A few notes first: Scholarship on manga is sparce at best here in the English speaking world, so a lot of this will be from my own experience We have a lot of content to cover, so to ensure we get through it all I ask that questions be held until the end This is a very visual presentation, I will be talking over a lot of slides of manga panels, don’t worry about reading them, just sit back, relax, look at the art and listen to what I’m saying.
Genre note: I will only be covering genres that are unique to manga
A notoriously long running weekly series called One Piece has been running since 1997, spanning 1128 chapters and 110 volumes. The author has been Eiichiro Oda since its beginning. This rapid release schedule can also lead to some of the art released in the anthologies to have a more sketch like quality, as time for corrections is rarely given. They are often cleaned up for the tankobon release.
Manga -> Anime <- Light Novels/Visual novels. Visual novels -> manga, Light novels -> manga. That is to say that the Japanese media landscape is…
A big Ouroboros eating its own tail. To talk about one part of the media landscape is often to talk about every other part. Now let’s talk demographics
There are as many genres in manga as there is in any other literary format. For this presentation I am going to focus on just the genres that are unique to manga, starting with:
This is a list of the top 5 best selling manga in the US in 2023. All of the top 5 and 9 of the top 10 were battle manga, and the rest weren’t even close. Because of this overwhelming popularity I am going to spend the most time on battle manga, as I think being unfamiliar with them and their appeal would be a disservice to you all as well as your patrons. Review note: This is pulled from a message board breakdown looking at the Book Scan 2023 report on top 750 best selling “comic books” in the US. It references both the original report from BookScan and an article from Comic Beat to arrive at these numbers. From the information I have the math here more or less checks out. What I appreciate about this particular set of figures is that it takes into account the volumes included in box sets, which are a popular way of buying manga series. BookScan treats these as a single “volume” so the author of this post took at a look at the SKUs to find the volumes included to arrive at the final numbers.
So let’s start with some history. This era is known for setting the foundations of what battle manga would be moving forward
Enter Buroson and Tetsuo Hara’s Fist of the North Star
In a version of earth where the world has been destroyed by a nuclear apocalypse one man sets out to right the wrongs of a broken world. This started the roots of what would become modern battle manga with its focus on one on one martial arts based combat.
The protagonist uses a mythical style of pressure point based martial arts to defeat his opponents. It has a delayed effect (mostly so that he can say his iconic line which has been memed to death due to the anime adaptation) “ Omae wa mou shindeiru ” or “You are already dead” and then their heads literally explode in gruesome detail. It’s hyper violence at it’s finest, however battle manga would soon take a turn away from this more gritty hyper violence style with…
1984 ‘s Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama. To say that this is one of the most influential manga of all time would be an understatement. You are likely at least familiar with the character designs, if not the content of the manga itself.
Loosely based on Journey to the West it tells the story of Son Goku from childhood to adulthood and his journey around the world in search of the titular wish granting Dragon Balls.
it’s this perfect storm of action-comedy-adventure-fantasty, and eventually…
sci-fi.
It’s mix of serious combat and comedic brevity was the perfect combination for a thrilling and fun series with wide appeal. There really is something for everyone. Dragon Ball is, from the math I can find, the fourth best selling manga series of all time in terms of sales per volume. Of the 42 volume run, each volume sold 6.1 million copies. It is barely beat out by the new up and comer Demon Slayer (though some argument could be made for DS selling better due to it having a largely digital publication)
Let’s talk the other tropes that DB set
First, what I like to call “anime magic”. This is basically the many varied types of special powers that would become prevalent in battle manga. Dragon Ball has it’s energy blast bases system ki, but there are many many others
The called shot or just named attacks in general. You have to shout the name of your attack every time or it doesn’t work! The bottom left L shape is actually the panel preceding the previous slide with the famous ka me ha me ha or makehameha wave
Mid battle transformations, here we see the famous scene where goku transforms into the legendary super sayan
We also see this in villans, the ol trope of “this isn’t even my final form” where the enemies will transform to become even more powerful when cornered, thus raising the stakes
Powerlevels, or numerical measures of the strength of a fighter. This is mostly to queue the audience either A: how much of an underdog the protag is or in this case B: show how strong the protagonist has become
Jojo’s Bizarre adventure tells a multi-generational story of the Joestar family being tormented by a vampire named Dio Brando. Interestingly enough this series is still ongoing! After part 6 it moved to a monthly seinen manga anthology Ultra Jump
The art style is very clearly inspired by FotNS with dudes built like – brickhouses. However, this series is best known for two things
The JoJo Pose – Araki has such a fascination with the silhouette and it shows in his posing throughout the series, here are some examples:
The other thing that Jojo’s is best known for is its off the wall humor and “dramaticness”. Here Mista does not trust our protagonist because he “tastes like a liar”
JoJo’s part 3: Stardust Crusaders in 1989 revolutionized battle manga combat with the introduction of “Stands” which are highly specialized psychic powers that can do one particular thing. In this example we have Dio’s “The World” which stops time. I will talk a bit more about this when I get to the appeal section, but for now I just want to point out that “Anime Magic” had really only been “mystical martial arts” up to this point. This opened up the door for a much more technical form of battles with more unique and varied powers. -Talk about the history of western release, manga didn’t start being released until 2014 for everything but SC which ran in 2005.
