It’s that time again! Time for Experiments in Manga’s monthly manga giveaway! This month everyone will have a chance to win the first volume of Ai Yazawa’s fantastic series Nana as published by Viz Media. The series may not be finished, and it might never be, but it’s still well worth reading. The first volume actually stands very well on its own, too. As always, this giveaway is open worldwide!
Many, many years ago, before Experiments in Manga even existed, I read the first volume of Ai Yazawa’s Nana. I enjoyed it well enough, but didn’t initially get around to reading much beyond that. However, I kept seeing other people write about the series, expressing their love for the manga. And so a couple of years ago I decided to try reading the series again. And it floored me. (In a good way.) Who knows why at first Nana didn’t grab me? Maybe it was just bad timing, or maybe I was in a bad mood the day I read it. But I’m so glad that I gave the series a second look—it’s a tremendous work deserving all of the praise that has been bestowed upon it. Nana isn’t the only series that I’ve had a similar experience with. Take CLAMP’s X, for another example. I didn’t like the first volume at all, but gave the series a second chance when Viz began to release the beautiful omnibus edition. For whatever reason, the second time around X hooked me. Granted, in the case of X, it’s one of those manga that’s so bad it’s good as opposed to something like Nana which is just damn good.
So, you may be wondering, how can you win a copy of Nana, Volume 1?
1) Have you ever given a particular manga or series a second chance? If so, tell me about your experience in the comments below. If not, simply mention that and tell me why.
2) If you’re on Twitter, you can earn a bonus entry by tweeting, or retweeting, about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).
There you have it! Each person can earn up to two entries for this giveaway and has one week to submit comments. If you prefer or have trouble with the comment form, entries may also be sent via e-mail to phoenixterran(at)gmail(dot)com. (The entry will then be posted in your name.) The giveaway winner will be randomly selected and announced on September 3, 2014. Best of luck!
VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address in the comment form, a link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.
Contest winner announced—Manga Giveaway: Nana Giveaway Winner
I think I want to go with anime on this one if that’s ok. I remembered watching the first episode of Scrapped Princess and absolutely hating it, hating the characters mostly. A while later, I watched it again, decided to rewatch the first ep, but kind of ignore its existence, and I ended up really really liking it a lot, it’s one of the best series I’ve probably seen.
For manga, I rented Sailor Moon 1 from the library, couldn’t even finish it. Last week, I finished the first arc, but I had to force myself to do so, I still don’t like it.
1) I remember back in the days of Viz’s Manga Vizon magazine (WOW, long time ago, lol) I was really excited to get to read a lot of different stories in 1 magazine…I wasn’t prepared for Orge Slayer, and how violent it was, however. It threw me off so much that I couldn’t read any more of it for the longest time. But maybe 5 years later, I picked up the magazine again and gave it another chance and I changed my mind on it—I guess my initial reaction was just because I wasn’t expecting something like that, since the manga before it was a cute short story by Rumiko Takahashi! (I also had a similar experience with X/1999 when it ran in Animerica—I was so used to CLAMP’s Rayearth that the violence in X really threw me for a loop! It took me a while to get hooked on that one.)
2) RTing your post on Twitter!
A few times I have given manga a second chance. But on that really was worth it was magi. At first I thought it would be to weird and looked a little out there. But once i actually got into the books. It turned out to be something I really enjoyed reading. So now i tend to get into books more before deciding if i like them or not.
I can’t think of a manga that I gave a “second chance” to; the closest I’ve come to that is finally caving in and reading the first 20 or so volumes of Berserk (after months of resisting with the excuse that I don’t care for violence XD).
I’m more likely to get lost on an anime than a manga as if I’m reading a manga I’ll blaze through it no matter how bad it is. (Although X I just could not finish. Sorry. :( ) Sometimes books get better if I let them go to the end, especially since I read fast!
For anime, I’d have to name Magi – I was put off when I tried the first episode and ran into Aladdin’s obsession with boobs… Then last week I saw a great AMV using the song “Deliver Us” from Prince of Egypt and my sister used it to sell me on trying to watch it again. I’m glad I did.
Now I’m going to go tweet this… I’m @Melody_Kondrael on twitter.
hoorah for AMVs!!
Few years back a fantastic Princess Tutu vid made everyone I know drop what they were doing and watch the series. Few years earlier same thing happened with SaiKano as well
PS: X series ended without an ending anyway (as in CLAMP just dropped it into indefinite hiatus), so you didn’t miss much
I usually give manga a second chance. It’s pretty half-half for me. Sometimes they end up being pretty good and sometimes they end up being downright awful.
