We Rated the Top Ranked Manga on MAL | Trash Taste #200
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- That's my favorite expression for drinking coffee, sucking bean . - The does that mean? - Sucking bean coffee.

- Coffee, oh. - Coffee is bean . - Sucking bean . - I mean, the beans don't. - It's not an Aussie thing. - I mean, it's not like, it filters through the, it's not really bean. You know, it's different. - Shut up. - Bean would be if the liquid came from the bean. I'd be okay with that. - Yeah, I mean, it's kind of extreme. - No, no, no. If I shred up your body, Joey, and I run water through it, it's not Joey water.

- Or Joey water specifically. Maybe Joey water is fair, but not Joey water. - Oh my included. - We would have got rid of that. - What are we talking about? Did you just threaten to kill me and grind and turn me into juice? I didn't talk about that, I just said suck bean . - implies bad.

- I love this . - Okay. - So when you drink water, are you making ? - I'm making . - Like that one short. - Yeah, but it's like, oh, when you eat food, you say I'm making . - I mean, eventually, . I'm gonna make some right now. - Okay, Joey, do the thing. - Average episode of Trash Taste. - All right. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of Trash Taste. - We can't put that as a cold open, by the way. We're gonna get demonetized. There's 500 times in it.

Well, they can move it on. Thank you for beefing that out. Pleasure.

- All right, anyway. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Trash Taste podcast. I'm Joey and I'm joined by my boys, Garnt and Connor, and we are doing another anime episode. More specifically, a manga episode. - Whoa, whoa, whoa. - Can you boys let me goddamn finish? - No, no, no, no. - No, 'cause you said something wrong. - Yeah, it was just factually incorrect. - I said more specifically a manga episode and then you guys cut me off like you always do. - If I said we were eating .

and then we eat it's a different vibe that I would have gotten Joey. - Thanks for demonetizing our episode. - Two different things. - Appreciate it. - You already demonetized it way before I did. - Anyway. - This coffee being. - The coffee hit different. Anyway, so this is kind of a part two, I guess a successor to a previous Trash Days episode that we did where we went over to my anime list and we looked at

- The top ranking? - We're gonna do both, I think maybe. - Yeah, we looked at both. We looked at some top lists on my- - What do you think we did, Joey? You recorded the episode. - I don't. - You think we did both? - You think I remember?

- I don't even remember what we did last episode and we filmed that 20 minutes ago. But anyway, we're gonna go into MyAnimeList because even though the name is MyAnimeList, you can also rate a bunch of manga as well. And users on MyAnimeList have done that. We're gonna be looking at the top ranked manga on MyAnimeList and give our thoughts on it. See if we agree, see if we disagree. - Question, do you guys still use MyAnimeList? - No. - I know you do. I mean, Garnt, do you? - No. - Do you know anyone who does?

- Not really, no. - I've just had a thought for a person, I'm like, who's keeping this alive? - I mean, I'm sure there's quite a few people. - Okay, but like in terms of tracking what you have watched. - It's the only thing that you use. - It is the only one. - 'Cause no one's opening up

- Now I'm thinking like, damn, we must be biased towards older shows back when people used to be way more active. Actually, are people more active? - No, actually that's not true because like, you know, every time a seasonal anime comes out, it always shoots up to number one. - That's true, that's true. - So it's still definitely active. - To me, my anime list is not the most accurate, but a good guesstimate. - Okay, good, good.

- You've somehow had to check. - It's a vibe check. - It doesn't take into account, let's say the mega popular Shonen shows because otherwise it's always just gonna be Jujutsu Kaisen and way, way, way out the top. But it's like a good kind of like gauge of the modern,

but someone who's like deep enough into the- - And this is how they make their weighted scores. - Yeah, so we- - I don't know why we're watching this. I can't, this is math. - The number of users giving a score for an anime. - This is algebra class all over here. - And their number of scores, okay. - So do you guys want to go by top ranking or most popular?

- Yes, because that's something we apparently got wrong last time. - Let's do the top rated, which uses the stars, if I'm not mistaken. - Yeah, top rated uses the stars. - But apparently the way, is that formula for this?

- I believe so. - Which what's this? Where did you get this thing from? Where'd you get this from? - This is just like a hyperlink. - Don't be pulling out formulas like that. - Yeah, it says how do we rank shows? - Okay, okay, open it up. - Yeah. - Open it up. - Well, that was that. - Oh, okay. So basically the first part of the equation is, it seems like a standard thing. - Yeah. - The second part is where,

- I'm confused. - I'm surprised you can glean any information from this. - Well, if you read it Connor, are you reading it or are you just looking at words? - No, I'm reading it. - So it says top upcoming and most popular rankings are ordered by the number of users who have added that entry to their list. - Wait, then what's the weighted score? - Does that make? - Huh? - Then what's the weighted score? What's that for me? - The weighted score is the out of 10. - Yeah, it's the out of 10 score. - So there's a difference between rating a show from one to 10 and putting it in that user's list of like favorites.

Oh, so I see. Wait, no, no. So the weighted score...

Is that, 'cause obviously the, oh man, I'm confused. Is that them trying to accommodate shows that are less popular? - Yeah, so what it means is like, you know if a show doesn't have a lot of viewers, then obviously it's gonna be very much more skewed. So it's kind of like trying to balance out the scores. - Yeah, 'cause there's a lot of Ms in there for bumping up the minimum of people who rate a show. Okay, point being, Mudan, just fucking skip, do some penis music and skip over that. Basically-

they try to make it fair for a show that's less popular. But I don't think any of these top ones are gonna be not popular. - We don't need to skip the part where Connor just can't read. - Why are you asking them to skip that? - Well, no, because I was reading it. - Add the penis music, but don't skip it. - Hold on, hold on. No, that's bullshit. I was reading the first part, aka the equation, trying to make sense of it before I read the second part. - 'Cause I think you asked like, "Oh, what is the second part? "I don't understand, I don't understand."

- I think it's the second part of the formula. - Okay, okay. - That's 'cause I was reading the first part of the formula and I understood what that was trying to do. The second part I should make sense of. So fuck you Garnt, all right? - All right, anyway, we're gonna be looking at the top starting with, I mean, is anyone surprised, "Berserk."

with an average score of 9.47. - Here's the thing about manga- - But you just overrated. - Actually, not even top 50. - Actually, I don't know if this is right. - Overhyped. - There is one big difference I've noticed between the manga community and the anime community. The anime community always fucking bicker about everything.

- It does feel like that. - You can never get a consensus except for Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood being number one constantly. - It's like that meme image of like all the people sitting around at the table really like politely and then people fighting each other. That's what it feels like with the manga and anime crowd. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like, but manga readers, normally you talk to most manga readers and- - They're like, "Berserk number one." They're like, "Yeah."

- Yeah, it's just like there is more of a consensus on what the top rated manga are because you see these same five avatars in every fucking- - I mean, Garnt, you can just say manga readers have better taste. - I'm not gonna say that. - In general. - I am absolutely not going to say that. - In general.

- Do you agree with that statement, Joey? - What? - Of course you do. You're a margarita, Joey. - Of course I know. - Yes. - I'm one of them. - My problem with margaritas is that they act like they're better than everyone, all right? - It's 'cause we are, you know what I'm saying? - I guess it's kind of hard to...

- I'm looking at this top six and I'm like, yeah, checks out. - Okay, I am actually surprised that JoJo's, I mean, that's my favorite JoJo part. Part seven is my favorite. I think it's absolute peak Iraqi writing. I'm kind of surprised that it's universally agreed to be like the second best manga of all time though. I would have thought that people would think it maybe settled too out there.

- I'm very happy that people have rated it. - I think though with the popularity, especially that the anime like brought on to just like the JoJo series in general, I think just that hype of like wanting to continue reading it and also like, you know, JoJo fans just consistently hype up part seven, you know? - It's the best fucking book. - For good reason, right? Because it's amazing. And like, I think,

because I think a lot of people, especially in this day and age got into JoJo maybe through the anime. And then you talk to a JoJo manga fan and they're always like, yeah, Golden Wind was incredible. Pop was incredible. And then the manga family turned around and be like, you have a still ball run though. That's where shit gets real. - Yeah, because when I look at a manga list or when I hear a manga fan, I'm like, okay,

- There are a lot of casual anime fans. There's a lot that we see nowadays. I feel like manga readers, you have,

gone beyond the entry point of being a weeb. - Oh yeah, for sure. - You've had to readjust how you read. You literally read the opposite way now. - Even fucking Shonen people who only read Shonen stuff, there is like still a huge leap of being like, I want to catch up. So I am going to look at still pictures that don't have color in it.

- I mean like to, in a sense like reading "Berserk" and committing to reading that is kind of like, 'cause there's no very good anime adaptation except maybe the original. - Is "Berserk" the first manga you read? - No, no, no, no. - Okay. - But like I- - What was the first manga you read? - Fuck, that's a great question. I actually don't know. - You don't remember? - No, I don't remember. I actually can't, I don't know which one I read first. - Before I realized it was in my life. 'Cause the first manga I remember you talking about was "Berserk."

- No, no, no, I definitely read JoJo before that. I definitely read some other stuff before that too. Like I read "I, Shield" I read before that. - Oh really? - I read "I, Shield" before JoJo, I think. "Gantz" I think I read. I think I read after JoJo. But I think "Berserk" was that one time though where I read this and I had this weird sensation of like,

I am only gonna really get to experience it in this form. - Yeah. - Yes. - Every other thing feels like there's always an alternative way to consume it. It's gonna be an anime, you know this, or there will be an anime. - Yeah. - Berserk, and maybe there will be a Berserk adaptation down the line.

- But Berserk had this weird feeling. - It's unadaptable. It is unadaptable. - Yeah, that's the same about everything gone until they make a good adaption. One Piece, unadaptable, and then they adapted it. - One Piece is not unadaptable. - Dude, unadaptable until they adapted it. - The adapted, I would say- - You can adapt Berserk. I think the challenge is precisely what makes the adaptation so worth it.

is because everyone says it's unadaptable and because it's so hard to do it, that when it is done well, it's gonna be insanely magical. - Okay, let me rephrase. Unadaptable with the current industry standards because you'd need like infinite budget to do a good adaptation of this work. - No, I don't think so. - I do think so. - I think the closest they got was the '90s adaptation, but that's because it was in the '90s where they were a little bit more open to being experimental and taking their time with stuff.