Now we’re going to be talking in depth about YuYu Hakusho when we talk about the appeal of battle manga later so I just want to touch on the tropes that are introduced here. First and foremost it brought a much more personalized form of storytelling to the genre, discussing issues of class and discrimination as well as just raising the emotional stakes of what had been seen in battle manga previously.
Once you become familiar with YYH’s characters you start to see them in all over in other battle manga teams. You have -
Dragon Ball finished publication in 1995, leaving a “power vacuum This era is best defined by it’s move away from battle manga’s focus on martial arts and on more unique and sometimes abstract forms of “combat”. In this post-dragon ball era, how do you stand out. We’re going to see the rise of 3 series that went on to be some of the best selling manga series of all time.
The first of the “Big 3” to arrive on the scene 1997’s One Piece is the best selling manga of all time in terms of total volumes sold – over 500 million copies sold world wide. That’s ~4.5 million copies sold for each of it’s 110 total volumes.
Our story centers on Monkey D. Luffy, who dreams of becoming King of the Pirates and finding the One Piece.
From what I have gathered what makes this series stand out is the world building. To quote my boyfriend: “The most interesting thing they ever say about a place in dragon ball is how much gravity it has. One piece takes you to these incredible places that are almost characters in their own right.”
Kishimoto’s Naruto tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, who is the village outcast
His dream is to become the very best ninja and rise to the rank of Hokage, or leader of the village.
What makes Naruto stand out is two things. First is it’s unique setting. Playing with Japanese folklore and history with a fantastical ninja world is really unique and vibrant also:
It just oozes style.
Let’s talk Bleach, the red headed little brother to the other big 3. It has sold over 120 million copies as of the last data point I could find. It tells the story of Ichigo Kurosaki, typical highschool student
Who is also a substitute Soul Reaper. There were a few things that really made this series stand out first:
1. Kubo is incredible character designer, his illustrations of the characters is some of the best in the format.
2. This is the first major battle series where the primary weapons aren’t fists or just “anime magic” but swords which was refreshing at the time
2. Much like Naruto it just ooooooozes style
3. It’s the first battle series that feels purposefully and squarely targeted at high school students. Bleach is purposeful in the themes, setting, and characters and keeps this older audience in mind. At a time when much of the surrounding battle series landscape feel targeted at middle school teens, so bleach really stood out for that reason.
And that brings us to today! Since this is current stuff I obviously don’t have historical context to offer, so I’m just going to briefly touch on the current big series and trends. Right now we are in a subgenre boom with a bunch of series doing incredibly well. First we have 3 horror series
The current big hotness is Demon Slayer, a paranormal historical fiction story about a boy who’s sister was turned into a demon and his hope for a cure. Best known for having an utterly gorgeous battle style.
JuJutsu Kaisen, one of my favorite new series. It’s a modern day paranormal fantasy series known for fantastic and biiig battles. It tells the story of Yuji Itadori who after eating the finger of one of the most powerful cursed spirits in history trains to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer to stave off his potential execution. It wears it’s influence from Naruto and Bleach on its sleave but, in my opinion, does it better.
Hyperviolence makes it’s ripping return with Chainsaw Man . A modern day horror story it tells the story of Denji, a young man who has inherited his father’s debt to the mob and has to fight devils to eat. It’s known for being brutal, both in it’s violence as well as the desperation that poverty can bring. Next we have a much brighter series:
My Hero Academia! A superhero story (a first for battle manga) it tells the story of Izuku Midoriya, in a world where everyone is born with some sort of super power, called Quirks, he was born without one. However, he dreams of becoming just like his favorite hero All Might and attend the UA Hero Academy.
