What Current Manga Are You Reading?

[RavenHawk]

Since there's an excellent thread about what current anime people are watching, and we have a lot of manga readers on here as well, I thought it might be informative to have a similar thread for that.

Largely, this is selfish, since I never really read much manga (though I've been watching anime and reading comic books/graphic novels for decades), but stopped into a little shop in Boston on a recent visit and decided to pick something up to support the small business.

I picked up Aposimz vol. 1 and really enjoyed it. I immediately ordered vol. 2 and flew through that one as well.

For anyone not familiar with Aposimz, it's by Tsutomu Nihei (Blame!, Knights of Sidonia), and has a lot of the same elements that you would expect from him. There are things called gauna and heigus particles, though they're not the same thing as in Knights of Sidonia. This is typical of him, as he recycles the same names and a lot of the same concepts (like seed ships in at least three of his works), but they're always slightly different. Sadly, no Toa Heavy Industries, which I always enjoy seeing pop up in his work.

On the other hand, the art looks very different. It is set on an ice planet, and everything is very white (apparently at the urging of his daughter). Story-wise, it's a quick and entertaining read (so far), though it feels more like a video game premise than a scifi manga epic. Without giving much away, the main character has to travel taking on lower baddies, building up to the bigger ones. It feels like levels of a game initially, but he puts some twists in it that make it entertaining and unexpected.

That's it for my "current" manga reading. For older stuff, I'm now in the midst of a Nihei kick, so just read through Blame, Blame!, Noise, Abara, and am halfway through my second reading of Biomega (read it once years ago, and am now taking my time and enjoying the second reading). It's really entertaining, if you read his work in the order that he created them, to see his artwork and storytelling evolve, though they're always definitely his own style and have a lot of common elements.

Biomega is by far my favorite manga... but I really haven't read much.

Next up, I plan on working my way through Knights of Sidonia (closing out the Nihei phase, since I can't find Snikt! for a reasonable price, and enjoy reading hardcopies of comics and manga), and then reading Aldnoah Zero season 1 (I just watched the anime for the second time and enjoyed it a ton, so I figured I'd see how the manga, which I believe was based upon it, and not the other way around, holds up).

What are other people reading?

[Vifam7]

Among my current favorites...

Watamote (No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular) - I was ready to drop this series around Volume 7 but it got really interesting ever since Tomoko's class trip to Kyoto.

Goblin Slayer - I actually find the manga version superior to the original light novel. The anime version is just okay.

Houkago Assault Girls (Afterschool Assault Girls) - Kinda like Sword Art Online except with a WWII D-Day theme going.

Tamayomi - High school girls baseball.

Yurukyan (Yuru Camp) - This is one of the rare ones where I think the anime is actually better than the original manga. That's not to say that the manga is bad. It's quite good. But the color and music in the anime really adds to the flavor.

Other include...Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko , Komi-san wa Komyushou desu (Miss Komi Can't Communicate) , Kyou kara City Hunter , Gundam Aggressor, all of the Konosuba and Girls und Panzer manga adaptations, etc.

[RavenHawk]

1 hour ago, Vifam7 said:

Houkago Assault Girls (Afterschool Assault Girls) - Kinda like Sword Art Online except with a WWII D-Day theme going.

This one sounds interesting to me, but i'm having trouble finding much out about it online other than actual sites with scans that look slightly sketchy. Can you say anything else about what it's like?

[Vifam7]

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

This one sounds interesting to me, but i'm having trouble finding much out about it online other than actual sites with scans that look slightly sketchy. Can you say anything else about what it's like?

My rought summary : Lead heroine Ayako and her class of 40 girls are suddenly transported to an alternate world/dimension where they must fight Nazi zombies. Led by an alternate world fox-girl Saki, they try to find a way back to the real world. Like a videogame, the each girl has a certain amount of 'lives' per day.  Running out of 'lives'  means they actually die for real. Ayako and her classmates are each given roles that are seen in army squads/platoons (such as rifleman, sniper, medic, etc.) and they are equipped in WWII-era US Army style (thus M1 Garand, M1903 Springfield, Thompson SMG, BAR, Willys Jeep, etc)

[RavenHawk]

11 minutes ago, Vifam7 said:

My rought summary : Lead heroine Ayako and her class of 40 girls are suddenly transported to an alternate world/dimension where they must fight Nazi zombies. Led by an alternate world fox-girl Saki, they try to find a way back to the real world. Like a videogame, the each girl has a certain amount of 'lives' per day.  Running out of 'lives'  means they actually die for real. Ayako and her classmates are each given roles that are seen in army squads/platoons (such as rifleman, sniper, medic, etc.) and they are equipped in WWII-era US Army style (thus M1 Garand, M1903 Springfield, Thompson SMG, BAR, Willys Jeep, etc)

Thank you!