- But like, I think that- - The animation is shit. - It is, but you know, compared to 2016, 2017- - Just because you need to have God-like animation?

- I think you've been doing a disservice. - Yeah, but you can say about every show. - Yeah, yeah, it doesn't, but in order, like you said, like good adaptation, right? "Berserk" has an amazing story and the fact that with a lot of like the more, okay, I said shit animation, I meant, if you wanna get- - But we all know what happened in 2017, right? - Yeah, 2016, 2017. - I don't mean like shit animation, I mean like limited animation.

- That's more of what I've meant. - Sure. - But in terms of like- - Yeah, you better backpedal. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You better backpedal that fucking statement. - 'Cause I know people are gonna get- - I love that, I love that anime. - Yeah, but it's more like it's very limited

compared to a lot of other shows that aired in its time, but they got the tone down, they got the story down, they got the vibe down, which I think is the best adaptation of "Berserk" I've seen so far. - Also, best anime opening of the '90s, let's just say that. - Yeah. - As well with "Berserk."

- The actual best. - Yeah, to like to preface, I do actually love the Berserk, the original Berserk anime, but to say that it is like comparable to some of the fucking amazing panels and art that is found in the manga. - How do you put that to? - But that's why it's kind of unadaptable. - That's what we're talking about. - No, but it'll get done. It'll get done. - Like you asked, well, how do you transfer these,

- I think that it's never gonna look how you expect it to look and that's okay. That's part of an adaptation. And I think that just because it doesn't look the way it did in the manga doesn't mean it's a bad adaptation. It could even enhance other aspects of the story that maybe couldn't have been serviced as well in the manga. There's always- - Oh, sure. But I think in the sense, as Garnt was saying, I think in this context,

like the industry standard, it's pretty goddamn difficult to do that. - Yeah. - I would say near impossible to do that with the current standards, unless they change the standards to fit that mold, then I don't think we'll be seeing a half decent or even good adaptation anytime soon. - Yeah. - And honestly, at this point, I don't think Berserk fans are like looking for it. - No, I think Berserk fans have made peace with it. - Yeah, I think they'd need like a,

if Guts had like a cute marketable plush mascot, then maybe we would have gotten anime by now because they would have sold enough to keep funding the show. - What's that? - How long into the show gone? It's not season one material. We can't get those plushies moving. - Who are you talking about?

- The Puck? - Yeah, Puck. - That's not a marketable plush. I'm talking like- - I get a Puck plushie. - Yeah, yeah, I know you. - You know when he goes like chibi mode and he's just like- - That'd be so cute. - Yeah. - Hell yeah, I want that. Make that. - I mean, we've seen how they make shows in Japan

And if a show makes a lot of moolah, it gets many seasons and many supports. But I think Berserk's hard to sell like merch for. - Do you know what I would want to see? Do you know what I think would actually be fucking dope? - What?

- Instead of like a Berserk anime adaptation, just like a Dark Souls-esque game set in the actual Berserk world. I think that would- - That'd be cool. - That would be fucking sick. You know, you can use, instead of like just trying to make a game where you follow Guts' story, just make a game that takes place in the insane fucking world of Berserk. - Actually, meh.

- No? - Nah. - Why not? - I feel like it wouldn't be, Berserk is the story, not the world. - I don't know, man. - I feel that- - Especially once you get past the golden,

- The golden age arc. - The golden age, yeah. - Yeah. - That's like a kind of like Game of Thrones. - Golden age is just like, yeah, whatever. But after the golden age arc, the world building gets pretty insane. - Yeah. And some of the monster designs as well. - Like the fairy forest and stuff like that? - Yeah, it could be cool, but I just- - It could be pretty cool. - I just worried that it would have to be shackled to the show and the story beats to have any kind of-

- Yeah. - Like white to it. - Maybe. - I don't know. - There might be room, there might be some wiggle room though considering that again, like we haven't seen the end of the story. - I think if anything, it would be like a spiritual kind of, but then I guess that's- - That already exists. - You're getting Elden Ring. - Yeah, that's every Souls game. - That's the problem I'm having right now is that like, would Elden Ring be better if it just had berserk monster designs? And I don't think it would. - What about just like a berserk DLC?

- I'd be tight. - That'd be tight. - Maybe not even a whole game, just a DLC. - Yeah, I don't know. Point being, "Berserk" is so goddamn good. It's number one and we're still trying to talk about how it's the go to number one and how you can have more stuff. - Yeah, I mean, yeah. - This is, I don't see anything really taking over it. It's the goat for a reason.

- And it's the manga that's gotten a lot of people into manga as well. - Yeah, 100%. Steel Ball Run, I mean, what can you say? It's JoJo. - I saw a funny post the other day. It was like someone comparing who's the biggest hater in anime. And it was Dio versus someone else. I think it might've been Vegeta or someone. People were like,

Bro, Dio literally bloodlines, bloodlines of generational hating as well as dimensional hating. The man is the biggest hater in the universe and beyond that. And also I was thinking about this the other day. I was like, what is Dio's like actual problem? Like why does he actually have a problem with Jonathan? - He's just a dick. - Yeah, I was watching, he was like, he just, he takes him into his house and then he just hates Jonathan.

And I was like, is this an accurate level of hating? - Literally like 10 seconds after he meets Jonathan, he just socks him in the face. - Yeah. - For like no reason. - He's like envious of his position, so he hates him, but then it's like generational hatred. - But that's why I- - Universal hatred. - But that's why I love Dio as a villain because he's so like- - Makes no fucking sense. - No, that's the thing. It's almost refreshing to see just a villain hating for the sake of hating. - Did you just say hater?

- He's just a hater. - There's no like deep meaning or like childhood trauma or anything like that. He's just a hater. - Why did he kill the dog? I don't know, he just hated him. Why did he hate him? No real reason. - No real reason. He just wanted to fuck with y'all. - Like he literally took him in. - JoJo in a nutshell, haters just gonna hate him. - Yeah, dude. - He brought him into his home, gave him a place to live. He's just hating.

- Yeah, tried to murder his dad. Why? Because, just because. - Just an absolute hater. It's just impressive. Like the level of hating is, how can you even compare him to another hater? Like even in "Steel Will Run", he shows up at the end to just hate. It's so impressive.

Smart 12 year old can do it.

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Up until this point in Araki's career, after part six, everyone read part six and was like, in terms of actual art, it's like, how do you get better than that? And then he was like, let me cook with part seven. And there's just some panels in part seven where it's like, how the hell...

- Yeah, it's really beautiful. - It's just beautiful to read and so succinct and like, even though it's like batshit insane, like JoJo always is, he just keeps stepping it up with some of the most insane powers and panels that you've ever seen, even in JoJo. And you know, let me say like, you know, Jesus Christ MVP. - The fact that Jesus Christ is a canonical JoJo character makes me very happy. - Yeah, I'm like, that's crazy, I love it.

Dio turns into a dinosaur, love it. It's great. I can say that and it probably won't be a spoiler because you have no fucking idea what it's about. - Yeah, I mean, I'm the only one that hasn't read "Steel Ball Run" yet. 'Cause I've only been watching the anime of all of it. So I don't know how good the manga is. - So good, dude. - I'm sure it's great. Yeah, like I said, it does surprise me that it's like number two top rated manga of all time.

- I mean, it is universally praised by JoJo fans and anyone who's read it. - Again, I think the manga, sorry, the anime definitely pushed this up for sure. And you know, for good reason. - Yeah. - Do you agree with this rating then Joey? - I would agree. I'm not like upset. - So you think it's better than Vagabond? - Oh, I'm biased. - I'm putting you on the spot Joey. I'm putting you on the spot here. - Well, I am an Inoue simp. - Is Vagabond finished? - No, it's on hiatus.

I'm an Inoue simp and it's so fucking awesome to see two Inoue works in the top 10, you know, justified. - Boy, what are those two works? - He wrote "Slam Dunk." - Oh, I didn't know that. - Yeah, same guy. - Yeah, he's also a goaded monk as well. - Yeah, and "Vagabond" is like,

it goes beyond manga. It is just art. It is a piece of art because like, if you thought like, you know, Berserk and like Steel Ball Run had some like amazing panels. - Yeah. - Vagabond just goes an entirely new direction. Like it, you'll see some of the most beautiful manga panels ever drawn. - Yeah.

- And like the story is fantastic. And it's just one of those stories again, that like doesn't need a lot of dialogue because Ino is so good at just telling a story through just like still images. And it's like, again, talking about unadaptable manga, like I could never see a Vagabond anime working. - I do find it funny though, because you know, it's stuff like Vagabonds and Berserk that always gets put up on like everyone's top

best manga of all time. - Yeah. - And I think the formula, I think the formula for making- - Is be on hiatus. - No, no, no, no. The formula for making highly acclaimed manga pieces that are viewed as a work of art is just make big burly man discovers violence is bad. - Yeah.

- And then you realize, oh wait, are manga readers looking for a good story or are they looking for a father figure? I don't know. - Shit man, why'd you call me out like that? - Because you know, because- - I mean, I love my dad, but I also love Vagabond. - No, same here though, same here. I'm saying this shit out loud, but I'm like, yo, it hits every fucking time though. Every fucking time, yeah. So Vagabond is very much a similar vibe to,

Berserk and Villain Saga where it's, you know, at the beginning,

It's a Musashi Miyamoto, right? - Yeah. - He goes on this journey of like becoming a really, really good, powerful samurai. And when he's younger, it's like his life story when he's younger, all he really gives a shit about is just becoming stronger, becoming a more powerful samurai. And then the more life experiences he learns, the more he realizes that strength isn't all that's important in life, you know?

as with a lot of these other seinen shows. And you know, it's yeah, it's more about the way the story is presented. It's just like a masterclass of storytelling and character development, similar to something like "Berserk" and "Vinland Saga." - It's impressive that there's two stories in the top three

that can be in the top three without needing to end or have an ending. - Yeah. - Yeah. - How many of these have not ended? Berserk, Vagabond, One Piece. - Will it end? It probably will. - I mean, eventually. - It'll end, but it hasn't ended yet. - Vinland Saga. - Vinland Saga hasn't ended yet. - It's like almost a very apparent

- I'm gonna guess Hunter Hunter is in here as well. - To the other anime list. 'Cause the anime list, you almost have to end for people to start talking about it. - Yeah, exactly. But with manga, sometimes you can get a vibe of the story and it can like- - The vibe is good enough. - You read "Berserk" and even as an incomplete story, it's still really fucking powerful. - I mean, I'm a really believer in that sometimes the story doesn't need to be good or make sense or end as long as the vibes are there.

