Everyone see that!  Bullying!

Also, I never want to think about Gray vs. Rufus again.  He spent forever building Rufus and then the fight happened and it was nothing.  I was completely pissed off.  That's the thing with Fairy Tail.  New bad guys appear, they're hyped to the sky, then it's like, "oh, they're nothing much, really."

As far as gateway anime, as odd as it sounds, that would probably be the Cutey Honey OAVs.  A friend of a friend was like "here, watch this," and they blew me away.  Yeah, she was hot, and that was great for a kid my age, but it was more the fact that there was actual storytelling, and the female hero was kickass, and the villians were dark and evil.  It felt so much more interesting and compelling then sanitized monster-of-the-week cartoons.  It made me look for more stuff with a similar vibe.

I've said this before but my gateway manga was probably Yankee-kun to Megane-chan.  Before that, I was anime only.  I can't even remember why I started reading it, either.  It was either because I saw the drama first (probably) or that I thought "megane-chan" was cute.  Still one of the funniest manga out there.

For me it was the opposite, I was reading a manga recently thinking it would be weird and it turned out to be pretty normal. It's called Dullahan-chan wa Kubittake. It's pretty new, only about 5 chapters right now, she's basically the only dullahan in the world,while everybody else is normal, but they don't seem to think it's weird. Oh yeah her horse is headless too.It seems to be about her facing puberty like any other teen has to go through, it's a fun read I suppose.

You know what's funny about this manga? I saw this same one a few days ago and read it too. I expected it to be weird, but everyone acts like it's normal. What the heck, really... I think the weird thing is how they act normal about this xD I might read up more on this one, just because it's so weird....

Gosh, I haven't rewatched it at all since I was little. I really need to. I feel like I'll notice things I missed as a kid, haha.

Oh yeah, so.. another chapter of Otaku no Koi wa Muzukashii is out and....

It finally looks like it's not being sponsored by Nintendo xD This time it takes place in an MMO. Nothing too exciting or worthwhile happened in this chapter, but at least Narumi and Hana have really cute avatar designs. Also, I dunno what class Hirotaka had. It looked like the ultra chill otaku class... That entrance was made all the better when it turned out to be his brother playing. It was also funny how he wanted to try playing, but Hirotaka swiftly denied him that xD

Rave Master was pretty great. The plot was a bit standard, like something you'd see in a 90's JRPG, but the characters and the comedy made up for it. It also had some of the heaviest scenes I've read in a shounen adventure adventure manga before, and also one of the best foreshadowing moments I've seen in any medium. I suppose that's another reason I'm dissapointed that FT takes a week-by-week approach, since RM felt a lot more cohesive as a story.

One of my favorite scenes was when a former villain comes back, joins the MC's team...only to later reveal he slept with his sister while he was MIA. I was not expecting a development like that at all. XD

As for your question...I don't have any better examples, but there was one manga I tried that comes to mind. I can't remember why I tried it out, but I found something called Re:Marina (or something similar at least), and looked to see what it was about. I suppose I should have seen it coming, based on the cover image for it...but I thought it was pretty dumb. It basically about a kid who lives by himself, only for a naked girl (yep) to come out of a portal in his room, tell him she's from the future where she's married to him, but wants to spend time with him now that he's younger. 

I didn't bother to read much further. Maybe it gets better, or maybe I just wasn't the target audience for it. They synopsis I read made it sound like it touched on some heavy themes...when it seemed to me like another "lonely otaku gets a hot girlfriend out of nowhere" manga. The bare tits in the first chapter kinda reinforced that for me.

Drive by comment: I read all of Apocalypse no Toride (Fortress of the Apocalypse).
Rating? 5/10

It started out really strong with interesting characters, a good setting, and some standard zombie action. The art is a little rough for the first five or six chapters, but things eventually start evening out. I wasn't really a fan of the zombie design from beginning to end. Honestly, by the end, it was super reminiscent of Gantz for me in design, but it's been so long since I've read the latter, I can't be totally certain as to why. That aside, the art was pretty okay. Not the best your eyes will witness, but by the dog zombie things, the style seems to be figured out.

The story had a good start, but by the end, so many plot lines have just been abandoned, it's kind of ridiculous. It doesn't help that the ending was incredibly rushed, as if the author got bored, didn't know what to do with the story anymore, and kind of gave up, just wrapping everything up summarily over the course of about five chapters of almost pure nonsense. They attempt to explain the virus but never get beyond a super rudimentary explanation that amounts to "it's a virus bruh", another plot point that appeared to be making progress and was simply given up on.

Characters are introduced and forgotten, the running death count just sort of stops existing in the last ten chapters or so, and the author seemed scared to kill off main characters despite the potential impact. The amount of plot armor after obvious death flags gets a little ridiculous.

To pull it all together, apparently the story came to be because the incredibly vague idea of a prison story with zombies was pitched to the author. With that in mind, it isn't too surprising it fell to pieces when the biggest motivation was "it sounded cool".

To be totally fair to Apocalypse no Toride, there were some really cool moments, and the main characters were diverse enough to be decently well written considering how two dimensional the characters ultimately were and how predictable the bits and pieces of character development ended up being. In the end though, the handful of well done pieces couldn't save the whole.

Final verdict? Not recommended unless you really need a zombie fix. It's only 46 chapters of the slightly longer variety, but nothing someone couldn't get through in a few hours over a couple of days. Anybody seeking a plot with substance and explanation is better off going elsewhere though.

Didn't know you read my favorite sports manga :o

Yeah the new dempsey roll is gonna be amazing. Just highlighting Kamogawa and Ippo's bond really makes it special. I'm a little worried about Takamura as well, I think his defeat will be the thing to push Ippo forward the most and the fact that he's becoming blind will be quite the blow for everyone.

Nothing to report at the moment but this is the last entry on my buddy list. I've been rewatching Girls Und Panzer so I've consumed very little manga.

Yeah I agree, I believe this is the first time he praises Ippo and after all this time it hit me pretty hard. I've gotten really attached to the characters T.T Can't wait for what the future holds for them!.

Still catching up on Hero Academia...as anticipated I got distracted.

The villain behind Shigaraki finally showed his face....or lack thereof. I wonder if there's a connection with his lack of face and how Shigaraki always hides his behind a disembodied hand. The All for One/One for All backstory was pretty interesting, I like the lore in this universe.    

Also Summer Vacation arc is starting!