[Marzan]

Good thread here.

Been reading Kaguya-sama, Ooko, Claymore and Vinland Saga. And of course Berserk whenever Miura has the decency to update.

If you want something reaaally different, I just finished reading Dorohedoro. The weirdest, quirkiest manga I've ever read. Pretty unique stuff.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

RELife is just such a great story

Domestic na Kanojo I like it.  I t is getting better as I go along.

[RavenHawk]

Has anyone here read Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt?

I tend towards the more scifi, especially with mecha, but have never read any Gundam manga. This one seems to have solid reviews though.

[Seto Kaiba]

Lately I've been re-reading some old favorites like Kaichou wa Maid-sama! and B Gata H Kei, mixed in with some newer stuff including Kaguya wants to be confessed to and the 4koma spinoff We Want to Talk About Kaguya, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Overlord, and the re-release of Macross the First.  I recently finished re-reading Blame! thanks to that lovely new edition that came out over the last year or so.

I've been looking for recommendations to broaden my reading list, so I'm glad you made this thread.  I hope to glean many useful recommendations from it in the future.  

 

8 hours ago, RavenHawk said:

Has anyone here read Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt?

I tend towards the more scifi, especially with mecha, but have never read any Gundam manga. This one seems to have solid reviews though.

I have... though my opinion of it is not high.  

Like the ONA, the Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt manga is relentlessly dark to the point that it quickly becomes relentlessly dull.  It'd probably be a pretty good action series if only it were possible to get invested in the characters.  The problem is that the series is so thoroughly committed to gritty grimdark grim darkness that the cast is mostly made up of complete bastards.  It's not like Yazan Gable's often-comedic sociopathy, these are just unapologetically sh*tty human beings 24/7/365.  TL;DR it's a Gundam manga that really wants to be Attack on Titan written by Buckets-of-Blood guy.

The art quality is consistently excellent though.  The only thing I can really complain about there is that the Atlas Gundam is one of the most hideous Mobile Suits I've ever laid eyes on and the character art style makes many characters (esp. Claudia) look like they were supposed to be in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and wandered onto the wrong set.  I don't know about you, but seeing a Federation division leader unironically trying to rock a pompadour takes me right out of the story.

 

If you want an oddly lighthearted, charming Gundam manga, I highly recommend Developers: Mobile Suit Gundam before the One Year War.  It's about the team at a little engineering subcontractor that developed the first Minovsky reactor-powered prototype for the MS-05 Zaku I.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[RavenHawk]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Lately I've been re-reading some old favorites like Kaichou wa Maid-sama! and B Gata H Kei, mixed in with some newer stuff including Kaguya wants to be confessed to and the 4koma spinoff We Want to Talk About Kaguya, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Overlord, and the re-release of Macross the First.  I recently finished re-reading Blame! thanks to that lovely new edition that came out over the last year or so.

I've been looking for recommendations to broaden my reading list, so I'm glad you made this thread.  I hope to glean many useful recommendations from it in the future.  

 

I have... though my opinion of it is not high.  

Like the ONA, the Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt manga is relentlessly dark to the point that it quickly becomes relentlessly dull.  It'd probably be a pretty good action series if only it were possible to get invested in the characters.  The problem is that the series is so thoroughly committed to gritty grimdark grim darkness that the cast is mostly made up of complete bastards.  It's not like Yazan Gable's often-comedic sociopathy, these are just unapologetically sh*tty human beings 24/7/365.  TL;DR it's a Gundam manga that really wants to be Attack on Titan written by Buckets-of-Blood guy.

The art quality is consistently excellent though.  The only thing I can really complain about there is that the Atlas Gundam is one of the most hideous Mobile Suits I've ever laid eyes on and the character art style makes many characters (esp. Claudia) look like they were supposed to be in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and wandered onto the wrong set.  I don't know about you, but seeing a Federation division leader unironically trying to rock a pompadour takes me right out of the story.