- You should watch slice of life. - The vibes are pretty immaculate now. - Everything you just described is you just described an entire genre. - I don't like that vibe. - Well, what's like, it's like when people complained a lot about fucking, what was it like?

- Tenant, people were like, "What the fuck is Tenant?" I was like, "I don't give a fuck what Tenant is. It's just fucking cool." - The vibe you see. - The vibes are off the charts. - I don't think that was so much the vibe. - It was the vibe. - It was like the idea. - Which is part of the vibe. - Is it? - The vibe is like a feeling. - Yeah, the feeling of the idea.

- You can say that about anything. - Everything is part of the vibe. - No, I don't think everything is part of the vibe. - Yeah, of course it is. - That's like saying like, oh, when Luffy ate the devil fruit, vibe. - It's like going to a restaurant and being like, oh yeah, the fucking interior decor didn't affect my meal at all. - Yeah, but what if- - That's just pretentious as shit. - But it does. - By your own argument, you could be like, well, the good story is part of the vibe.

- And I need a good story. - Yeah. - So what about like- - You were like, not everything needs to have a reason or make sense. - You're becoming way too like, brought up this shit, man. - But that's why I think JoJo is so good. 'Cause it's not about, does the story make sense? Are the character motivations realistic? Are these characters, no, it's about the vibe. - No, but the fact that- - Shut the fuck up and enjoy the vibe. - But the fact that especially in "Steel Ball Run", there are motivations, there are reasonings to why certain characters are doing things.

- What I'm trying to say is your argument makes no sense because vibe could be attributed to anything, but also be attributed to nothing. You can pick and choose. - Yeah, exactly. - That is not what vibe is. - Yes it is, that is exactly what vibe is. - Basically you're posing a discussion that has no answer. - But that's what I think is so important about manga is that it doesn't have to always wrap up nicely. It doesn't have to have these concrete storylines. Sometimes it can just be about the vibe that you get. - But you can say the same thing about anime.

- Oh yeah, you absolutely can. Yeah, but I mean- - So how come it doesn't work in anime?

- What do you mean? I didn't say it didn't work in anime. - No, I mean like what I mean is like when you said manga doesn't have to do this, you know, sometimes it's about the vibe. - I think it's more apparent in manga 'cause manga doesn't often end. - You also said that, you know, it doesn't need a good story. It doesn't need good art, good characters. Where you could argue that, hey, some people, that is some people's vibes. You know, some people need good story. Some people need X, some people need Y. Vibes to me are more of just,

it's a feeling, it's more just like deep feeling. - It's an emotional reaction in my opinion. And in terms of at least these top six,

although the emotional reactions may be different, the vibes quote unquote may be different, they were still very potent. - To me, vibes is attributed to atmosphere. It's not so much about the writing or the characters, it's the atmosphere and the feeling that a story emanates, the energy, it's the energy. - Oh, and Vagabond emanates the most flawless of atmospheres. I have not read a manga that has,

more of a perfect atmosphere than Vagabond. - I love the way you just said immaculate vibes in a different way unintentionally. - Immaculate vibes. - It just has the most flawless atmosphere. Let me just say that, let me just coin this term right now. - I'm not gonna say immaculate vibes, it's flawless atmosphere. - It is flawless atmosphere.

- All right, anyway, moving on. Rean Vagabond, it's amazing. - Moving on to- - One Piece number four. - One Piece. - Not surprised with just how much the fan base has grown, especially recently. - I don't know if it's the vibes that do make One Piece the great story that it is. - It's the adventure. It's the friends we've made along the way. - The friends we've made along the way. - Yeah, I feel like One Piece is, yeah, I would say One Piece is not a vibes show.

- No. - Yeah. - It's a, yeah, you just follow the adventure. - One Piece is like a, yeah, let's fucking go. Yeah, like that kind of vibe. - So you guys starting to come around? You starting to say what I'm saying? - I think- - See what I mean? Like One Piece is not a vibe. - No, no. - One Piece is like One Piece. - Yeah. - And it's so hard to explain this, right? Like in the feeling, but- - Maybe the adventure is the thing.

- No, no, it's not. We all know. - Maybe the adventure is the vibe. - I'm waiting for that panel in One Piece where Luffy goes, "Man, this is a vibe." - 'Cause when I say vibe, you don't picture, like One Piece doesn't fit into that idea you have in your head of what I mean when I say that, right? Like it's just different. - No. - Yeah, right? - Because it's just like a good fun time, you know, a good fun romp. And that's like, that's fun, that's great. That's amazing to experience, but it's not,

- The vibe. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Vibe needs to be more chill. - It doesn't have to always be chill. I don't think it has to be chill. - No. - I think vibe can be cool. It can be exciting. It can be scary. It's vibes everything. - Like just like the aesthetic of like berserk or something. That's like a fucking, that's metal as fuck. - Yeah, berserk builds vibes. - That's metal as fuck. - I don't know what it means anymore. - Like berserk could make no sense and I would still probably enjoy berserk. - Right. - Just 'cause of the energy. - Could you do the same with One Piece? - No.

- Why not? - 'Cause "One Piece" without its story that it's carefully constructing would just be a throwaway Saturday cartoon. If it didn't have the story, the weight that it's been building up for so long. - I guess. - I think it would just default into a episodic kind of sad. - Is it because it's too accessible maybe? - Well, no, because it's like- - In terms of like art and-

like overall like story points and stuff like that. - I don't know if I've misconstrued this, but I feel like you just said if One Piece didn't have a good story, it wouldn't be a good story.

- No, as in like, well, so what was your first question? Let's go back to that. - Okay. - What did you say? - So you said that because "Berserk" has the vibe, whatever that might be, that you would still enjoy reading "Berserk" even if the story wasn't that good or made no sense. - Yeah, same with "One Piece" I wouldn't. - But you wouldn't be able to do that "One Piece", why is that?

- Well, 'cause that's the main strength of One Piece is the story and the world it's like building together. - Well, I would argue a very main point of Berserk is the story. - You could look at Berserk all day and just be like, oh hell yeah.

- This goes hard. - So what I'm getting at is that the vibe is just like the art style. - No, no, no. - Is that what you just said? - No, no, no. Because also it's like, okay, you throw Luffy fighting, you show me like a random panel of one piece that I haven't read. - Okay. - Of like Luffy fighting someone. I don't give a fuck. Even if it looks kind of cool, I'm like, eh. If I don't know the story behind it or the reasoning, I'm like, eh.

But if I see berserk, I see guts fucking chopping something in half and it's like the design is all fucking insane and all the panels are brooding and I'm like, I'm cool with that. - Okay, then hypothetical question. If one piece was drawn by Mura, exact same story points and everything, would that be the vibe?

- You're just saying if- - Because from what I'm hearing is that you're describing the vibe as like a certain type of artwork. - No, no, no, absolutely not. - That's exactly what you're saying. Because you're like, oh, in "Berserk" when guts cut something, it looks sick as fuck because it's guts. - You are literally saying, hey, the thing that is most notable about this thing, if I take that away, is it gonna be worse? Yes, if I add,

the most notable thing of another show to another thing, am I gonna still appreciate that note? Yes, of course. If you add the mirror art style to anything, it's gonna look like a fucking amazing vibe. But that's not what makes it the vibe entirely. You know what I mean? - I'm getting really confused. - I feel like you guys, you are trying, the problem is that you are trying to quantify the vibe.

Stop trying to, this is the whole point of the vibe, is that it isn't one thing. It's how it makes you feel, the whole art. - I feel like you just said one piece just isn't your vibe.

- No, exactly that's what I've been trying to, but then you guys are like, "It's gotta be the story, it's gotta be the," no! I'm just saying it doesn't have the vibe for me. That's it, it's not that deep. - I think my new least favorite word is vibe now. I think we've ruined this one. - I think I've ruined the word vibe. - I feel like you guys are getting so hung up on this for no reason. I feel like it makes sense. - Because your description of vibe just doesn't make sense. - Vibe is an idea. It's not a singular point.

- I feel like you guys are trying to twist into something that I'm not saying. - I don't know, man. To me, one piece can be a vibe. - Yeah, one piece can be- - One piece can totally be a vibe. - Vibe is subjective.

I never said it wasn't. It's the vibe for you. - You keep saying that. - It's the vibe. - You keep saying that like we're supposed to understand what you mean. That's why we're asking these questions, Connor. - It sounds like to me that you're reinforcing your point of the vibe by using the word vibe. - It's the vibe.

- What do you want? I don't understand how you don't get this. - For God's sake, all right. - You're trying to be like, is it the art style? I'm like, no, it's not. And then you're like, it's the art style. - Well, because I'm trying to figure out what the hell you're meaning. - I would have said art style if that was what I cared about. I would have said story if it was the story that I cared about. But obviously if you take the story out of one piece, it's fucking shit. - So it's everything basically is what you're saying. - Yes. Why is that so hard to understand?

'Cause the whole point was that the show doesn't have to have this night little ribbon of ending and being all tied up. It can just be enjoyable for all of the aspects that make the vibe. - I think you can apply that to anything though, surely, right?

- Yeah, no, absolutely. - TV shows. - Which is how I first opened up my argument being like how "Tenant" barely makes sense even if you know what's happening. It still barely makes fucking sense and half the shit is dumb, but it's all about presenting this vibe that it doesn't have to be said, it doesn't have to be explained. When you watch it, you're like,

I feel this, I get this emotion. - Every time Connor says the word vibe, I just can't take it seriously. - I know, but I feel like you guys are trying to make it seem like what I'm saying is absurd. - No, no, I'm just trying to figure out where your reasoning for the vibe is. - Well, there it's, it's- - Like, it seems like there's no- - That's the problem. - Yeah. - It's nothing. It's nothing and all of it. It's, it's, it's, I don't understand why you can't get this concept.

