I said I'd try to help on the nerd side and rather recommend some stuff I've come across that I think some of you will like as a break from the spam or depressing shit.
Will seperate them into categories and I'd like to add I will put Isakai or regression with some as regression is different in that it's stories that involve travelling back in time with memories intact than Isakai.
You can get all these free by searching the titles on search engines and using sites like MangaKatana, Mangaread etc just have adblock ready
Not action heavy but smarter tactics:
Real Man: It's lonely at the top as this CEO knows, no friends, responsible for job cuts so lots of hate from former employees, wife left as no attention. After a weird encounter he regresses in time to before the interview for the business he became CEO in. Well written with lots of corporate politics set in the war for dominance of smartphones. Also interesting split personality aspect between current self and the older, ruthless CEO he once was.
This is the Law: an accomplished lawyer is murdered by internal security to protect the president (so probably had stuff on the Clinton's). The gods are pissed as he was their guy to clean up corruption so they regress him to a teenager with all his memories and a power to assist him. Its a nice well written story aproaching everything from a legal methodology.
Trash of the Counts family: protagonist wakes up in the body of a count's son that's just trash in the story he read and uses his wits to not be on the bad side of the mc. If you enjoyed The Greatest Estate Developer, you'll love this story.
More action heavy: The world after the fall: excellent art and the story of on man's refusal to bend to anyone's will in the face of impossible odds.
I became the tyrant of a defence game: a pro strategy streamer beats an impossible defence game no one else has managed to do. He finds himself sucked into the game's intro, in a mission where you're meant to lose, one Knight is the only survivor and he's stuck in the body of the doomed commander. Good story for strategy fans.
The return of the Disaster class Hero: just fun action of a hero that gives zero fucks after being betrayed, showing a middle finger to gods and anyone in his way.
SSS - Class suicide hunter: residing in a tower, nothing really happening in his life, wishing for an ability to improve his luck. He gets one, can copy an ability of anyone he DIES TO. This would be useless if it wasn't for a particular asshole and now with this and an ability to go back 24 hours anytime he dies, changes his fate (after 4000 suicides)
My daughter is the Final Boss: failed father regresses in time and uses the second chance to stop his daughter suffering to then go evil. Has good action but main feature is cute cinnamon roll daughter.
Peak insanity:
Mr zombie: one punch man as a zombie, then even MORE insane. It starts at 100 then just goes further, from flipping a city to smashing a person into the moon using an aircraft carrier, it's just nuts.
The Return of the Crazy Demon: the mc is nuts, he regresses from his end and uses this to bitch slap, kill, inflict diarrhea through poisoning any motherfucker that gets in his way then he might randomly dance around the guy he was going to kill because he felt like it.
Calm story: Solo farming in the tower: a tower exists, people randomly selected to be hunters in said tower and our mc was summoned by mistake. Stuck in a cavern in the tower, he tries to grow the tomatoes and spring onions he has on him to survive and with help of a few local monsters starts a farm. Lots of funny scenes and cute moments.
Cultured: Yuru Fuwa Noka No moji bake skill: its a farming Isakai with many funny moments, please pay attention to my tag lol
Leave it there, I can add more but it'll go on too long, I'd HIGHLY recommend the first two, feel free to recommend others, i avoided really well known ones and I don’t do too much manga as I avoid those getting great adaptations (Spy Family, Oshi no Ko etc)
Thank you!! Because of this forum I’m good on manga to read til the day I die
Not a problem lol
Good point. Well manga and my mountain of books
I was hoping it was going to be a link to Drifters. Jesus makes a surprisingly intimidating antagonist.
Awwww.
I was talking about Japanese depictions Christianity the other day. I thought a lot lot of it seems surface and aesthetic inspired through a filter, but the underlying theology and philosophy isn't there. But I'm absolutely ready to be proven wrong, and even just on the aesthetic basis I'd love to see the best they have to offer.
I'd love another post that does explore this.
The fact that it would rile those two up some more is only a side benefit. I really was talking about this the other day and would love your recs on that.
You should see the Sentai Christmas special every year. It is such a laugh. At one point Golem from Jewish mythology is set loose on accident by cute female Santa Claus and the Sentai have to stop it.
That same year the villains go after the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A villainess yells out, "Save me Jesus!"
Moon Channel has an amazing analysis on why the Japanese are this way with religion. https://youtu.be/IEUqLL8J4gI
I mean technically I could recommend The Knight King who returned with a god as it's like if Arthur was crossed with the Doom Slayer and has a lot of religious, I'd say more Christian aesthetic
On the whole, Christianity has a mixed history in Japan thanks to the Portuguese and the rebellion they effectively instigated. There's a lot of examples where the church is shown to be corrupt and then you have mixed depictions like in something like Blue Exorcist.
The Japanese are actually really into Christmas. They put up their American aluminum trees, reserve their Christmas meal at KFC, and... wait...
Recommendation, because I'm re-reading it at the moment:
Dead Tube. Simply because it manages to capture that fine line that an unironically good B-movie does. Where it jumps between being an actual good action/horror piece while also being a schlocky over the top joke.
And while I'm on the topic of horror: Kimi ni Aisarete Itakatta. Probably one of the most horrifying reads I've ever had. Not because its particularly gruesome or disgusting, but because it manages to hit all of the "way too close to home" elements of horror. There is a single page of a girl sending a boy she likes 20 text messages in a BPD mental breakdown that will trigger most guy's flight or fight response and drag up bad memories.
Vampire hunter D, Berserk and One Piece, for Manga.
Classics though got a question, do you know the status of Berserk as I heard since the author died that rumours of his assistant carrying on and then others that it's ended at it's current point.
Yeha, the authors heart exploded, his understudies are supposedly continuing it as he left a framework of where the story is to go, I have not continued reading since c 353 or whatever the hell it was around the time he died. I'm waiting a bit before I hop back in to check where it's at. I'm going to check again in the near future and see how it has progressed. I hope it doesn't go to crap.
Haha, I don't imagine there are many people out there who feel the need to take a break from the Bible in order to read manga! :)
If you want "cultured", the minecraft isekai is the way to go. It's... Literally a guy with Minecraft Steve powers but done in an 18+ isekai pron setting. Surprisingly good, given that concept, but... That conditional of "given that concept" is definitely a qualifying statement.
I put cultured only in the very limits of manga/manwha limits, it's like how interspecies reviewers is still an anime.
'Pure culture' is available easily on nhentai lol. Though there is some that cross between the two, there's one series called When I Returned to My Hometown, My Childhood Friend was Broken, that crosses between the two in that it has a more safe for work version and one that is straight up on nhentai. It's about a girl that experienced a traumatic sexual assault but slowly starts to recover when her childhood friend returns years later and slowly develop a relationship.
Check out Totsukuni no Shoujo. It's a lot of fun trying to figure out how it all happened. A little girl is raised by a monster.
Real Man sounds VERY interesting. Manwha or Manga? Any particular place to read it?
MangaKatana has it on there, it's manhwa and I think the company it's based on is Samsung
I will have a look, I'm between reading material at the moment.