A VERY last-minute speculative addition here based off my own experience. This is Dandadan and its anime adaptation is just being released now and I’m seeing a lot of momentum behind the series. The premise is a boy who believes in UFO’s and a girl who believes in ghosts dare each other to go to a hot spot for each and they’re both right. My gut is telling me this is gonna be a big one in the coming year or two so keep your feelers out and possibly pick it up. Its definitely a teens section kind of series so keep that in mind.
It bears repeating that One Piece is still around being One Piece, best selling manga of all time. You get the point.
Now I want to talk about why battle manga is appealing. I find the genre is often maligned as just being hyper violence, or a male power fantasy, all style and no substance. If that’s all it really was then these series would not last nearly so long nor be as beloved as they are . So to talk about what makes a good battle manga we need to talk about what makes a compelling battle there are two parts:
To steal an analogy from the YouTuber Super Eyepatch Wolf, if you were to imagine a game of chess the technical narrative is how the pieces move across the board and the strategy that was used to put them in that position. This is pretty easy to understand, I think, but let’s look at an example. A manga that we’ve talked about that is all about technical narratives is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure 1. Super Eyepatch Wolf, “What Makes a Fight Scene Interesting?”
On this page in part 6 we see our hero Joline Kujo down for the count. Her opponent’s ability, put simply is, whatever body part he punches gets turned inside out. Joline mid battle devises a way to counteract this. Her ability is that she can turn her body into string, so she uses that string to create a mobius strip. It’s a non orientable object that can therefore not be turned inside out. Pretty neat! Battle chess and strategy is very fun to read, however there is another aspect that I feel really drives what makes battle manga great
To continue the chess analogy: If technical narrative is the strategy of how the pieces are placed on the board, emotional narrative is what brought the players to the board in the first place. What are their thoughts, feelings, emotions that brought them to this point and how do they develop throughout the conflict? I had promised that we would talk more in depth about YYH in this section and I cannot think of a better example to talk about than the final battle against the younger Toguro brother at the climax of the Dark Tournament arch.. Let’s start meeting our combatants:
Yuske Urameshi is a no good delinquent
he always skips school
Gets in fights
And argues with his teachers. A selfish, irredeemable brat. Or at least that’s what people think of him. One day while walking home after deciding to skip school he does the unexpected
He jumps in front of a car to save a kid and dies. This surprises everyone
including the afterlife. So much so, in fact, that they do not even have a space for him prepared. So Yuske gets a chance to live again after passing a trial, which he succeeds at. The truth of Yuske as a person, as it often is in life, is much more complicated than what people see and expect of him.
He is the child of a single mother, who is an alcoholic and spends her days hungover and her nights out drinking..
Then when he struggles at school his teachers berate him. It’s no wonder that he acts like a punk.
His brush with the afterlife leaves him with spiritual abilities so the afterlife contacts him to act as their spirit detective. Somone to hunt down malevolent spirits that threaten the world of the living. Let’s reintroduce our protagonist, shall we? Now about the contest itself
The Dark Tournament is a tournament run by the wealthy elite of the human world, who use demons to compete in often deadly combat, as a way of getting their thrills. Every year a human team is “invited” to join this tournament. His opponent Togoro, who he believed to have previously killed, tells him that the penalty for not coming…
Is death. The choice is made for him.
During the tournament. We find out that Togoro knows Youske’s mentor, Genkai. They had previously fought together in The Dark Tournament and for the prize at the end (which is the granting of one wish) Togoro had asked to become a demon with supreme strength and eternal youth. These two meet before the final round to burry the hatchet . Youske rushes to Genkai’s aid but…
He’s too late. Togoro kills Genkai. Genkai is the only adult in Youske’s life who ever believed he would amount to anything. That ever pushed him to work harder, not because she saw him as a lazy delinquent, but as someone who could become something great.
Youske arrives just in time to hear her final words: (just read the quote)
It’s the final match Togoro has decided to bring everything to bear in this fight
and despite giving it his all Youske is far outclassed. Togoro is a monster.