- I don't think you know what the five is. - No, I do. It's like if you've ever watched anything and felt something. - Yes, yes. - That's what we said 15 minutes ago. - Yes, and you guys- - And then you disagreed with it. - No, that is not. - Oh my God. - What? Oh my God. - Yeah, let me take a piss. - Okay. - Into my bladder. - Wait, no, question. What about "Cold the Night" then?

- That's pure vibes. - I don't know what that is. - That's pure vibes. - You have no idea, right? Like you can break down all the aspects, but all as a package, you call it the vibe. - I mean, that's the show which called me 50, 'cause I was like, the story is like kind of eh. - You understand what I mean by the concept, right? - No, I understand what you mean. I understand you. - So then why were you grilling me and trying to get me to like,

explain something that was almost unexplainable. - No, because like you, I understood your original point where you're like, sometimes it's all the vibe that matters. And then- - And then you start like trying to ask me questions about it. And I'm like, well, obviously, you cannot explain the specifics of it. So trying to like,

- I think you can explain the specifics of it. That's why I was questioning you. 'Cause like to me, like in order for me to agree that, hey, sometimes it's all about the vibe. We both need to agree on what the definition of vibes are. That's all I was like trying to like ask. - But I also think it's okay to be like, yeah, it's different. It's different. What a vibe is to you is different from what a vibe is to me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is why I was trying to find a common point of like,

like a common point in our definition of like, what do you value and what do you value in your media and what do you value? - It's like when we talked about like the, you were talking about the manga that Chainsaw Man guy made that had no point to it. It's like having no point. That's okay. Stuff can have no point. It can just be, that's also part of it. - Look at every slice of life. - Yeah, yeah. Like I guess One Piece could have no point and it would still, it'd be fine. You could enjoy it. But I think that, I mean, for One Piece, not so much there.

- I think it's proved that it has a point very long time ago. - I think every art has a point though. - But then again, this is a whole nother debate. - Just stop. Don't complicate this further. - We're going into other dangerous territories Garnt where it's like, is art, what is the point of art? - Yeah, now we're discussing like, what even is art? - Are we humans without art? Is humanity existence without art? - Can art exist without humans? What?

- That's the question. Can art exist without humans? - Of course it can. - No, you're wrong. - Oh my fucking God, Garnt. - I just proved a point. - How can it exist without humans? It's like natural structures or natural beauty. It's like art in a different form. - Yeah, but without humans to appreciate art, how is it art? - That means that the definition then of art is something to be appreciated by humans. - Yeah, we invented- - I think that's exactly what that is. - We invented the whole concept of- - No, I think art exists without us. - What is art then?

- Okay, now we're getting into a whole nother. - What is art? Let's discuss. - It's the same thing. We could turn the tables and say, okay, if you're a human, appreciate it. - No, no, no. - If I paint a Picasso and no one's around to appreciate it, is it art? - Yeah, well, because you're there to appreciate it. - Okay, what if I finish my Picasso and die immediately on the spot and nobody ever finds it? Did I make art? - Okay, okay, okay. To me, let me define my definition. - Is art the process? - To me, art is like meaning, right?

It might be emotions, but like we give meaning towards the like fucking Mike Wazowski or something like that. This gives us some kind of meaning or some kind of emotional reaction, but without humans to give this thing meaning, this is just- - This is just a lump of matter. - This is just a lump of matter, a lump of atoms. - This is why we make fun of people who get art degrees. And this is why we need them. - Yeah, the question we're posing right now, art degree students spent four years trying to figure out

- The same things I feel when I see some sick artwork, the same things I feel when I see like an insane, beautiful piece of nature. It evokes the same emotions. - Yeah, okay, but if humans weren't there, right? For you to make that assumption, would that piece, would that mountain that you deem as art be still viewed as art? I don't think so, it would just be a mountain.

I mean, yeah, it'd still be a mountain, but it still wouldn't mean that it doesn't hold

- The beauty of art. - I think the beauty of art comes from the fact that someone has observed it to be a beauty. - Well, this is where we're gonna have to move on. 'Cause otherwise it's gonna become an unwatchable episode. - All right. So number five monster. - How long do we fucking waste talking about this shit? - This is what happens when we, instead of talking about anime, we talk about manga. And this is why every manga reader is the most insufferable piece of shit I've ever met in my life, man. - I am trying to argue.

- I'm just gonna say boys, I have thoroughly enjoyed this episode so far.

- This is the one I would do off camera. - We talk about anime and it's just like hee-hee fucking funny memes. Let's clown on Jujutsu Kaisen fan base. And we talk about manga and it's like, what is art? - What is art? Well, my definition of art is this, and this is why this manga- - Okay, here's how we settle this debate once and for all. Google, what is art? What is the concept of art? Whatever the top Google is, we agree. - Because then it's gonna open up to like fucking,

Okay, art, the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. - That's fair. - So to answer your question, no, art would not exist without humans. - I guess you guys are right 'cause Google said so.

- And Google is always right. - No, no, no, art's beyond that. You know, you can, don't get gaslighted by Google, man. - I'll let the computer tell me what's right. - You free think for yourself, Connor. That's what art's all about, you know? It's not about one interpretation, one meaning, one expression. It's about your own definition. - I don't wanna Google water vibes. - No, don't. - Let's move on. - Let's move on. - We're only four manga into this list. - How many minutes have you been recording for? - An hour.

- 40 minutes. - 40 minutes, all right. All right, next one. - All right, next one. - Number five is "Monster." 100% agree. I'm surprised it's this high up. - Why? It's a vibe.

- I can already see the discourse of this. This is what always happens when we have these discussions. It'll be like, yeah, I agree with Connor. I wish you didn't say it dumb. I'll be like, nah, but Garnt's got a point though. And then it'll be like, this is an endless discussion. Point being, yeah, Monster's great. - Monster's amazing. - A real vibe, if I do say so myself. - You know what? Gonna have to agree with you there. - See, I can't explain it. - Oh no, I can explain it. - How long has this been here?

- What is that? - Water. - Probably a long time. - Oh, like weeks. - This tasted funny. - Why did you drink the water that's been there for weeks? - You have water right there. - Yeah, you literally have this water. - I don't know why this is here. - That's like- - Probably the cockroach fed on it. - Oh, don't fucking say that. - That's like a couple of week old stagnant water, bro.

- I thought, I don't know. - Why would she drink the cup of water? - I honestly wasn't thinking, okay? That's what you said when you were talking about the vibes too. You weren't thinking, Garnt. You couldn't comprehend it. - I was thirsty. - Go drink your stale water. - I was thirsty. We were deep in discussion. I had a cup in my hand. - You have a giant thing of water right there. - I wasn't thinking, okay? You never think, Garnt. That's why these episodes suck, 'cause you never think, Garnt. - Garnt, maybe I'm thinking. - I'm talking to a fucking wall here.

- So yeah, "Monsters" is great. - "Johann" on paper, not scary. If you told me that there was like an 18 year old German asshole. - Oh, you mean in theory? - Yeah, like I'd be like- - Oh, but on paper I thought you meant in the manga. - I'd be like, nah, I'd win. Like if I heard like an 18 year old kid go, "I'm going to track you down and make your life hell." I'd be like, all right, okay, all right.

- Is he German? - No, but he's called Johann. - Every Johann in the world is German. - I thought he was from the Czech Republic or something. - Dr. Johann, Dr. Liebert, I'm going to track you down. - Oh my God. - Yeah, so really swag.

- Monster is swag. - No, it's one of my favorite anime of all time. I've never read the manga though. How does it hold up to the anime? I heard the anime was very faithful. - It was very faithful. - It's one of the few times where I think the anime is honestly on par with the manga.

- You feel like it's normally the manga's always better? - Usually one is better than the other. - Joey, of course. - No, no, no. - I just wanted to say it. - I'm not even saying that. Usually it's one or the other. Usually it's like people are just like, yeah, manga's way better or anime's way better, right? 'Cause there's the examples of both. But in the case with Monster, honestly, I would say it's like pretty on par. - Joey's capping because every time I talk to you, Joey, you're like,

- The manga was better. - I mean, to be fair, they made what? 70 episodes out of 18 volumes. That's quite a fucking- - I mean, look, honestly, like 90% of the time, yes, the manga is better, but there are instances where the anime is infinitely better. Look at "Lucky Star" or "K-On!". The anime was way fucking better than the manga. - You can't just say "Lucky Star" and "K-On!". - The manga was shit. - That doesn't count. They're like four coma mangas, Joey. Of course the anime is gonna be better. - Of course, again,

- That's why I said the 10% where the anime is better is the actual plot and an actual adaptation of a complex plot rather than just like a full coma slice of life gag manga or whatever. - Yeah, in that case, the manga's better. - Oh my God.

- This is such a weird episode so far. What are we talking about? Monster. - Monster. - Good. - Yeah, good. - Yeah, Urasawa Goated. - Urasawa Goated, which 20th Century Boys was here. - Yeah, honestly. - That is my favorite one. But it's Monsters, a much simpler story. - And then we have Slam Dunk. - Simple to, you can't understand. - And then we have Slam Dunk. Thank God, best sports manga ever written. - I've read nearly half and not much has happened so far.

- Really? - Yeah. - What do you mean? - I feel like, how much have I read of it? I've read a lot and we're still in like the first practice match. - It's about the vibes, isn't it? - It is about the vibes. - This is vibes, 100%. - Oh, so you understand now, huh?

- It's the art. - It's the art. - It's Inoue bro, like he's a vibe master. The master of vibes. - Actually, I don't know where I'm at with it. I should have a look before I start talking shit. - Yeah, but I'm glad the rest of the internet agrees or at least my anime list agrees that "Slam Dunk" is one of the best sports manga ever written.

- Although I will say, I think Hajime no Ippo should also be, maybe it is up here, I don't know. - Oh no, I lied. - Slam Dunk is incredible. - I'm like one fifth through it. - Oh yeah, well that makes more sense. - We're still on the first thing, I'm like, come on. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But I mean, even so, I think Slam Dunk, classic for a reason, and I think it stood the test of time. - It single-handedly brought basketball culture to Japan.

