Best and worst manga you’ve read

[SSJ2]

If you haven’t read enough to form an opinion, feel free to include anime.


Best: Berserk

Berserk is well known for being highly inconsistent in quality, and I’d even go as far as to say that its more recent arcs are nauseating. However, Berserk in its peak features perhaps the greatest arc in manga history (in my opinion). Post Golden Age arc when the quality slowly begins to drop, Miura makes up for it by producing some of the most breathtaking art that you will come across. The sheer detail that he has put into his work automatically makes it my number 1 despite the direction it’s heading in now.


Worst: Battle Royale

No words are necessary for this one.

Spoiler

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Best: Ashita no Joe

Those who have read it can definitely see why I'd pick this. The manga presents the excellent character growth of an unjustified miscreant into an inspirational boxer whilst exploring its subject matter as in-depth as possible with solid quality throughout its entirety, including one of the most iconic endings in the medium.

Worst (Fully read): Skyhigh

For fairness sake, I didn't include cashgrab spinoffs such as the FnF manga or the Naruto spinoff about Sarada believing Sakura isn't her mother as they're reliant on a source material and can't be judged without it. As for Skyhigh, it's the epitome of edgy schlock trying to pass itself off as mature with a very pretentious ending, not to mention a premise that makes there no reason to read it when the first arc of Yu Yu Hakusho is a similar thing with far better character writing and no pretentious edge. Only worth reading as entertainment for the comedic factor of some of the panels.

Worst (Including dropped): Boku no Hero Academia

It lacks anything to set it apart from any other Nekketsu Shonen Jump hasn't already done far better before it along with constantly relying on huge plot conveniences and having far lower stakes than it attempts to make the audience believe it has. Was only able to tolerate one volume of it.

 

[Kyo]

Best (singular arc): Berserk's Golden Age for the reasons already stated.

Best (entire work): Oyasumi Punpun. Grim coming of age story that hits different. Only thing I was a tad tiffy on the first time around was how it ended. I would go into it more but it's kinda hard tbh.

Worst (entire work): Kanojo ni Naru Hi. Okay, I'm technically cheating here so let me explain. I originally read this when it was a completed 5 chapter work as sort of an experiment and hated it, but whatever, it was done with. At some point I noticed on MAL that it was marked as "publishing" again so I assume it got picked back up and the writer was adding more content (the original 5 chapters had an ending, so). I chose not to read the additional 15 chapters that were eventually written because why would I? Regardless, the first 5 chapters were at one point a fully completed work that told a contained story so that's what I'm picking. The concept was gender bender and basically if there's a mismatch of men and women in the world, some will transform into the other to even it out to 50-50. The plot and character developments were nonsensical as all hell and the ending made no sense (not that I remember it very well). That being said, there's probably way worse out there but I just haven't read a ton of manga yet.

The worst when considering individual arcs within a longer work (which is also technically the above, but shut up) would be stuff like Bleach's Fullbring arc or Shokugeki no Soma's last arc (for the latter, imagine that it's basically just that manga's Fullbring arc; even the fans turned on it, just like Bleach's, and imo it was not that great of a manga in the first place already, so yeah).