Togoro is disappointed, he had hoped for much more. Sensing the danger that the world would be in if Togoro was allowed to walk out of this place alive, the spirit of Genkai returns and makes a suggestion
Kill one of his friends. She knows that the only thing holding Youske back is his bravado, this tough guy act that he has put up to protect himself. That if he actually allowed himself to care? To allow the kindness and empathy that is at the core of his being to shine through? Then he could do anything.
Togoro complies, killing the loveable goofball Kuwabara.
With Kuwabara dead, our battle hungry Youske has a realization, that he had, at some level, admired Togoro’s strength. However, Genkai had tried to warn him and he realizes now , too late, what Togoro had given up to get that strength
and finds his own source of strength….
As the battle reaches it’s conclusion both fighters are depleted. Youske puts his everything into one final spirit gun, using his life energy, potentially killing him…
but that’s a risk he’s willing to take.
And Togoro is finally defeated.
But at what cost. Kuwabara is dead.
Or is he? But how did this happen? Togoro was a monster, an unstoppable killing machine, if he had wanted Kuwabara dead he would be dead. Well let’s conclude by talking briefly about Togoro:
You see, Togoro was a martial arts master who had a school of pupils that he cared for deeply. Then he was invited to The Dark Tournament. (the same tournament where he competed with Genkai) His “invitation” was a demon showing up to his dojo, then slaughtering all his pupils while Togoro had to watch helplessly.
As for why he decided to become a demon, I think the prince of the afterlife puts it best:
I stories like this are why battle manga is so beloved and these series can run for this long. You have truly larger than life situations, that somehow wrap around and speak to something true about ourselves and our daily lives, even in some abstract way. It’s much more than two dudes punching each other. When written well this genre and the stories and characters therein,, belong in any other discussion about coming of age stories. Actually, the inspiration for offering to give this presentation started in my head pretty early in the semester after we read The Outsiders . I couldn’t get out of my head that YYH should be part of that same discussion. However, we’re not done quite yet! There are other genres to cover, but I will be covering them much more briefly. Just to give you an idea of what they’re about and some notable works.
Time for battle manga’s cuter, more carefree sister! The magical girl genre goes wayyyyyy back to series that were mostly about cute little witches (think, like, bewitched) but has since become the premiere action gernre for the Shojo market. There are two main titles I want to talk about here:
You can’t really talk about magical girls without bringing up the multimedia powerhouse that is Sailor Moon. This is the DB of magical girls in that it was kind of the first for what modern magical girl manga would be. It’s had 2 different anime adaptations, a live action film, 5 animated movies, 20+ video games, a musical. It’s massive. This was actually my first exposure to Japanese media as a kid. Got it off the free kids rack at the local Family Video.
It tells the story of 14 year old Usagi Tsukino
She’s a bit of a cry baby, and a klutz…
And she’s not very good at school
However after meeting the magical talking black cat Luna she is granted the power to become Sailor Moon, and is tasked with assembling the other Sailor Guardians, finding the princess of the Moon Kingdom and fighting evil (spoiler alert, SHE was the princess the whole time). When she’s ready to fight evil all she needs to do is chant the magic words:
And thus our hero is born. But we can’t forget the iconic catchphrase that comes after every transformation:
She is eventually joined by the super genus Ami Mizuno, or Sailor Mercury
The cool and beautiful shrine maden with spiritual powers Rei Hino, or Sailor Mars
The tough and brave, Makoto Kino, or Sailor Jupiter
And the reliable leader of the sailor guardians, Minako Aino or Sailor Venus
There is also this handsome and mysterious stranger that keeps coming to her battles to offer her encouragement, the mysterious Tuxedo Mask. Sailor Moon kinda has everything: action, comedy, drama, romance… From destined lovers to reincarnation to galactic level threats all wrapped up in a pretty and fluffy warm package where things that are traditionally feminine are combat power. Where truth and justice will always win in the end. A couple more notable things with this series that I think are worth pointing out before we move on.
Part of why I think Sailor Moon works is that with it’s ensemble cast there is gonna be at least one character that you see yourself in. Also an important trope that I want to point out that would become a staple of the genre which is point number 2
Gay stuffffffffff. These are both
Sailor Uranus, two lesbian heroes in a 1990’s manga series.. They’re in an openly gay relationship and it’s not punished, or vilified. They don’t die (well not more than anyone else does in Sailor Moon but everyone always comes back).