 

If you want an oddly lighthearted, charming Gundam manga, I highly recommend Developers: Mobile Suit Gundam before the One Year War.  It's about the team at a little engineering subcontractor that developed the first Minovsky reactor-powered prototype for the MS-05 Zaku I.

I'm going to confess my ignorance, but I don't know any of the manga you mentioned in your first sentence (except Macross the First). Google machine, here I come!

As for Blame!, I just read it about a week ago and enjoyed it quite a lot. However, you can definitely tell that it was his first work (well, except for the virtually unrelated short Blame (no exclamation point)). I liked it, and the world building, and the visual style, but some part of me is surprised that it has remained as popular as it has. It deserves to, don't get me wrong, but Nihei has gotten so much better since then!

As for Gundam Thunderbolt, I can definitely see the issues you mentioned about the characters getting in my way of caring for it (as well as, let's be honest, the pompadour). I decided to chance it on the cheap, and ordered a used copy of vol. 1 that I found for a few bucks.

Now, I don't usually go for the more lighthearted stuff, but Developers: Mobile Suit Gundam before the One Year War sounds interesting. I'm going to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

[RavenHawk]

On 2/1/2019 at 7:53 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Like the ONA, the Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt manga is relentlessly dark to the point that it quickly becomes relentlessly dull.  It'd probably be a pretty good action series if only it were possible to get invested in the characters.  The problem is that the series is so thoroughly committed to gritty grimdark grim darkness that the cast is mostly made up of complete bastards.  It's not like Yazan Gable's often-comedic sociopathy, these are just unapologetically sh*tty human beings 24/7/365.  TL;DR it's a Gundam manga that really wants to be Attack on Titan written by Buckets-of-Blood guy.

The art quality is consistently excellent though.  The only thing I can really complain about there is that the Atlas Gundam is one of the most hideous Mobile Suits I've ever laid eyes on and the character art style makes many characters (esp. Claudia) look like they were supposed to be in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and wandered onto the wrong set.  I don't know about you, but seeing a Federation division leader unironically trying to rock a pompadour takes me right out of the story.

Thunderbolt vol. 1 came in the mail yesterday and I read it last night. Since there are still 3 volumes to go in the English publication of this series, I guess it counts as "current".

I wouldn't say that I loved it, but I did enjoy it. A bit grim, but, at least so far, not too grim. Sort of what I would expect out of a book trying to show war in a more "real robot" light... very much like a war movie trying to show war a bit more realistically and less glorified. Speaking of movies, chapter 5 seemed to be virtually lifted directly from Starship Troopers (maybe I just canceled out my whole "realistic" argument?).

I've enjoyed the writing so far, but I have mixed feelings on the art. The mecha and combat are well drawn, though I find Gundam mecha designs in general to be a bit boring (at least the ones that aren't overly "cartoony"). I guess, design-wise, it's par for the course with Gundam, but, since this is my first really foray into this universe, I was hoping for some more dynamic designs. That said, the artist does a good job of conveying action and using very cinematographic framing and transitions. What I don't like is the way that humans are drawn. They just seem too rushed and cartoony (I can't believe I just used that word twice). They remind me of the character artwork from some of the worse Robotech comics.

Overall, though, I liked it enough where I ordered a cheap copy of vol. 2.

 

As for other manga I'm currently reading, I've been picking them up on the cheap, so there are a number of starts and stops while waiting for the next book to come in from slow eBay sellers or Amazon resellers, etc.

I just read the first two volumes of Aldnoah Zero season 1 (looks like season 2 and the Twin Gemini spin-off have yet to be translated, and are unlikely to be). I liked it, but only really because of a ton of affection for the anime. The books themselves are adaptations, and it shows... its's a lot like the Marvel MCU prelude comics, which takes scenes and dialogue from the movies and put them into comic format, but it ends up feeling disjointed and like too many transitions are just skipped due to page count. It's fine, and good enough to pick up for a few bucks, but definitely isn't worth cover price.

Finally, I read Knights of Sidonia volume 1. I have all but 3 of the 15 volumes, but of course I'm waiting for volume 2 to show up in the mail, so all I can comment on is vol. 1 so far. I have to say that I like it a lot so far. Granted, I'm a big Tsutomu Nihei fan, and I enjoyed the anime, so there's no real surprise that I liked it, but still... The story is told well, bits of backstory are mixed in appropriately, the artwork is surprisingly clear and easy to follow, and it's nice to get more details and things that the anime couldn't go into.

