that would be a waste of my time and your seeing as porn is porn and sex is sex.

Until next time,
The Undead Nutcase

Highschool of The Dead

Alright this will be my first post, and if you can’t tell by the title its going to be about the manga Highschool of the dead. I’m sure there are quite a few other blogs out there similar to the ones I’ll be posting, but I don’t care now do I?

Highschool of The Dead or Academy Apocalypse is written by Daisuke Sato. It has been published by Monthly Dragon Age which is a Shonen Manga magazine as of September 2006. For now the manga is currently under hiatus ever since 2008 which is a disappointment for me and quite a few others because it is a really good manga series unworthy of being a dropped project in most eyes.

The plot in a nutshell is like any other zombie story, a deadly disease begins to turn people into flesh eating zombies and a group of people must fight for survival. The group of people in this manga happen to be a group of students and their school nurse. It all starts in Japan of course as does just about every other manga you read, though the beginning of this manga is a little ways into the future until one of the students, the main character Takashi Komuro has a flash back recapping what all happened and how they managed to get where they were at the time.

The manga is something I would not recommend for a younger audience due to the excessive gore and repeated sexual themes throughout the entire series. It’s a parodic from time to time and has bit of a comedic element which isn’t typical of most stories involving the undead but then again it is typical in the majority of manga out there. The story is rather simple and easy to follow; from time to time you can get side tracked but name any zombie novel or comic that you don’t get side tracked in. This manga is fairly realistic compared to most stories involving zombies, the governments actually start to collapse at some point and it eventually becomes and every man for themselves kind of thing unless you count the main group of protagonists. You see clear changes in a few of the characters and a few reactions and obstacles that you would expect during a time of crisis such as a zombie outbreak, none of the everyone’s cold and willing to kill crap. Though the students do jump to kill the undead fairly quickly from the start, after hesitating and the whole having to realize that they’re dead mental battle you see in most zombie stories. This story is unique compared to a lot of zombie films and I’ve seen and the zombie novels I’ve read, the people actually know what the zombies are fairly quick from the start. They use references from movies and actually talk of how they killed the zombies in the movies, which works no doubt.

All in all this is a great manga to read if you think you can handle a lot of blood, violence, and sexual humor and themes. I’d give this manga a 9.5 out of 10 not quite a ten because it has a few cheesy themes in it that are a little too typical for manga. Read it and you’ll find out what I mean.

I’d recommend this manga to any hardcore zombie fan or to anyone who enjoys seeing zombies getting their heads smashed, getting sliced in half, blown up, and/or shot in the face. If you want to read a manga that will keep your attention and more than likely keep you on the edge of your seat, read Highschool of The Dead. For this post, this is all I have.

Until next time, Undead Nutcase.

An Introduction is in Place

Hello kiddies, this is the Undead Nutcase.

My blog is quite simple really, it will be more based upon Manga than anything else. I will be sharing my personal opinions and reviews on certain manga, recommendations on manga and possibly a few updates in the manga world like new volumes to a popular series, etc.

That is all for now…