Written by a team of mangaka known simply as CLAMP, we have Cardcaptor Sakura! We follow
4 th grader Sakura Kinomoto, she hates math but is good at P.E. and is on the cheerleading team
One day while exploring her father’s library accidentally releases the mystical clow cards. So she needs to track down the clow cards before they can manifest and cause trouble. She is joined by her magical talking animal companion
Cerberus the magnificent! Or Kero-chan for short and
Her best friend Tomyo Daidouji
Who dresses her up in hand picked outfits when she goes to capture cards
And video tapes her escapades because
Deeply
Madly
In love with her. Get you a girl that looks at you the way Tomoyo looks at Sakura. Damn
CCS did a couple things worth pointing out. It brought the age demographic for magical girls down quite a bit, which in retrospect, feels appropriate. Also it really stood out in the slew of Sailor Moon-like team based magical girl series by bringing the focus back on to the singular magical girl which then would be imitated many many times over. Now we’re gonna take a brief journey over into the world of anime so that you can be aware of a current trend that might affect collection development for magical girl series:
So this series almost went towards the start of the presentation with the slide about picking if a series is for kids or adults. In 2011 the anime collective Magica Quartet released this gem of a series. The influence of SM and CCS is pretty apparent. It looks like a fun magical girl series you have: the titular Madoka (center) the brave Sayaka (right) and the cool and distant raven haired Homura (back) and our blond experienced leader Mami. Everyone loves Mami! ….
Everyone loved mami….. So this is an adult horror series made for people who grew up with magical girl manga and anime. It is designed to trick you with the tropes and fluffiness that the magical girl genre is known for. My pet name for this show is “miserable lesbians” . It was a smash hit and deservedly so, it’s fantastic for what it’s trying to do but did spawn an entire decade of “dark magical girl” series. While there are traditional magical girl series still out there, since part of the point of these dark magical girl stories is to trick you with their fluffy exterior, just… do your research.
I already touched on the appeal of Magical Girls when I talked about Sailor Moon so I’ll be brief. These are cute, feel good action series where nothing bad ever happens forever and if you just believe in the power of love hard enough you too can be magical.
A brief touch on this subgenre is in order, especially following magical girls. So Yoai aka Boys Love and Yuri aka Girls Love are a popular sub genre of mostly romance, but it does pop up in a few other genres as well. These series feature gay and lesbian romances at the center. One might, when well meaning see this subgenre and think “awesome, more queer representation for my collection.” Wellllllll. So these series are made for and to appeal to straight people, mostly straight girls. It can feel exploitative and has a habit of getting rather explicit at times. It’s not all bad, but a degree of caution is needed. The good stuff is out there it just takes a little digging sometimes. Let me show you a couple series that I’ve been enjoying lately:
Two college girls, the shy Miwa (left) and the brash Saeko (right) meet in the school’s light music club (basically band but pop/rock music)decide to start dating each other because, really, how likely are they to meet other lesbians around? It’s interesting for a few points. They get to the relationship part almost immediately in a genre rife with “will they/wont they”. The romance comes after that which is really unique and interesting to watch . It’s very believable and complex relationship. It covers issues like PDA as a queer person and consent in the very good way. It’s a very funny and charming series and I can’t wait to return to it once the semester is over.
I ended up writing my book review on the first volume of this manga this week. It centers around Tasuku Kaname who was outed at school and is being harassed for it. Distraught he ends up stumbling into a community center and finds that it is filled with other queer people just like him. This is a fascinating series cause it kinda covers the spectrum of queer identities and how finding community can be so important.
It also makes brilliant use of visual metaphor:
(Ee-YA-she-kay) Now this is genre that was brought to my attention in this class and I had to do a bit of research on. So Iyahikei is a subgenre of the frustratingly vague “Slice of Life” genre, which is this weird conglomeration of a bunch of different genres, all generally having to do with normal every day life. SoL is primarily dominated by comedy series that have to do with high school life. Like this example here called Azumanga Daioh which is considered both an Iyashikei and a comedy. It’s about the silly misadventures of five high schoolers and their journey through their 3 years of high school (note: Japanese high school is 3 years long) It’s an interesting subgenre, but also a hard one to pin down what precisely is or isn’t an Iyashikei. Overall it’s a vibes thing, which I feel is appropriate for Iyashikei, the cozy vibes genre.
