Jesus man...don't know how you can handle that D:

Darn, it sounds like it was really rough for the mangaka of Chihayafuru after getting into trouble, but to come back from that to make a very popular and excellent manga, it is indeed. I read the 1st chapter, but could really get into it... : S I should give it another shot...

Also, I forgot to mention Kiyohiko Azuma. His work is some of the best I have ever read. I reread them from time to time just for a couple of laughs. His is so good at comedy xD

Cool, I got it! I've never read it, but from what I saw, it looks pretty graphic and dark... The artwork is really awesome though.

Wow, you followed some anime I really liked too. I rarely ever meet people who've watched Tenchi Muyo. I loved that anime~ And it sounds like Naruto was for you as Kenshin was for me xD It's cool that Naruto was your gateway to manga. It was through Kenshin that I started reading more and found even more manga I enjoyed.

Favorite mangaka...hm...not sure if I can give an easy answer.

Bleach and Naruto were both pivotal manga for me, as they were the first ones I really read weekly, but I can't really talk positively about the authors behind them at this point. Both had great starts, but I grew less and less interested in them as they went on. The final arcs in both manga were largely forgettable for me. I actually dropped Naruto after one of my favorite characters was killed for basically no reason but a plot device, and I grew sick of how many laws of the universe were just discarded to advance the story to its climax. As a reader, I remember feeling rather insulted with it, and decided not to stress myself out by reading it any longer.

A while back, I'd say Hiro Mashima. The artstyle of his manga (Rave Master, Fairy Tail, and several others) has always been really appealing to me. It's clean, detailed, and I can actually follow the battles without problems, which is honestly more rare than it should be in the genre. He also does a great job with character design, and the comedy is usually pretty great.

Unfortunately...Hiro's story-telling skills are extremely hard to defend. He can draw emotional moments for sure...the problem is, it feels like he forces the story to reach those moments, rather than approach them naturally. I don't really get the impression he has the story planned out very far in advance...which some mangaka can handle well, but here, not so much. He also hates training arcs and extended fights...which is fine, since I also hate them, but it means he usually goes in the opposite direction, with constant nakama power-ups and sudden hero victories after dozens of chapters worth of build-up. I've said it before...but I'd love to see Hiro try his hand at a romantic-comedy manga, since I think most of his faults would be insignificant in a story like that.

I've read a lot of manga since then, and most of them will either excel in one area and fail in another, or start off great all around, but grow boring over time. For example, Yoshihiro Togashi (Yuyu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter) tells a fantastic story, but his artwork looks terrible to me. Shinobu Ohtaka (Magi) is an amazing artist...but both the characters and plot really bored me over time, especially the current arc.

In the end, I would probably say Eichiro Oda (One Piece) is my favorite current mangaka. He tells an amazing story that still blows me away, even today. He sets plotlines in motion or introduces characters 400+ chapters before they amount to anything, juggles dozens of stories at once, and still manages to create an epic adventure with almost no plotholes. The characters and comedy are hilarious, and I find myself grinning a lot while reading it. The only downside is the artstyle....though I struggle to call it a downside, as it's really only how the women are drawn that I don't really care for. It's probably a minority opinion...but the exaggerated hourglass body shapes really aren't attractive to me, so even canonically "cute" girls look really weird to me. Very minor complaint though.

TLDR: Oda da man!

I'm one of the few who's gonna say Tite Kubo. There's something about his manga, maybe it's his drawing style or odd storytelling, or just his great character creation, but he's the only one who managed to get me to follow his manga for 7 years and still going strong. It's actually become quite a regular thing to expect another bleach chapter to be released weekly. It's gonna leave a hole when that stops happening soon...

For me my favorite Mangaka is Yoshihiro Togashi when he isn't playing Dragon's Quest..........

In all seriousness Togashi is the only Mangaka i have exprience multiple works of his Yu Yu Hakusho (only have seen the Anime though) and Hunter x Hunter. With Yu Yu Hakusho it helped set up a lot of stuff for modern day shounen and even does a lot of stuff better then series that was heavily influence by it cough Bleach cough. While art can get pretty bad( he does though redraw a lot of for the volumes and the art of the last 20 or so HxH chapters have been overall solid), his hiatuses make it very possible that HxH won't get an ending at all, and the final arc of Hakusho was very lackluster his story telling overall is incredible. A large part due to his villains cause i belive he is the best shounen Mangaka when comes to writing villains. Like while some villains like the bomber from hxh and the saint beast from Hakusho were forgettable. Togure and Sensui from Hakusho, and Meruem from HxH are some of the deepest, complex, and most well developed villains in all Shounen and quite possibly Anime and Manga as whole. (HxH Manga Spoiler) Plus i have a huge feeling Pariston and Beyond will be among them as well and Chrollo's character arc isn't done yet and there is a good chance Gyro will be a villain in a later arc. 

He can also write solid romances like for example while childhood friend romance is a huge cliche in Anime and Manga Yusuke and Keiko is one of the best in the action shounen genre and only one i could think that is better from a seriesi have seen and that is between the main character and a love interest is Ed and Winry from FMA and it was interesting to see the main character and his love interest to star dating early on in the series as oppose to the end of it like every other action seires. Then there is Meruem and Komugi from HxH which might be the best romance in all Shouen and their death scene is hands down my favorite moment of the series

I dropped Fairy Tail the moment Sting got on his knees and cried in front of several Fairy Tails members after all the build up he got through the whole Grand Magical Games arc. But i would defintetly read a romanctic comedy from Mashima that would definitetly be a much better genre for his  style then an action series.

I was actually okay with that ending...and a few other sudden victories that arc. Laxus dominating Raven Tail was amazing to me, since it was so unexpected at the time. Sting's scene was a good character development for him, since he had the chance to to take a cheap victory when all his opponents were weakened, and chose not to.

Still...almost every other fight that arc was really anti-climactic. Gray vs. Rufus and Erza vs. Minerva were pretty bad in particular...like Hiro wanted to set up a fight and just got bored a chapter after starting it. He feels like a kid with ADHD sometimes.

Also...I'm watching you, Poko...*glares* 

Naoshi Komi? Hell no for me. I was devestated when Double Arts was axed. His one-shots were great. Koi no Kami-sama was fun. Island, Personan, and Apple were all interesting. The only thing of his I did not really like was that one series Nisekoi but who cares.

I dunno what it was that got me into Tenchi Muyo. I was really young when I 1st watched it, so I probably still thought girls were gross and had cooties. The characters were really interesting and different (Ryoko being a crazy space pirate, Ayeka a princess and cute design, Washu always doing something in her lab, etc) I remember it being a really fun watch.... except Tenchi in Tokyo. When, what a mess that was... (mostly that art style. : P )

Some really good answers here, and varying as well. It was fun to read through them all. ( I didn't know the mangaka of Fairy Tale also did Rave Master... I remember that old manga, man...) I learned a couple of new things today about some mangaka.


Also, have you ever had a time where you decided to check out a new manga out of curiosity and it ended up being something completely bizarre?  Case and point: