I hope everyone has a good 2008! And to start the new year off in the spirit of giving, I'm sharing some manga with you.

This post is mainly meant to be an introductory manga post. It contains (scanlations of) the first volumes of four popular manga series which I think probably have the broadest appeal for people who may only be marginally interested in manga, or have more experience with Western comics, or have never touched either. Of course, there might be a manga fan or two who reads this who has never checked out one of these series, because it's outside of the genre they're used to or whatever, and may wish to explore a little. :) I also picked series that I thought demonstrated the potential diversity of manga.

( Downloads and summaries under the cut )

Enjoy!

There's good news for Higurashi fans. :) There's a new group working on an English patch for the original sound novels. To my knowledge, there has been a patch made for Minagoroshi-hen (and maybe Matsuribayashi-hen?) in the past, and part of Onikakushi-hen. This new group intends to do the whole series, though it's going to take awhile (and hopefully they can stick it out). They have currently released through Day 3 of Onikakushi-hen.

( ~How to Play the Game~ )

( Dumb RL stuff )

I'm sure you're all sick of me talking about this show, but I can't help it. ;_; Anyway, I wanted to share the "Dear You" image songs that I found in a big Higurashi music post on oyashirosama. I totally love these songs. They all have the same melody but different lyrics, instrumentation, and singers, and obviously each one is for a different character (my favorite is "Hope"). They're really beautiful and sad. By the way, I have caught up with the show, and kefanii ... you were right ... Hanyuu is so AHHHHHH! ♥ I love her and Rika so much!



Dear You -Cry- (Rena) Performed by Yuduki, lyrics here
Dear You -Feel- (Mion and Shion) Performed by Minoru Kotoha, lyrics here
Dear You -Hope- (Rika and Hanyuu) Performed by Hotarubi Kakeru, lyrics here
Dear You -Kind- (Satoko) Performed by Yukimiya Hinaki, lyrics here
Thoughts -You were in the wind of summer- (I think this is just as an image song for the whole show, it contains part of "Dear You" embedded in it) Performed Yuzuki Kaoru, lyrics here

More Higurashi music here.

I also have to say, yesterday I was so sure I could find an English localization of the original visual novel games for the series, but it doesn't exist, official or fanmade. :( I did spend a little bit of time reading through the translated TIPS from the games on AnimeSuki.

Nine songs for the end of Death Note. Contains songs by Paganini, Arcade Fire, Jeff Buckley, Rasputina, The Dresden Dolls, Billie Holiday, The Shins, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and Gorillaz.

UPDATED with SaveFile link for full mix and individual Sendspace links for each song.

( Demon Days: An End of Death Note Mix )

x18 tracks (downloadable separately or in two archives)
x11 images (all taken from TOWNL scanlations and DeathGod.org)
xinumerable amounts of dorkiness
xcomments appreciated

The sleevenotes, including song lyrics, descriptions, and images contain SPOILERMCSPOILERYSPOILERS for the entire series.

Artists included in this mix:

Imogen Heap, Placebo, Patrick Wolf, The Bird and the Bee, Poe, Goldfrapp, Gorillaz, PJ Harvey, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Shins, Tori Amos, Tomoyasu Hotei, Regina Spektor, Morcheeba, Beethoven, Neko Case, Basement Jaxx, and Cat Power.

UPDATE 4/27/07: All SendSpace links updated.

( I'm not your tool to solve a puzzle. )