- Yeah, I mean, I can, every single time I talk to a salary man, they always bring up this manga. - Oh yeah, it's incredible. - It's always comes up. This is, yeah, I just fake my knowledge of basketball whenever they ask me about it. I mean, I love basketball, love it. I love home runs. I'm a huge fan of those. - I guarantee the majority of those salary men got all their basketball knowledge from Slater. - Yeah, I think so.

- All right. - Let's go down this list and see if there's anything we don't agree with. - Okay. - Because this is so far- - "Grand Blue"? - What the heck? - Over "Oyase Mi Pun Pun"? - Wait, what is "Grand Blue"? - That's a comedy manga. - I mean, look, "Grand Blue" is great. I love "Grand Blue", but I'm just shocked it's in the top 10. - This is always my biggest shock 'cause "Grand Blue" is like constantly near the top of everyone's top rated.

- It's good. - It's funny. - It's not like, "Oh Yasme Pun Pun Kingdom Good." - No, no. I would definitely not put it above "Kingdom of Oh Yasme Pun Pun." - Yeah, which is very, very confusing. Did you see the anime of this one at all? It's one with the divers where they like drink.

- Yeah, it's basically set in like a university where they're in a diving club. - Okay. I mean, that already sounds like I don't wanna watch it. - Oh, it's fucking hilarious. - It's generally one of the funniest manga. - Okay, that's good, that's good. - Yeah, very, very funny. - I don't really touch comedy, anime or manga, honestly. - Pretty much Golden Boy, right? - Kinda Golden Boy, that was a lot of fun. - Yeah.

- I mean, well, I don't blame you 'cause there are- - It's like funny, but also I didn't recognize it. It'd be like, that's kind of childish. - Yeah, there are a lot of misses in the comedy world, I think, but "Grand Blue" was, yeah, fucking hilarious. So good. And the art is really goddamn good too for a comedy manga. - Yeah. - I'm just shocked it's at number nine. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Above "Poon Poon." That's crazy. - "Hoseki no Kuni." - That's "Land of the Lustrous." - Oh. - Remember the "Crystal Girls?" - Yeah, I know, I know, I know "Land of the Lustrous."

- Yeah, this manga has always been really, really highly rated. I haven't read it though. - I haven't read it either. - I've only watched Studio Orange's adaptation of it. - Same, same. - So, and they did a fucking banger adaptation as well. But yeah, going down, number 14, this man is like taking- - Oh my God, Inoue just- - Inoue is just gonna- - Another Inoue. - Did he finish this one?

- No, this is on hiatus. - What is he gonna finish something? - He finished slam dunk and he was like, all right, my job here is done. - What the heck man, wrap it up bro, wrap it up. - Real is also so good though. - What is it about? - This one's about wheelchair basketball. - Oh, hell yeah. - Yeah, so I think the story is like, you know, we watched the Paralympics one year and saw the wheelchair basketball and just completely got infatuated into the culture and then realized like,

Well, I've already done a basketball one. I know enough about basketball culture. So he made one about wheelchair basketball and it is, I would say it's on par with Slam Dunk. It's amazing sports manga. But yeah, he never finished it. It's on like permanent hiatus, I think right now. Cause then he started off Vagabond.

- And then he didn't finish that. - And he didn't finish that one either. - Come on, you gotta start wrapping things up. Come on, just write one chapter. - And then number 15 is probably the most classic one out of the bunch. - I didn't realize how old this manga is. 1968. - Was this the first sports manga? - One of the first popular sports manga, yes. - Okay, okay. - It's Ashita no Joe. - I already know Ashita no Joe.

basically as like the OG sports manga. - Yeah. - And it's a boxing manga. - Yeah, Hajime Apo took a lot of inspiration from, I believe. - Yeah. - Yeah, so- - Classic here in Japan. I don't know how good it actually is. - Again, which is why I'm surprised it's this high up. 'Cause I wouldn't expect a lot of like people outside of Japan to like go back that far to like read something. - Yeah. - Yeah.

And then Kaguya Summer No. 16. - I'm surprised that has more members reading it than 20th Century Boys.

- Why? - I don't know. I just kind of thought that 20th Century Boys, everyone always talks about it as like being the goat. And that has more members. - But I think "Kaguya Summer" though, again, got that massive push from the anime. - True. - Yeah, 20th Century Boys is a manga for like manga purists. - It's a manga. - It's a manga. - It's the most manga of all time. - Purists. What does that mean? Like they're like taking away the basement, being like my pure manga. Not tainted by any Western ideals.

- I don't know, because there are a lot of like- - Like love. - There are a lot of people who read manga just simply because there's an anime out there and they're like, "Well, I just wanna find out what happens." - It's like not pure anymore for you to add. - No. - It's been tainted by anime adaptations. - They're mudbloods. - Watch out, the normies are coming. - They're fans from the anime.

- But so if you think about it, like yeah, Kaguya-sama has more members because again, it got that push from a great adaptation. - Yeah, and it's a very popular adaptation as well. - So to think that 20th Century Boys has that many members with no anime push is pretty impressive. - Yeah. - If you think about it. - Yeah. - 'Cause it's coded, it's great. - Yotsuba. - All of Gantou. - Yotsuba, so this one has always been highly ranked.

I like it personally. So made by the same person who made Azumanga Daioh. - Oh, cool. - I believe. It's great. Like probably one of the- - What is it? - Slice of Life. - Okay. - Essentially. - I always see that girl everywhere and I'm like, ah. - It's basically if you took the vibe of Azumanga Daioh and toned down like the absurd comedy just slightly and added more of a slice of life element. But yeah, it's very wholesome, very cute manga.

That's like, I don't know. I've always been interested as to why it is so popular. Yeah, it's still going. It's the manga that everyone gets recommended when learning Japanese. Oh. Oh.

- Oh. - Actually that makes sense because the majority of the manga is told from the perspective of the kid, Yotsuba. - Right. - Who is like under the age of 10, I believe. - Gotta pick this up. - So yeah, if you wanna learn Japanese, read Yotsubata. - Read Yotsuba. If you wanna be a fucking Giga Chad, read GTO. - Yeah. - What of my personal watch? - Amazing. - I still gotta watch or read this. - You probably should read it. - Read it. - The anime is very, very dated now.

So the anime came out in like 2000 or something like that. And it looks like it came out in 1995. - But God damn that opening though. - Yeah. - Shush. - The opening is a classic. - What the heck is Umi Neko no Naku Koro ni Chiru? - So Umi Neko no Naku Koro ni is created by the same guy who made Higurashi. And it is a, it's technically like set in the same universe. - Episode eight, Twilight of the Golden Witch.

- Yeah, I've never read this one. - I've read the vanilla "Umi, Nekon, Nakoni." I've never read this one, but I guess- - Shall we move over to the most popular? I'm interested. - We're getting into like the artsy kind of- - Yeah. - If they were- - 'Cause I pretty much agree with, I pretty much agree that every one of these titles here deserves to be up there. They're there for a reason. - Haikyuu. - Yeah, Haikyuu. Haikyuu is fucking great. - I don't know, Haikyuu's always been great to me. - I've never read it or watched it. - I watched it and got bored.

How far did you go? Right near the end of season two. I was like, why is this match so long?

- Why is it taking so long? - It's about the characters, Connor. It's about the characters. - Yeah, but the vibe wasn't there for me. - Isn't season three just like one match? - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's great. - Season three- - I've never watched any of this. - Yeah, I mean that's fine, but I don't like that. That's fine. That's cool that you like that, but I don't. - All right, let's look at the other list. - It was a vibe. I don't know what you're talking about. - It was a vibe. - And I respect your opinion on that.

- So we're looking at most popular. - Let's go to most popular. - Okay, first of all, number one. Oh fuck. - What? - Wait, it's Berserk is still the most, okay. - What's up? - That's top manga, not most popular. - Yeah, let's go to most popular. - Hold on, hold on, let me click it. What's the most popular? - Well, I just saw it, it's Berserk. - I saw it. - Wait, is it really? - Yeah. - Oh shit, oh fuck. - Yeah, so go to most popular, go. - It's 'cause of vibe. - Yeah, it's Berserk.

- And you know, I can definitely see why. Like I said, "Berserk" is the manga that gets people into manga. - So what I'm taking away from this is popularity equals good. - No. - Yes. Number one, number one all around. - Yes. - Most popular, the best show. - Yes, yes. - Short. - Number two, "Shingeki no Kyojin." Obviously that's popular and good. - Well, I'm surprised that it's got more members than "One Piece."

- Yeah, see here's the thing, amongst like male users, like if this was actually how popular manga is, right now, Jujutsu Kaisen and One Piece would be towering above everyone globally right now. Along with like Demon Slayer and all that shit. - Tokyo Ghoul is number five? - I would like to say Tokyo Ghoul is number five? - That's wild. - That's most popular? - That's wild.

- This list is kind of wack. - How big was Tumblr back in the day? What? - Okay, so like I'm also shocked about in that sense that "Chainsaw Man" is so high up given that its success was only recent.

- Really? - No, I'm not surprised because I think nowadays when you're talking about great manga, I feel "Chainsaw Man" gets brought up way more often than not. - Do you not remember when the "Chainsaw Man" anime adaptation, like when that got announced, that got way more hype than when "Jujutsu Kaisen" first launched? - Yeah, yeah, 100%. - "Jujutsu Kaisen" was just like, everyone was like, "Oh, what's this new show in an anime thing?" And everyone was talking about "Chainsaw Man" when they came out or got announced. And the reason for that is because-

- Like everyone loved the manga of Chainsaw Man. - Chainsaw Man was already goaded from the manga stage. - Yeah, yeah. And the hype came from the manga, whereas Jujutsu Kaisen, it was more of like, it was an explosive growth, but it didn't come until like about like 12, 13. - Yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, still that's,

quite an impressive feat to be nearly as, basically as popular as One Piece by this metric. - Yeah. - I mean. - It's kind of insane. - I mean, because there's quite a bit of a jump between "Chancell Man" and "Tokyo Ghoul". - Yeah, it makes me think that like, I wonder how, like I was saying at the very start, how the type of users that normally use Mal, how that affects how the popularities and the rankings stack up. - Yeah.

- "Solar Leveling" at number six. I'm also kind of surprised by that. - What the fuck? - I think again, this is a- - That's kind of wild. - Wouldn't this be also a push from the anime adaptation? - No, I don't think so. - I mean, I knew "Solar Leveling"- - You could probably go way back. Actually, yeah. Check this link in way back machine. - 'Cause I knew "Solar Leveling" was always in the Marvel world, has always been like one of the more popular picks or the one that's more talked about.