A series that I’ve given a second chance to was Shakugan No Shana. The first time I gave it a try it was that good to me but soon a couple months later I decided to pick it up again and I just loved it even tho some people don’t like that series, I was still able to enjoy it … And I mean enjoy!!!!! It.
I don’t think I have ever given a series a second change, as I usually do not have the time for that (My backlog is HUGE!). However, I can mention a series that could change that, which is Knights of Sidonia. When I first heard about it before the Anime was even announced, I requested a copy of the first volume through ILL. I read it but felt really lost and did not order the remaining volumes. However, after I watched the anime, I am planning to give it a second chance. I will be getting the digital edition after the second season is over.
Retweeted!
I really have not run into this situation yet because due to the fact that I currently have very little disposable time I research a lot before choosing a series to read and this has translated into me pretty much liking everything I’ve read so far.
All the best driving traffic to this post! I just now retweeted about it :)
It’s a little embarrassing to discuss but, the most obvious manga I changed my mind about is easily Kishi Torajiro’s Maka Maka. The first time I read i just glanced at the scanlation and was utterly bored and saw nothing of interest. I couldn’t understand why’d they’d bothered to translate it. The second time I read it, the first volume had just been published and at that point I was a huge Yuri-junky and bought it just to support the industry. When i read it then, i couldn’t see it as anything so much as a smut-filled non-lesbian high color, high gloss book about young women having sexing with other young women, period the end. Total male-gaze crap that didn’t belong in the Yuri genre and the kind of thing that was perpetuating Yuri’s bad rap.
Finally, just recently my ex seemed to really get into and i thought that was just because he’s a total nympho, but i reread it anyway. I guess recent experiences have changed me a lot because i totally started to relate to the characters emotionally and they became distinct personalities, both strong and cute with real needs and feelings instead of meaningless caricatures. I’m glad i gave it a third chance. ;P
The only series I can think of that I’ve given a second (and third and fourth) chance to is xxxHolic. I want to like the series so much! It has beautiful color spreads, and I really like Yoko, but the series has never captured my interest enough to make me want to read more. I bought the first 5 or so volumes from the library for like 50 cents each (and they look untouched!), so I will end up reading more than the first volume eventually.
1) …errr… Attack on Titan … at first looked at it back when it was in scanslation form and the art really turned me off (and the manga-ka was clearly still learning how to tell a story coherently) Then people on my friends list just kept goin on and on and on about it, and the anime came out [enjoyed the hell outta it], and I figured why not give the manga a try again
Also honorable mention to Fate/Stay Night, as the original anime just did not make all that much sense (so many infodumps of big words that go nowhere!), but somehow the fan-translated Visual Novel made me go back and take another look at the entire franchise. It’s actually kinda awesome
2) did the twitter retweet – ‘persoconchii’
Ahaha! That would be One Piece. My siblings recommended this series to me and when I picked up the first volume, I was repulsed by the “ugly art.” (I grew up on CLAMP and bishonen characters. XD) I’m so happy I gave it another chance though and have since come to love the characters.
I am the type of a person that will finish everything i ever start even though i may not enjoy it that much. Including manga,books,anime,movies etc. But truthfully,i have few series “on hold”:’) So i will give those second chance someday.(because i know i will).
Retweeted @busha69
When I first wanted to read Fushigi Yuugi, I grabbed the first volume of Genbu Kaiden instead, and I was very confused! Eventually, I realized my mistake and was able to read the entire original series. For me, that series was okay but nothing special (I’ve always been lukewarm on Watase’s manga, but this one left me particularly cold), and I remembered my thoroughly confusing experience with GK so I didn’t even look at it for years…Years later, I noticed a lot of people recommending GK as one of Watase’s best series, so I decided what the heck, the library has most of the volumes, I’ll try again. It took a while to get a hold of all the volumes, but now it’s my favorite Watase series by far and one of my favorite shoujo fantasy series. I’m really glad for the people who recommended it! That’s the only one I can think of right now, so I hope it counts! xD
Is it too late? Because I really want to give a shout-out to OTOMEN — I gave up after three or four volumes because it seemed just like a silly premise, and actually reinforced gender-stereotypes rather than subverting them. But I saw so many raves about the last volume that I went and picked it up; and it was so sweet and sincere that I found myself buying and reading all the volumes that I missed!
It’s too late to enter the giveaway, but I’ll add Otomen to the list. Thanks for sharing! :)