{"id":1216,"date":"2011-07-20T00:01:09","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T07:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mangavillage.co.uk\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2012-06-10T03:08:01","modified_gmt":"2012-06-10T10:08:01","slug":"manga-village-recommends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/2011\/07\/20\/manga-village-recommends\/","title":{"rendered":"Manga Village Recommends…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While we here at Manga Village love all the new manga coming out each week, there\u2019s over 20 years of manga releases that we love and want to recommend too! So, in each column, we will look at a genre, or creator, or even publisher to come up with the best titles that we want to recommend to you!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This month: Space Manga!<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the end of an era with the launch of the final Space Shuttle here in the US. But the dream to go out into space to explore and colonize will never die! So, here are some of our favorite manga about Space and space travel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>John T:<\/strong> Without question a topic about Earth to Space exploration cannot be complete without mention of the moving Twin Spica<\/strong>. This is Space Camp to the next level.<\/p>\n

Justin: <\/strong>I think of two manga when I think of space. For me, the classic, \u201chard sf\u201d series is Planetes<\/strong>. It is both about the real danger and mundane grind AND the wonder and hope that is space travel. You can still find the five-volume series (the last two volumes are v.4 parts 1 & 2, for some reason) if you dig a bit. The other manga is a bit rarer: Moto Hagio\u2019s \u201cThey Were Eleven,\u201d a story reprinted in the extremely rare Four Shojo Stories<\/strong>, but well worth it if you can get it through inter-library loan, or you\u2019ve got $50 for a worn copy lying around.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Alex:<\/strong> And to continue on Justin\u2019s Moto Hagio theme, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories<\/strong> cuts a wide swath and the title story is a sci-fi space story. Definitely worth the read, if you haven\u2019t picked it up yet.<\/p>\n

The series that immediately comes to mind when I think of space and manga is Vertical Inc.\u2019s Twin Spica<\/strong>, a beautiful series that\u2019s less about the trials of space travel (although there is quite a bit of that) and more about the people wanting to travel to space. It\u2019s a thrilling piece of fiction, and I encourage anyone who likes the idea of manned space travel to pick it up and read it. It will be worth your time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Connie:<\/strong> I\u2019m not that into \u201chard sf,\u201d honestly, so I had to do some digging for this one. \u00a0I\u2019d agree with the Moto Hagio recommendations, especially They Were Eleven <\/strong> (which I would recommend picking up in its original 4-issue monthly format, the back issues cost next to nothing). \u00a0But the one space-themed manga I\u2019ve read recently that I absolutely adored was Jyu-Oh-Sei<\/strong>, by Natsumi Itsuki. \u00a0It\u2019s only marginally space-themed, the early part of the story takes place on an elite space colony before the protagonists are deposited onto an inhospitable prison planet. \u00a0But the social hierarchy themes of the story are fascinating, as is the insane prison planet setting, and Itsuki also writes fantastic characters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lori:<\/strong> I like my sci-fi in ALL<\/em> flavors, from the science fantasy of Aria<\/strong> to the gritty, real world aspects of Planetes<\/strong>. But when I think of manga about space, there is one series that always comes to mind: Mobile Suit Gundam<\/strong>. Even though it hasn\u2019t found the big audience in the US, this series, that has re-invented itself for every decade, not only brought realism to giant mechs, it treated space realistically as well. I really enjoyed the first Gundam Seed Astray<\/strong> series that Tokyopop released in the mid 00\u2019s, which acts as a companion to the original Gundam Seed<\/em>, and follows a crew of Junkers. And I\u2019m looking forward to diving into Bandai\u2019s release of the newest series Gundam 00<\/strong>, including their side story with 00F<\/strong>. But I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t add my voice to love for Twin Spica<\/strong>. It is just a great series that\u2019s very human, and also true to what it takes to be an astronaut.<\/p>\n

Twin Spica<\/em> is available from Vertical, Inc<\/a>.
\nPlanetes<\/em><\/a> was released by Tokyopop and is out of print.
\nFour Shojo Stories<\/em><\/a>, was released by Viz and is out of print.
\nA Drunken Dream and Other Stories<\/em> is available from Fantagraphics<\/a>.
\nJyu-Oh-Sei<\/em><\/a> was released by Tokyopop and is out of print
\nMobile Suit Gundam Seed Astray<\/em><\/a> was released by Tokyopop and is out of print.
\nMobile Suit Gundam 00<\/em> and 00F<\/em> are available from Bandai Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n

For titles out of print, check out sites such as eBay<\/a>, Amazon Marketplace<\/a>, Paperback Swap<\/a>, or your local library.<\/p>\n

Have a favorite space title that we didn’t mention? Leave a comment telling us about it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While we here at Manga Village love all the new manga coming out each week, there\u2019s over 20 years of manga releases that we love and want to recommend too! So, in each column, we will look at a genre, or creator, or even publisher to come up with the best titles that we want to recommend to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[207,83,108,130,137,140,142],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","tag-fantagraphics","tag-manga","tag-recommendations","tag-space","tag-tokyopop","tag-vertical","tag-viz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/files\/2011\/07\/Four-Shojo-Stories.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2umma-jC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2517,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/2517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}