But I feel like a lot of people might've gotten onto the Manwa who maybe previously never read any Manwa because of the recent anime. - We can start to look now. There'll be a way back machine. We can just go back. When did it start? I just got a 2023 sometime. - I think the anime got adapted because it was so popular. Because otherwise, why would it- - Just click any of those blue things. - Why would they start adapting Manwa? - That's true.

- So we can actually tell. - Yeah, we can actually tell like worldwide. - Okay, hold up. - Hold up, it's cooking. It's cooking. Temporarily submit. - Submit that you're not a bot. - No, no, no, you had it. You had it. You had it. You just had to click submit. You just submit to your overlord. - Yeah, yeah. - Submit. - Let's see what it says. Oh no. - It's letting you do it. - Yeah. It's like a way back machine. So maybe that's just part of the coding. Try the next one.

- Are you watching "Solar Leveling" right now? - I have not heard great things. - Well, it's only episode 7.5. - Well, I heard that everyone was super pumped and then they had episode four or something that was a wash. - Oh, was it? - Apparently it was something like, it was a nothing episode. It was a filler episode. - Oh no, it was episode seven, I think. - "Solar Leveling" is still number eight. - Yeah, it's still number eight, but it's climbed to, how many favorites? In the past year, it's gained.

- So it's 411,000 members as opposed to 482,000. - I mean, the anime's definitely helped. - Yeah, 100%. - But I heard the anime is, people aren't happy with it.

- I don't know if I'm crazy. I saw a lot of criticism. I didn't see a lot of good things. - I mean, people weren't happy with it because there was a recap episode at like episode seven. - That's crazy. - Yeah, episode 7.5. - That's crazy. - Yeah. - Like what? - Yeah. So it became the lowest rated anime episode on Crunchyroll in the history of Crunchyroll. - That's fucking wild. That is a crazy move to do that. - Which is wild, but I'm also,

flabbergasted that it is this high up and this highly rated as well. - Yeah, 8.67 higher than that. - 8.67 is a very, very high rating and

- It's aight. - I've never read the original Marvel so I don't know. - It's like the demon slayer of the manga world where it's the- - That's such a slight. That's so dirty. - I mean, it is got amazing fucking art and amazing action scenes and gets you hype like no end.

- I cannot remember any of the character names. - Is it the finer details that are a little bit whatever or? - This is one step away from being a power fantasy Ysakai. - You lost me. - Let me break it down to you.

- I don't think it's mid. Mid, mid, mid. - Too harsh. - Maybe overrated slightly? - I think it's slightly overrated. - Okay. - Because a lot of people they're like, "Yo, soda leveling is fucking gas." And I'm like, "Okay, yes. It has got amazing action scenes, amazing art."

I don't know what else, like what other original things it brings to the table, what else it like excels at because I've recently gotten to like a lot of Manwa

And I feel like a lot of Manwa get a pass just because the level of quality in writing in Manwa is just so much worse than what you'd find in anime. - Right. - A lot of it is like very trashy power fantasy stuff. - Sure. - And so the leveling stands out just because, you know, it's still very much a power fantasy story, but it does have

- It does one thing really well and that's get you fucking hype. But break it down further. - You know what gets me hyped? A recap episode. Nothing gets me more rock solid. - I need to see this story again. - That's like being halfway through a course at a restaurant and be like, let's all just talk about the food that we had. - Yeah, let's come together and recap. - Let's all have a recap of the food and say our highlights and it's like, bro, we still have four more courses. - Which is the thing, like, have you seen a lot of people talking about the soda leveling adaptation? - Only bad things.

- I've heard the controversial things. - I've heard people be like, "Yeah, I'm kind of falling out of it. I'm not really into it anymore." - Yeah, I think it's because, 'cause I've said this before, but like if solo leveling was to get like an adaptation to live up to its original manhwa, it would need to be like "Jujutsu Kaisen" season two level of animation for it to like get the same levels of hype. And having watched the first like seven episodes of solo leveling,

- It's good. Like it's not bad animation. It's still like pretty damn good animation, but it's not like, holy shit. Like I got it. Like this is one of the best things I've ever seen. That was about animation. And I think that is really making people aware of

everything else that the story is bringing, which is not as much as, not as much as other contemporaries on this list. So, One Punch Man. One Punch Man. That's a vibe.

- That is actually a vibe. - What's the vibe? - Just fucking cool. - I think you're just a simp to Murata Yusuke. - I am. - I think anything Murata Yusuke draws is a vibe. - 'Cause like in a weird sense, One Punch Man we have the original version.

- The web manga. - Yeah, the web manga, which is great. But to me, I don't find that as engaging. But the comedy aspect is still there. It just gets elevated so much by the amazing art style, which accumulates into making a great vibe.

- One Punch Man has some of the hardest fucking panels I've ever seen in the medium. - Here's the thread of manga panels that go hard. - And it's always a One Punch Man panel. - Fucking hate those threads. - So yeah, this also definitely deserves to be up there as well. - Also biggest W so far, Oyasumi Ponpon above Boku no Hero Academia. - I cannot believe that Oyasumi Ponpon

is the eighth most popular manga. I knew it was one of the greatest, I have not read it, obviously, but I know obviously what Ivan says, it's considered one of the greats, but didn't know it was one of the most popular as well. - Again, I think it's kind of gets the same treatment as Chainsaw Man in the sense that when people discuss great manga that haven't gotten adaptations yet, at least,

Chainsaw Man half the time. - The purists. - Like, Oyosumi Punpun is just one of those manga that always gets brought up in like the goats of manga. - Yeah. - So I think it's purely just from like word of mouth in the community. - Yeah. - Yeah. It's one of those,

It's one of those stories that you've heard people talk about. You might not have read it, but you've heard if you have an interest in manga, you've heard people talk about it. Whereas Boku no Hero Academia, you're like, ah, this is just- - I refuse to call it that. It has an English name. I'll use the English one. I'm still pissed off at Mal they do this.

My Hero Academia, which how highly is this rated? - Go down. - My Hero Academia, go down. - 8.06. - 8.06, and Kibisono Yaiba just below it. Is Jujutsu Kaisen gonna be a number 11?

- Oh, okay. - Oh, Naruto's above it. - Close, close. - Yeah, but you know, when we check in next week. - Yeah, when we check in next week. - It'll be the top 10. - Yeah, yeah. So we have all of the recent Shonen mega hits right there, slapped down right next to each other. - That's crazy to think that My Hero Academia

as more readers in the narrative manga. But I guess narrative was so TV heavy, at least in Western perspectives. - Oh yeah. - I feel like, I don't know. I feel like it's only recently that manga has gotten more popular.

- I mean, yeah, I mean- - In the international field because- - You've been around for a while in the anime scene. What was it like way back when, Grandpa Garnt? - What was it like way back when? You'd have way more people watching and talking about anime, but it felt like when people talking about manga was very few and far between. And now there seems to be way more of like a,

way more of like a manga kind of field where a lot of people would just purely read manga. But before it felt like there were only a few people who like purely really loved manga as like an art form and just like dedicated to actually finding hidden gems in manga. And the majority was, oh, people just reading manga just to catch up to their latest anime. Which I don't know if you felt the same thing Joey. - That's how you get manga pilled. Your show doesn't finish or it doesn't end. You're like,

- Yeah, I mean, no, I totally agree with what you just said. 'Cause you know, when I was first starting off, like I always made it a mission just personally to be like, there's so much fucking manga out there that nobody is talking about that should be discussed more in the broader anime community. Maybe not that. That gets enough videos. We don't need any more Jujutsu Kaisen videos. But like, you know, there's so much out there that is probably never going to get noticed otherwise. Why not talk about those?

because they're just as great, if not better than a lot of shows out there. - What about the alternative timeline where we had the manga man instead of the anime man? Do you think you would be as successful? - Honestly, I think no, absolutely not. - I remember for the longest time, it was like impossible to make a video on manga and get views for it. - Yeah. - Really? - I mean, in the past I've made videos on like singular manga series. They got no views at all. - Yeah. Like I think a big thing was,

this was back when anime reviews were like the peak content in like the anime field. There was just no way to talk about manga and make it look visually interesting. - Yeah.

And so you will just never get views for it at all. And in this day and age, I feel like because there is more of a dedicated fan base of manga readers, you can more comfortably get views talking about some unknown manga. But before it was like fucking nigh on impossible. No matter, like even if you made a video on like a manga like Yasmin Punpun or Berserk,

Unless it had like a high profile anime tied to it. - No one would care about it. - Your video just wouldn't get views at all. - Damn. - Which is why the only manga YouTubers way back when were like,

- Or like the Naruto or One Piece or Bleach. - The chapter reviews. - Yeah, doing like chapter reviews. Yeah. - But you never see like a fucking chapter review of like, "Oh, yes, me, Pun Pun," back in the day. Like that just would not have ever happened. - What's below "Jujutsu Kaisen"? - Death Note. - Wow, okay. - And then Bleach and then Vagabond. - Horimiya!

- That's the most popular romance manga then I guess, right? - I thought manga readers a good taste, man. Bro, I like how mine and yours like reading speeds are like exactly the same. - Why? - Yeah, wow. - Wait, Horimiya is more popular than Kaguya-sama?

- Yeah, it would seem so. - Is it more popular than Vinland Saga? - And Hunter x Hunter? Wait, that's so fucked. - Okay, okay, okay. Now that we've gone past the Shonen mega hits, now we have some very, very interesting things. Promised Neverland was that popular? - Yeah. - In Japan, it was mega popular. - Yeah, but this is Western.

- Yeah, but even then I think that just the manga, well, I mean, obviously the anime ruined it for everyone, but like in terms of- - But I think the manga is what, the anime is what really catalyzed the- - But that's the thing. I think what happened was this was a classic example of,

Shonen Jump manga that got, you know, started to get really big in the manga community because it was just so different from anything that was coming out at the time. Gets an anime adaptation. Season one, pretty decent. Got a lot of new people that like know the name. And then season two being the biggest fuck up in recent history, forced a lot of people to go and read the manga.

