Need Manga Recommendations

[The Doctor]

Friends,

In light of the holidays and all this time off I have, what manga are you guys reading that you recommend to me. Please list objectional content and a basic description of the plot.

Thanks

[indyrocker]

Love Hina:

guy fails getting into colage 2 times gos to grandmas and ends up managing a all girls dorm helouty ensues!
some fan service and some pervish behaver and lots of cartoon type vilonce.
(mostly at Kataro's expence)

[Mangafanatic]

Fruits Basket. My favorite manga. Ever.

Okay Synopsis time!!!
Fruits Basket is the story of the recently orphaned Tohru Honda. Tohru is a young, caring high school student who seems to have no regretter concern than making the lives of those she loves comfortable. Due to this desire, when he mother and caretaker dies and he grandfather needs her to move out of his house while he remodels, she decides her only recourse is to put up a tent and live in the woods.
But little does young Tohru know that she has inadventantly staked her tent on the land of Shigure Shoma and his cousin (?) Yuki Sohma. When the two young men find her, they offer her a room (one with a lock mind you) in their huge house in return for her cooking and cleaning skills. Not long into her stay, Tohru learns that the Sohmas have a dark secret. Whenever they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex or when they are very weak, the transform into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.
And so begins a touching story about loving people for who they really are-- no matter what.

Positive: Tohru Honda is, for me, the most inspirational fiction character that I've come across in a long time. She is what Christian girls schould me. Kind, caring, and selfless. And throughout the manga, it is obvious that she has no greater desire than to see the Sohmas happy.

Negative:

Sex/Nudity: Well, as was said in the synopsis, when the Sohmas are hugged, they turn into animals. Likewise, when they transform, they aren't wearing any clothes (They either got ripped because their animal form was too big or they slipped off because their animal form was too small. Luckily Takaya-sensei has spared us alot of embarrassment by placing a convenient cloud around most un-transformations.

There are a few instances where females tranform back. One instance when a little girl transforms back and we see most of her body but it is SUPER undetailed (there's not even a belly button of this chick). Another instance in the first volume, Kagura un-transforms and, while mostly eclipsed by another character and her arm strategically placed, we still see a good portion of her hip and a little of her chest (But I don't think we see anything that transcends clevage.

Lastly on the sexuality score: There are a couple of character who are questionably gay. It is the opinion of most on this board that they're not gay, but they say really obvious dumb stuff to weird people out. (And it works, too). In general, two fo teh cahracters (Shigure and Aaya exchange some sort of homosexual innuendo because getting all chibi and saying in a dumb font "ALLLLL RIGHT!!!") Honestly, it's played for laughs, and at one point a character who is a long time friend of the two in question says "You never got tired of that, did you?" And in my opinion, he means, "Y'all never got tired of those dumb jokes, did you?"

In volume three--- I think--- Aaya(who is pretty much a pervie.) tell one story that seems ot have homosexual undertones, but his object in making the questionable statement was to draw attention away from some friends who had gotten into deep trouble. It worked. Whether has was serious about what he said or not, the world may never know.

Language: Well, there's a quite a bit of language in Fruits Basket. First, Kyo is a major hot-head, and his mouth reflects that. Hatsuharu has a bit of a split personality, and when his "dark side" is showing, he can espouse some pretty colorful language. When Yuki is properly insulted, he can let a word slip too, but the first two are the main potty-mouth characters. As far as what is said, the profanities are more minor, IMHO. Things like: ****, *******, H***, are the words said the majority of the time. There are never any "F" bombs of anything thus far.

Violence: A little blood. Some of the characters like to kick eachother around and they get blood lips every once and a while, but no flying body parts.

Bad Religion: Well, there is talk of the Zodiac, but it's never used to predict fortunes or anything. It's more a backdrop for the story, rather than an active player in the plot. Honestly, most of the Zodiac talk is centered around a banquet where God invited all the animals. If you think there's somethign blasphemous about that, feel free to be offended. J/K.

There's really nothing more that I can think of. Sorry for the length of teh post, but when I do something, I try to be through. Hope it helped.

[The Doctor]

Thanks for the recommendations thus far guys. Keep em' coming.

Thus far, I've heard of all the manga suggested here already.

[K. Ayato]

I could help, but first, what genres do you prefer? Romance, sci-fi, or anything along those lines? I would say Fist of the North Star, but it's pretty violent.

[aule1701]

hello kenshin or sdk or full metal panic all really good