 

That's it for me at the moment. Hopefully some other folks can comment on what they're currently reading, and what else is worth checking out.

[Vifam7]

2 hours ago, RavenHawk said:

That's it for me at the moment. Hopefully some other folks can comment on what they're currently reading, and what else is worth checking out.

 

Anything in particular you are looking for?  Certain genres or subject matter?

 

[RavenHawk]

14 minutes ago, Vifam7 said:

 

Anything in particular you are looking for?  Certain genres or subject matter?

 

My tastes are scifi, leaning towards more realistic stuff, but I don't want this thread to be just about what I'm looking for. Anything that people are reading or have read that they want to either recommend or vent about their annoyance with is fair game.

[Focslain]

Looking at this I kind of want to pick up some of my old mangas for a re-read and see about completing a few collections.

Only currently running manga I've hit was Honor Student at Magic High School, mostly due to me being a fan on the LN and anime Irregular at Magic High School. Having hit this franchise from all three side the manga is pretty good for a shoujo manga. General premise is it's a retelling of the events in the LN from the prospective of Miyuki (Tatsuya's sister) as well as side arcs about some of the other girls in her class.

Older ones I want to get the full run of are Hyper Police, Gunslinger Girls (would pay JPN prices for an Italian dub) and Lucky Star.

[RavenHawk]

Just read vol. 1 of Mech Cadet Yu today.

While it technically isn't manga, it really pretty much is...

Written by Greg Pak, with art by Takeshi Miyazawa, everything about it is manga-like, except that it's in a larger format, all color, and put out by Boom Studios.

I have to say, even though it's aimed at a more all-ages audience, this was a very fun, entertaining, light-hearted read.

I recommend it if you like giant robots at all. I ordered vol. 2, and will be getting vol. 3 (the end of the series) when it comes out in April.

[Seto Kaiba]

It's been a slow weekend, so I've spent my time catching up in Seitokai Yakuindomo, Blue Exorcist, Silver Spoon, and the latest-released light novel volumes of Overlord, Goblin Slayer, and I started The Rising of the Shield Hero.

The Yen Press light novel translations are a welcome breath of fresh air, considering how light novels were an almost universally neglected format for localization.  There are a couple frustrating translation issues in their translation of Overlord, but on balance they've done a fine job.  They recently released Overlord Vol.9, so the light novel's english release is now caught up to the anime.  All the extra detail in the light novel version does a lot of good for the whole story arc surrounding the war with the Re-Estize Kingdom spends most of the time in black comedy territory, and might as well be titled "Emperor Jircnev is entertainingly wrong".  

Goblin Slayer's latest volume is also surprisingly lighthearted, though I swear the new kid is an off-brand Negi Springfield.  The whole story around starting a training camp for new adventurers in the hopes of reducing the attrition rate went to interesting places, though six volumes on it's starting to get a bit samey since there are only so many ways that one insane man can kill an entire nest of goblins very, VERY quickly.  

Silver Spoon has been a consistently fun read.  For a slice of life school drama it's surprisingly unconventional and fresh, being set at an agricultural school dedicated to teaching farm management.  Doubly interesting for the fact that its author, Hiromu Arakawa (of Fullmetal Alchemist fame), grew up on a dairy farm and so lends a lot of veracity to the lessons about farming and especially livestock management.  They even dropped a few Macross references early on, using Macross-class ships as a unit of measure for describing how huge the farm one student's family owns is.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started Shinmai Maou no Testament and it is a lot safer than the anime.

[Bolt]

2 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I started Shinmai Maou no Testament and it is a lot safer than the anime.

You mean safer than the Manga?

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

58 minutes ago, Bolt said:

You mean safer than the Manga?

I thought it was less ecchi than the anime.  Until the last chapter where it goes overboard with the love.

[JB0]

6 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I started Shinmai Maou no Testament and it is a lot safer than the anime.

I'd say that is completely missing the point of the franchise, and that the anime was much tamer than the books(which are basically porn with an exceptionally detailed plot). But that would require me admitting I know what you're talking about, and I still have a shred of pride.

[Keith]

Space Brothers

[RavenHawk]

Finished up through vol. 5 of Knights of Sidonia... and I'm at a standstill, as I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices people are asking for vol. 6. We're into a lot of details and subplots that were skipped by the anime, and I'm really enjoying it a lot.

Also just read vol. 3 of season 1 of Aldnoah Zero and my opinion has improved. It looks like the writer and artist are finally creating their own pacing, transitions, and framing based on the scripts, as opposed to just transferring the anime to manga format.