Now let’s talk collection development, My recommendations are rather simple:
Series notes: Anime adaptations are basically doing a story arc at a time with big breaks while the manga writes the next arc. So people are often looking for the manga to “get ahead” of the anime.
If you liked Breaking Bad, like, at all you’ll love Death Note.
It’s about the brilliant yet bored high school genius Light Yagami. One day he finds a notebook on the ground that has a simple message in it
if you imagine a person’s face in your mind and write their name down in this notebook they will die.
He soon realizes that this is not a prank and it’s all too real. The son of the police chief, his warped worldview only sees good and normal law abiding citizens and the “rot at the core of the world”
So he starts to use the death note to “clean up the world” so that he can reign over it as a god of justice., Kira.
He is persued by the genus investigator simply known as L. He sits weird, he thinks weird, and he’s on to Light. And so begins one of the most epic games of cat and mouse every played. Who will get there first? Will Light find L’s name and face or will L finally get solid evidence against Light? The reason I say to read this if you liked Breaking Bad is that it has that same vibe of “how can he keep getting away with it!” and just crazy attention to detail. It’s a series that is super easy to rip through. If you would rather watch it there is a fantastic anime adaptation, but please, I beg you, do not watch the netfilix live action adaptation. (this is true for any of these series, I have yet to see a good live action adaptation of a manga series)
Next we have Hiromu Arakawa’s steampunk dark fantasy classic Fullmetal Alchemist.
It tells the story of two brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric. They practice alchemy which is a science guided by the principle of equivalent exchange: nothing can be gained without giving something of equal value in return. Because of this trying to revive the dead is forbidden, for what could equal the value of a human soul?”
However, with their mother dead, these two young prodigies decide to try and break this taboo
It cost them dearly. Edward lost his leg and Alphonse lost his entire body. Then Edward sacrifices his arm to be able to bind Al’s soul to an empty suit of armor.
A few years later after being given a mechanical arm and leg the brothers have Edward join the State Alchemists to allow them access to top secret information that may lead to their goal. The Philosophers Stone: an item that allows alchemy while ignoring the law of equivalent exchange. They simply want to return what was lost: their bodies.
I think what makes this series so compelling is that it’s dark, sure. We have human experimentation, genocide, child soldiers, the military industrial complex, etc, etc. But it manages to do so without being completely dour, it doesn’t ever feel truly hopeless. The love these two brothers have for each other is just really compelling. I think the first anime adaptation was, for me, what really sparked my love of Japanese media.
Also, all of the female cast members are incredible
In short, what I think makes Fullmetal Alchemist such a good recommendation for a starting point if you haven’t read much manga is It reads just like a really good fantasy story with minimal use of the tropeyness and “animeness” that is typical of battle manga. If you’d prefer to watch it there are two anime adaptations, so it’s a little bit more complicated. The original anime adaptation from 2003 ran while the manga was still being written so in the latter half it deviates from the manga heavily. The 2009 adaption Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is basically a manga faithful adaptation. Both are actually fantastic, but if we’re substituting the manga then watch Brotherhood.
For the more contemplative among you we have Kino’s Journey. It’s about Kino, and they are, as you might guess on a journey. A journey to where you might ask?
To the next place to travel to. I love this series for a few reasons. One it’s rather unique, it’s basically a series of vignettes. Kino visits a series of countries that are all unique in their own way, like “the country where murder is legal” and the “traveling country” basically a giant country on tank treads. 2. While there are some moments of excitement it’s overall a very relaxed and contemplative series. The kind that you read a chapter and then just set the book down and think about it for a while. 3. Kino is an enby icon, so I can’t not recommend it. There is a gorgeous anime adaptation of this series if you would prefer to watch it.
Welcome to why I dye my hair purple when I’m not growing it out. A lot of folks liked the philosophical content of Star Splitter so I figured I would chuck this on to the presentation. Now you might be familiar with the travesty that is the Hollywood adaptation of this manga, but this is an overall sci-fi classic, manga or no. It’s about Motoko Kusanagi, the leader of Section 9, an advanced cyborg counter terrorism branch of the Japanese government. It’s on one hand a super slick action series and on the other hand deep philosophical pontification. The classic GitS scene consists of Motoko doing the most rad thing you can think of and then spending several pages talking about the nature of humanity. If you liked Star Splitter or just sci-fi in general you owe it to yourself to read this. It really is a classic and had a huge impact on science fiction (mostly films). You can also watch the 1995 anime movie adaptation