- You're gonna say the manga is like grand plan. - Yeah, maybe. - All right guys, I really think in this adaptation. - The creator was just like, all right, last episode of season two, just make it a PowerPoint. Get people to come and read my manga. - You need one good season. - Like I wrote this story, but I was saying like, we just throw it out for this episode. - Because I think "Commerce Neverland", I don't know if this is still true or not. I think it's like,

- At one point it was like in the top five most sold manga ever. - Yeah, it was the level of popularity it had near the end of its run. - Yeah, it was insanely popular. It sold so incredibly well. - I went to the museum, the exhibition. - Oh really? - It was like, there was a lot of people. - Oh yeah, like the fan base that this manga- - This was during like right as it was ending. - Yeah, the fan base that this manga generated was insane.

- I mean, the last talk from a snub then was,

- Yeah, eighth best selling manga in 2018. - Wow. - Which I think in that year it beat- - It was the fourth best selling manga in 2019. - Yeah, I think in one of these years it actually outsold "One Piece." - No, no. - Yeah. - I don't believe that story. - I remember seeing it. It was like, it was that or it was like really fucking close, which is like insane considering that this is a relatively new show. - You know what's so funny? - Only if you like,

- Only very few mangas outsold One Piece in the year. Yeah. - You know what's really fucking annoying? I keep getting fucking spoiled for One Piece. Everywhere, everywhere. I go to the conbini, they've got the fucking volume on the fucking place where I pay, like the desk. - Yeah. - Showing me the characters. I'm like, "What the fuck is this, bro?"

- What the heck? It's everywhere. - I've been struggling with that for years now. - Everywhere. - Well, you gotta catch up then, man. - I know, I know. - You gotta catch up, man. - Spy Family, I saw a really funny post that was like, the guy was like, "Yeah, I don't really wanna draw on you or something." - Really? - He was some, oh, or he didn't wanna, it was either he didn't wanna do a spy, can you Google this?

It was like, author says something about Arnie. It was like, either he didn't wanna do the spies or he didn't wanna draw- - The spies. - He didn't actually wanna draw about like spies. It was something really weird. It was like, what? - We are rebranding to just family.

- Yeah, that's what it like read like. Yeah, the first one. - Spy family created doesn't like Anya or the rest of the cast. - Yeah, I was like, he's kind of the goat for that. - I gave up on what I originally wanted to draw. - Yeah, I read this thing and I was like, this is so sad. - That's kind of sad. - Yeah. - You know what? - Tatsuya Endo admits he feels no attachment to Anya or the Forger family because they were never what he wanted to draw. - He's so real 'cause I felt the same way towards the family.

I could tell the vibes were not there. He didn't care about them. I don't care about the fucking family. They suck. It's boring. It's fucking, it's not Spy X Family. Fucking Fake Taxi has more plot depth than this fucking show. - It's like a- - Do you mean Odd Taxi? - No, Fake Taxi. - I mean Fake Taxi, Joey. Did I start off when I said Fake Taxi? No!

- I mean, spy family is just a nice wholesome package. - I disagree. - Not gonna lie, it's propaganda for Japanese people to have families and I won't stand for it. - Bro, they're not even a real family, man. Clearly it's James and their daughter. - They're like, "Look, listen, we know you don't wanna have pregnancy, but you could have a kid."

- Pretty good. Come on. - Is this like government propaganda for like foster parents to start coming out? - It's propaganda for them to have kids without fucking somehow. I don't know how that did. - I'm not gonna lie. - It's actually like really sad. It was kind of like, it was just kind of like, yeah, just probably I had to do it. Yeah, can you zoom in? - Yeah, what is that? - Oh, you don't know the hot key? You're killing me, Kai.

I gave him what I originally wanted to draw and drew what the world wants to see, not myself. So I have no attachment to the characters. - And missed that he tried to please his editor who kept telling him that the manga that succeeded combined cool characters with cute ones. So he changed and changed the design of "Loyal" and "Anya" until he convinced him. So yeah, basically it's essentially just like the magazines work. - The editors know what I mean. - It's a mega hit. - The editors knew what was going to do well.

- Yeah. - He looks so displeased. - So displeased in that image. He's like, "Yep, that's my manga." - I still think it's a pretty good title.

- No, I'm a hater now. - You're a hater? - When that came out, I'm on D.O. - Not gonna lie, I got- - Bro, definitely the author, man. As long as you get something out of it. - Not gonna lie, I got really bored of it. - By the way, when I say I'm a hater, I'm not a hater in this. I'm a hater for him. I'm like, whatever he says, I'm like, you go, King.

You've proven to me, you're the goat now. - But the thing, the way I view Spy Family is the same way I view like any slice of life. Where it's just a consistent experience. - Yeah, 'cause I felt like they tricked me into watching a slice of life. - That's the entire point. - And I was like, God damn it, no!

- Yeah, I mean, to me, Spy Family feels more like a slice of life where I get spice of life. That's the best of girlfriend. Where I just get a consistent feeling. If I wanted to feel good, I put on Spy Family, but I'm not expecting it to like blow my mind off with like amazing plot line or everything like that. Especially after,

- You know what Didis calls Anya? She calls her a minion. - Yeah, it's so true. - After he said that, I can't unsee it. - She is just a minion. - She's a minion, bro. - She's Japan's minion. - Pink head minion. - Yeah, she's Japan's answer to being a minion. - She is a minion, bro.

- Like, yeah, the only thing that separates- - And we've seen how popular minions are in this country. - Yeah, there's a reason for that. - She is a minion. - And the fact that as I've rented many times before, Yor is just the most like bland, boring character of all time that does nothing.

but it doesn't matter 'cause she's hot. - Exactly. - She pops off in season two. - Oh great, she gets one pop off. Get back to the kitchen now. Sorry. That's what it feels like watching the show. It's like, you're gonna be a mom now, fuck off. Oh, remember when you were the world's best assassin? Forget it. Sandwiches need to be made. Awful. - Show me more of your teeth. - That's my favorite part of season two where there's an arc where she kills 100 people and I'm just like, okay, now we're actually getting somewhere.

Now we're fucking getting somewhere. - I feel that was the editor being like, all right, you can do your thing. - You can do your thing. - The main part, what I feel like I checked out was the whole introduction of his brother being in love with him, with your.

And I was like, what the fuck is this? Why can't we not fuck up brothers and sisters for once? I know the Bible says love thy neighbor, but my goodness, not literally. - That's why I kept reading. - Yeah, true, true. That's what they thought I was at. They brought me back in. - God's like preschool arc. Incest arc.

- It's like slice of life, spice of life. - Oh my God. All right, let's go back to the list. - Moving down. - I mean, how I'm super, I just think like Tokyo Goal 3 is 21 above Hunter x Hunter. What is this? - Okay. - This is something I just, man, I, yeah. - And there's a fairy tale underneath of course. - I'm just so happy that fairy tale has by far the lowest ranking we've seen of any of these popular ones. - I mean, justified.

- I'm a fairytale hater. - Yeah, people really don't like it. - Yeah, because it's shit. - What's a Koen no Katachi? - Silent Voice. - Silent Voice, which is an amazing manga. - God damn it, Mal, using the Japanese. - Amazing manga. - Yeah. - So, so good. - 24th most popular?

- Is it that respected in the manga field? - In the manga world, I think it's kind of on par or at least in the same category as "Oyasumi Punpun" where it's just like one of those like life-changing manga. And it is fantastic. It's a beautiful manga. - One thing I'm seeing a big difference between going through the manga list and the anime list is that there is way more,

- The most popular and the top rated are way more in sync than in the anime lists where the top rated and the most popular were almost two entirely different lists. - So Berserk has 600,000 members. Can we just go to the anime? Can you just pull up another tab for the anime ones? Just so that we can see how many, just like the difference in like- - Anime. - Yeah. - Most popular anime, you mean? - Yeah, the most, so you get anime, top anime, and then go to most popular.

- Click was popular. - Yeah, yeah. - 3.9 million. - I mean, that's not even close. - That's like, yeah, that's a lot. That's a large difference. - And again, this is like in today's standards, you go back like five, 10 years ago, that disparity was even bigger. - Yeah, like look, how far do we have to go down on the most popular anime for it to be on- - 600,000? - Yeah, that's like- - Not even in the top 100. - Not even, it's probably gonna be like top 500.

I don't think it'd be in top 500. - No, we're already at 150 and it's still a million. - Yeah, so the 500th most popular manga, sorry, anime is as popular as Berserk. - Yeah. - Which is like- - Oh, we're getting close. - We're getting close. - Oh, we are? Okay, hold on. - If Berserk manga was an anime, it would be rated at 288-ish.

- Around Umaru-chan. - Umaru-chan is as popular, is more popular than the berserk. - This is what's wrong with this community. - Like it's so hard to take this list as like a gospel, but it's the only thing we have to go off of. - Fuck. - Blood lab is as popular, blood lab.

- Rosario Toe Vampire is almost as- - Hey, don't bad mouth Rosario Vampire, all right? - Just say Oreima. - Why, Mal? We have perfectly good English names that they chose for us to use in our country. Why do you do this? I hate Mal. - Also, I can't believe Oreima's above March Comes in Lick-A-Wine. That makes me so sad. - I kind of goaded, actually.

- Do you feel like it's fair that Oreimo is as popular as Berserk? - That's fucked up. - Do you feel comfortable with that? - Let's talk about stories that have influenced a industry. - Okay, to be fair, to be fair.

- I mean it did, but not in the good way. - Yeah, exactly. The influence that Orimo has forsaken us is way worse. - You cannot say that Orimo has not had an influence in the industry. - If Berserk took the elevator up, Orimo took the elevator to the basement floor. - Komi-san at number 28? Oh, come on, come on guys. This is like the memes and reaction images solo carrying this. - I mean, look, Komi-san was like,

- It was fine. - It was fine. - It was fine. - It's mid. I've never watched it or read it. It's mid. - It's just fine, I think. - It doesn't need to be as long as it is. - It'll bump up a point if the critic comes out and says he didn't like it. - No, because like- - I now think that's incredibly base to come out and be like, "Yeah, I fucking don't like it." - Down with the system. - I just think it's so funny.