Patiently waiting for Mech Cadet Yu vol. 2 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt vol. 2 to arrive...

Not Manga, but I just read the Halo Graphic Novel (sought it out due to the Tsutomu Nihei story). I thought it was... meh. I was expecting more, since it seems to have gotten pretty solid reviews, but it just didn't do anything for me, and I don't think it was just because I wasn't invested in any of the characters. It seemed like otherwise talented writers and otherwise amazing artists just, you know, contributing something ok. Maybe they had trouble fitting within page limitations? The notes in the book from the creative teams suggest that they were given as much time as they reasonably needed and relatively free reign to do what they wanted.

[Focslain]

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

Finished up through vol. 5 of Knights of Sidonia... and I'm at a standstill, as I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices people are asking for vol. 6. We're into a lot of details and subplots that were skipped by the anime, and I'm really enjoying it a lot.

So checked and if you don't mind digital, Bookwalker has each vol up to 15 for $7.90 each or you can just drop $84 for the bundle (1-15). If you don't have bookwalker check out some ani-tubers and in general someone has a discount code for your first purchase.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Focslain

[RavenHawk]

Just now, Focslain said:

So checked and if you don't mind digital, Bookwalker has each vol up to 15 for $7.90 or you can just drop $84 for the bundle (1-15). If you don't have bookwalker check out some ani-tubers and general someone has a discount code for your first purchase.

Thank you. I appreciate you checking for me.

For whatever reason, when it comes to manga and comic books, I really like getting the hardcopies. I have plenty of books in digital (especially ones I tend to re-read), but would love to complete this set on my bookshelf.

[Focslain]

Just now, RavenHawk said:

Thank you. I appreciate you checking for me.

For whatever reason, when it comes to manga and comic books, I really like getting the hardcopies. I have plenty of books in digital (especially ones I tend to re-read), but would love to complete this set on my bookshelf.

That's fine, figured I look for an alternate. Also speaking of mecha books, does anyone know of a LN that has mecha in it. Need to find one for research, it doesn't need to be in english btw. Thanks in advance.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

19 hours ago, JB0 said:

I'd say that is completely missing the point of the franchise, and that the anime was much tamer than the books(which are basically porn with an exceptionally detailed plot). But that would require me admitting I know what you're talking about, and I still have a shred of pride.

The Light Novel is really ecchi.  There is a second manga called Shinmai Maou no Testament Storm at the and it is ecchi overdrive, on level with the Novels.

[JB0]

3 hours ago, Focslain said:

That's fine, figured I look for an alternate. Also speaking of mecha books, does anyone know of a LN that has mecha in it. Need to find one for research, it doesn't need to be in english btw. Thanks in advance.

Full Metal Panic springs to mind.

[RavenHawk]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

Full Metal Panic springs to mind.

It's funny, I was literally just reading up on that. Never seen it or read it, but, while looking for English translations of Rideback, I saw that the creator of that series did a run on Full Metal Panic! Looked up the wiki, and saw that both the anime and the manga are adaptations of the light novels.

[Focslain]

13 hours ago, JB0 said:

Full Metal Panic springs to mind.

The mecha in the series have so little screen time I had forgotten about that. Will look into it. 

Thanks.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Focslain said:

The mecha in the series have so little screen time I had forgotten about that. Will look into it. 

Thanks.

The Full Metal Panic! manga are pretty good... though it has a lot of comedy spinoffs.

The actual story is in Retsu Tateo's Full Metal Panic! manga, and finishes in Hiroshi Ueda's Full Metal Panic! Sigma.

Comic Mission, Surplus, and Overload are all basically comedy spinoffs.

Fan translations of all of them are available, though Sigma's are pretty spotty and have a fair number of inaccurate translator's notes.  

Spoiler

The most irritating of which mistakes the last joke in the series for a Gundam 00 reference...

Spoiler

It's actually a Knight Rider reference... Al jokes that if they can't find a new AS to install him in, he'd like to be installed in a Trans-Am.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[RavenHawk]

50 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Full Metal Panic! manga are pretty good... though it has a lot of comedy spinoffs.

The actual story is in Retsu Tateo's Full Metal Panic! manga, and finishes in Hiroshi Ueda's Full Metal Panic! Sigma.

Comic Mission, Surplus, and Overload are all basically comedy spinoffs.

