They said it couldn't be done -- Manga: The Complete Guide (available October 9) is the only book listing every Japanese comic licensed in English! Imagine if Leonard Maltin and Roger Ebert joined forces to review manga, with 0 to 4 star ratings for every translated series... from the most obscure out-of-print titles to the latest bestsellers.
Here it is gang, the biggest, most comprehensive catalouge of manga from Japan ever printed in English! Jason Thompson, former editor of
Shonen Jump and creator of the webcomic
The Stiff has pushed his discerning eyes and exhaustive knowledge to the very edge to compile the ultimate guide to Japanese comic books. We've got a copy at the office, and not only is it hefty enough to break a window, but it's inexhaustable -- we've taken turns trying to stump the Guide, but it's nearly impossible. (It even lists
Japan Inc., an obscure business manga published in limited quantities as reading for an economics class by the University of California Press waaaaaaaay back in 1986.) This book is an instant must-have for any comic book reader.
To celebrate the release of the book, Jason was gracious enough to put together a reading list for people who are new to manga -- a top ten of the best Japan has to offer. If you've never picked up a manga before, there is something for you here.
For more information on the Guide, add the official profile as a friend now:
www.myspace.com/mangaguide. Much thanks to Jason and everyone at Del Rey for helping to put this together. Enjoy!
THE FIRST ONE'S FREE: 10 MANGA FOR MANGA NEWBIES
Like the host of a TV cooking show, scouring the world looking for good eats, I've spent the last 10 years asking: what is the best manga? The result of that is MANGA: THE COMPLETE GUIDE, in which I and a few other writers read every single manga available in English, and wrote about it in a format similar to THE SLINGS & ARROWS COMIC GUIDE or a Roger Ebert movie review book. The amount of manga available in translation is pretty intimidating, with more and more titles coming out every month, but there are many excellent titles out there in many different genres.
Most manga can be divided into four categories: shonen (boys'), shojo (girls'), seinen (men's) and josei (women's). The most popular titles (and the ones most often turned into anime) are generally shonen manga, which focus on adventure, action, and fight scenes -- in some ways, the same things that you find in traditional American comics. An almost equally big category is shojo manga, the source of Sailor Moon and many other romance, fantasy and drama titles. (Shojo manga is known for the elaborate page layouts and impressionistic effects which many people think of when they think "manga.") Relationship-oriented josei (women's) manga is relatively new in translation, and men's manga is such a broad category that it's easier to think of it in terms of separate genres: hard science fiction, gritty samurai stories, horror, mystery and serious drama. Compared to titles like Cardcaptor Sakura, One Piece, Eyeshield 21 and Naruto, which are basically aimed at junior high students, titles like Lone Wolf and Cub, Happy Mania, Berserk and Ghost in the Shell are more explicit and are aimed at an older crowd. If your tastes run more to underground art-comics and classics, there's lots of great manga out there as well, such as Fanfare/Ponent Mon's underground line and Vertical's line of Osamu Tezuka classics (they're even printed left-to-right for the convenience of manga newbies!).
The following reviews are a sample of the over 1200 titles listed in MANGA: THE COMPLETE GUIDE. All of these are at the top of their style and genre, and I give them my personal recommendation. So if that wall of manga at the local bookstore looks too intimidating, try some of these titles. In minutes you'll be sitting down in the aisle with a stack of manga of your own. Just remember to get up and walk around every so often so your legs don't fall asleep.
1. ONE PIECE (Eiichiro Oda) 
Also recommended (shônen): Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King, Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto, Shinji Saijyo's Iron Wok Jan. 2. CARDCAPTOR SAKURA (Clamp)
Also recommended (shôjo): Moyoco Anno's Sugar Sugar Rune, Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket, Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yugi and Ceres: Celestial Legend.
3. HAPPY MANIA (Moyoco Anno)
Also recommended (jôsei): Fumi Yoshinaga's Antique Bakery, Ai Yazawa's Nana. 4. LONE WOLF AND CUB (Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima)
Also recommended (samurai): Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, Hiroshi Hirata's Samurai Gishiden, Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal. 5. MAISON IKKOKU (Rumiko Takahashi)
Also recommended (romantic comedies): Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 and Moyoco Anno's Flowers & Bees; for pure romance, try Fuyumi Soryo's Mars, Yoko Kamio's Boys Over Flowers and Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss. 6. DEATH NOTE (Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata)
Also recommended (suspense/horror): Hideshi Hino's Panorama of Hell or The Red Snake, Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki's The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Junji Ito's Uzumaki, Yuji Iwahara's King of Thorn, Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte.
7. NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (Hayao Miyazaki)
Also recommended (science fiction/fantasy): Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, Kentaro Miura's Berserk and Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell. 8. PHOENIX (Osamu Tezuka) 
Also recommended (classic): Osamu Tezuka's Ode to Kirihito, Keiko Takemiya's To Terra, Kazuo Umezu's The Drifting Classroom, Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen. 9. EYESHIELD 21 (Riichiro Inagaki, Yusuke Murata)
Also recommended (sports): Yuriko Nishiyama's Harlem Beat. 10. CROMARTIE HIGH SCHOOL (Eiji Nonaka)
Also recommended (comedy): Tohru Fujisawa's GTO, Tori Miki's Anywhere But Here, Fumi Yoshinaga's Flower of Life, Kiyohiko Azuma's Azumanga Daioh. Excerpted from Manga: The Complete Guide by Jason Thompson.
Copyright © 2007 by Jason Thompson. Reprinted by arrangement with Del Rey Books.