Fan translations of all of them are available, though Sigma's are pretty spotty and have a fair number of inaccurate translator's notes. 

I was looking into Full Metal Panic! 0 (zero), but info on it seems spotty (and no translations that I could find).

[JB0]

So in honor of the current anime adaptation, I'm re-reading Kaguya etcetera etcetera.  I was originally just spot-checking chapters to figure out how far the anime was going to run, but then I just started reading them all, and now I'm well past anything the anime can possibly reach and still going. Ooops?

No regrets.

[RavenHawk]

Just finished two series, so I figured I'd post.

I finished Knights of Sidonia. I definitely enjoyed it a lot, especially all of the details and backstory that didn't make it into the anime. It was also great reading the 1/2-1/3(ish) of the story that took place after the anime, too. I will say that the last 2 (of 15) volumes were a bit disappointing. Lots of battles where the excitement came across in the pages of the manga surprisingly well, but they felt a little bit rushed. After a bit of a slow burn for the first 6 or 7 volumes, and some interesting new character introduction in the next half dozen or so, the last couple just felt like he decided that it was time to wrap it all up.

I also finished off the 10 volumes of Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt that are available in English (two more on preorder). Despite some warnings in this thread about it being too grim-dark (and I respect those opinions), I liked it. It felt more like an attempt at showing realism of different people who might be involved in these situations, and less like grim for the sake of grim. I was also a bit surprised to find Daryl becoming more likable as the series went on, while Io seemed to go back and forth between showing a more likable side, and then just going full-douche. I like it, and I'm looking forward to the last two volumes... but it's still not one of those things that makes me want to go seek out collectibles or anything based on the series.

Other than those... I read vol. 4 of Aldnoah Zero Season 1. Unfortunately, while I thought vol. 3 was a big improvement over the previous two, the final volume was pretty much back to the earlier lower level. I have enough affection for the series where I wish they had translated season 2 and the spin-off into English, but I can't say I'd recommend the manga to anyone other than a completist.

I read vol. 2 of Mech Cadet Yu and found it to be just as well done and fun (though too quick) a read as the first collection. Looking forward to the release of the third (and final) collection.

Next up: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. I've heard good things (both here and elsewhere) and think that will cap off the Gundam portion of my manga reading (since I'm stuck with what's been translated into English, and the other stuff looks to just be adaptations, while this is more tailored to manga from the start).

Always open to more recommendations, too!

[Seto Kaiba]

 

Next up: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. I've heard good things (both here and elsewhere) and think that will cap off the Gundam portion of my manga reading (since I'm stuck with what's been translated into English, and the other stuff looks to just be adaptations, while this is more tailored to manga from the start).

Mobile Suit Gundam: the Origin is pretty great.  They stuck surprisingly close to the vintage art style of the original Mobile Suit Gundam and did a lot to expand the backstory.  It's kind of continuity porn, but it's the good kind.  We get a bit more insight into the death of Zeon Zum Deikun, who in this version is less a hippy-dippy space peacenik and appears to be an unstable visionary who believes in evolutionary predestination, and more ambiguity as to whether he was assassinated by the Zabi family or simply died of natural causes.  There's lots more focus on Char, like the Deikun family's escape from Side 3, his growing up in Texas colony, and a fairly detailed story of how he was able to join the Zeon armed forces under the assumed name Char Aznable.  We get to see a lot more of the infighting among the Zabi family including the assassination of Sasro Zabi (how Dozle got his scars).  Amuro's a bit less of a whiny squit (but not much), and a lot of iconic scenes are redone in loving detail and it doesn't drag as bad as the original TV series does in the middle.  

 

As far as recommendations go, I'd renew my suggestion of the fairly lighthearted almost-comedy Developers: Mobile Suit Gundam Before the One Year War.  I've been having a bit of fun with the religious comedy Saint Oniisan, a slice of life odd couple comedy about Jesus of Nazarith and Gautama Buddha vacationing on Earth and living together in a small flat in Tachikawa.  A lot of the comedy revolves around them trying to hide their identities (with Jesus friendly being mistaken for Johnny Depp) while they figure out modern life.  I've also started following Silver Spoon again, which is a pretty fun read given that the author Hiromu Arakawa actually grew up on a dairy farm and brings a lot of veracity to the comedy about living at an agricultural school.

[Bolt]

Did someone say dark?

Try Biomega or Blame. Also both from knights of Sidonia creator Tsutomu Nihei