- Sorry, carry on. - The fact that it's sandwiched between 20th Century Boys and Monster is crazy. - That is quite funny. - Well, the thing is like the Komi-san thing, I've read so many manga now where you read like a few chapters and you're like, oh, this is a cool, cute idea. Like, oh, Komi-san, oh, she can't talk. She's got social anxiety. But then it goes on for like 300 chapters too long. - Yeah, and it takes 300 chapters for there to actually be some like interesting plot point.

- Yeah. - Especially with Komi-san. Like Komi-san didn't start getting interesting till like volume 26 or something. - Wait, what interesting thing happened? - There's like a whole romantic subplot that happens. - There is? - Yeah. - I thought that was the whole show. - That's actually interesting. - Oh. - Oh, yeah. - I thought that was the point of Komi-san. - Yeah, but for so long in the Komi-san manga, it's just like her just trying to fucking write some shit on a blackboard. And then the main character being dense as a fucking brick, just being like, "What did she mean by that?"

- "Dance" at number 30, kind of impressive. - Yeah, I mean, great manga. - Why does "Tokyo Revengers" have the symbol in the middle? - Because it's swag. - Yeah, I just like, no other show has that on this listing. It's just like, yep, it's that. - Also, "Uzumaki" at 32? That's pretty based. - I mean, I'm not surprised. "Jinji Ito" is like obviously very revered in the manga world.

and Uzumaki is his most well known piece of work. - Magnum opus. - So that checks out. - Black Clover I feel really picked up. - Should be higher rated than Solo Leveling. What the fuck is it doing at 7.86? - Part six is the second most popular part of Georgia. Oh wait, does that mean people just skip? There must be people skipping past. - I mean, it's my favorite part of Georgia. - It's fair. - Yeah. - Dead Man Wonderland, wow.

- I think with "Deadman Wonderland" I think it's because the anime ending was so garbage. - Same with Claymore. - Yeah, same with Claymore. - Oh yeah, yeah. - Nisekoi is just, yeah.

- Wait, Nisekoi is that high? Was it that popular? - Well, Nisekoi was just waifu wars to the max, wasn't it? - Yeah, that's true actually. - It was like, I need to know who the canon winner is. - I thought Nisekoi was just like, you know, the rent a girlfriend crowds where, you know, it's- - I mean, maybe some of them, but Nisekoi I think was just like, it sparked the most heated one-on-one battle that we've ever seen.

And they got it wrong, personally speaking. - They got it right actually. - No, they definitely got it wrong. - They got it right. - That's how I know Joey's right. If you like the main girl, it's normally incest. - For fuck sake. - In this case it's not. - Speaking of incest, did you see that "Oshino-ko"? - Yeah. - What the fuck? - 'Cause I'm caught up on the manga and I'm just like eight, no way. Akasaka is just trolling.

- I gotta catch up bro. - To be fair, wasn't it like foreshadowed 'cause the names of the characters are based on like the, what mythology? - I don't know. - The mythology names. - Greek mythology? - Is it Greek mythology? I've got the name of the characters, but basically it's- - Ruby and I don't know. - It's kind of like- - I was just thinking about mythologies that have incest in them and I'm just like- - That's all of them. - I thought Greek first and I was like, wait, that's all of them.

- Yeah, 'cause I think it was like, ah, maybe I'm- - They don't get along in Japanese mythology. That's why the sun, the moon is always- - But they married, no? - No, no, no. - Amaterasu, Amaterasu marries her brother. - Amaterasu, yes, I believe. They were in like a intimate relationship. - Well, anyway, point being, wow. - Yeah. - I can't believe they went down that route. - I believe it, 'cause Akasaka's a fucking troll. - True. - Why can't you believe it?

- This is all spoilers by the way, but. - Yeah, but I mean, we gotta put a spoiler tag. - Yeah, put a spoiler warning. - Okay, if we're going full spoiler tag. - I'm never watching the show, so I don't, I'm done with it, so I'm never watching. - Or Shoko's great. - Really, the TV show just didn't like that much. I mean, I said this about it. - Oh yeah, yeah. - And I got flamed for it. And then people are like, nah, wait, he's right now. I told you fuckers. - But like the thing that's, I'm not really like, everyone's like blowing up over it and I'm like, well,

- Didn't he have like, when I was like reading it and especially watching the TV anime, didn't he also have like this weird obsession with his mom as well? - Yeah. - I'm like, I felt like the signs were there that something- - This guy was not a mentally well adjusted man in society. - He was like infatuated with Ai. - Yeah, exactly. To the point where- - Where it was like sauce. - Oh, to the point where like, oh wait, this girl is acting like my mom?

- Love interest. - I'm gonna break up right now. - I think you're gonna be like, it's disappointing. It's not blood related. I really can't. I guess it is technically.

- Spoiler over. - Yeah, mid. - I didn't realize Solita manga was this popular as well. - Oh my God. - I mean, that's just kind of a classic at this point, isn't it? - Yeah. - Would you call that a classic? - Yes, yes. - Yeah. - Yes, absolutely. - It's 20 years old now. - Solita is undoubtedly a classic. - We've never talked about Solita though. - Yeah, because no one talks about Solita. - Solita. - How can it be a classic? - I think it can be a classic and also be forgotten. - I enjoy Solita. - I mean, do you wanna have a, let's have a conversation?

- All right, all right. Let's have a conversation about it. - I mean, I feel- - Def the Kid is iconic, you know, all the time. - I think all the characters are iconic when it comes to Soul Eater. - Yeah, yeah. - And like- - Banger openings. - Oh my God, the openings are so good. - Yeah, the openings are bangers. - Which is my favorite. - Animation was good for its time. - Very stylized. And I think as well, it kind of came at a good time where like the anime and manga community was like really just starting to pick up at least internationally. And I feel that was,

- The anime especially was just kind of an anime that was thrown in front of everyone's faces at the time. - Oh yeah. - It was unavoidable. - Everyone's watched that. - Everyone was looking for the new Naruto and then Soul Eater was just like, "Oh, here's a big shonen anime. Let's go talk about it." - Looking for the new Naruto. - And then Fire Force came out. - I mean, back at the time, yeah. - Now it's looking for the new Demon Slayer. - Which is Jujutsu Kaisen. - And now that it'll be looking for the new Jujutsu Kaisen.

which is pretty crazy.

- What is "Aoharudei"? - "Aoharudei" though is kind of, it's like a romantic comedy, like kind of shoujo vibes. - Okay, cool. - It's a really good manga, honestly. Probably one of the highest rated shoujo manga. - I've seen this cover. - See, here's the thing I don't understand about manga readers, right? I've barely, I've never had a single conversation about this at all, even with people who read manga. It's the 41 most popular, higher than other, like what's it higher than?

- Can you go back? - "Seven Deadly Sins," "Noragami," "Shoujo no Soma," "Fire Punch." - "Tower of Gold," "Kamiga Kill," all of these manga I have definitely heard of. So it's interesting because- - Yeah, it just kind of has like that cult fan base, I think, in terms of like, 'cause you know, "Shoujo" manga has always been kind of underrepresented, especially like overseas.

And like, you know, there's definitely a fan base for it, but they're not talked about as much as like the Shonen shows, right? Just in general. - Like even something like Horimiya, right? I had never heard of Horimiya.

- Before the anime? - Before the anime. - Right. - Yeah, and you know, there's so many of these manga. - I mean, it's huge in Japan. - Yeah, there's so many of these manga adaptations where people are like, "Oh my God, I've been waiting so long about this, so long for this." And it turns out I was like, "I've never even heard of this." Like Apothecary Diaries as well, which is- - Yeah, I've never heard of it.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? I never heard about that. And then when it got announced, like so many manga readers were like, yo, if you're in the manga world, you know this is goaded, man. You know this is goaded. - I mean, "Norigami" in a sense as well was kind of like that. - Do you think that sometimes if the character has a female lead or leans at more feminine topics that it kind of isn't as popular with anime fans or manga fans?

- Not necessarily. - So I think that like certainly like Apothecary Darius had a hard time of getting popularity as a manga. - Apothecary Darius was popular because of everything you had mentioned. - Yeah, right, but do you think that it didn't quite get like even more beyond that and get to like the top 50 manga? 'Cause you know, a lot of these, you look at a lot of these and a lot of the manga and it's all like a dude's perspective.

- Yeah, maybe, I don't know because- - I think it's just the, I think it's the nature of the situation that, you know, like Shoujo manga and Shoujo anime, I think the main demographic is obviously the female audience. But a lot of those shows, I don't think there aren't a lot of dudes who are willing to give them a go. Whereas with Shonen,

it's gotten to the point now where it doesn't matter what gender you are, anyone and everyone can enjoy them. - Sure, yeah. - Yeah, so I think that's a big reason why a lot of shoujo stuff is underrepresented, which is kind of unfair because there's a lot of fucking amazing shoujo manga and anime out there that dudes can equally enjoy as much as girls can. - Yeah. - But maybe it's like the themes, you know, there isn't a lot of like action based shoujo stuff out there. There isn't a lot of like the quote unquote hype

Shoujo shows out there. So maybe that's why, I don't know. But like "All 100 Eight" is a great fucking manga. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not the demographic for it, but I still loved it. - I wonder if you'll see "Apoc. Theory Diaries." - Maybe? - I don't know. - I don't know. - Yeah, maybe. - Hard to say. - Because,

- I mean, I don't know how up to date this list is right now, but I think free rent should be up here if it was like, because free rent sold like hotcakes last year because of- - Japan though? - In Japan, true. - We never get numbers for Western sales. - No. - That's true. - The only thing we have to go off of is like people, how much are they talking about it? - Can you go on the top selling manga of last year?

- You have to probably just Google it. - Yeah, just Google it. What are the current top seven manga? - Yeah, we only have like Japan, right? - Yeah, well, worldwide. - Yeah, 2023. - So this should be like worldwide. "Blue Lock" was the top, oh yeah, of course it would be. - I mean, "Blue Lock" is fucking everywhere right now. - Oh bro, in Japan? - Especially with the movie.

- Oh my God. - Everything's a bullet. - I mean, that makes sense because Japan had a fucking insane run in the World Cup. And this was like the year of the World Cup as well. - My hero, spy family.

- Bro, every match Japan won, like the author was like- - Wait, this is all 20? - Sundown sold 3 million copies last year. - Yeah. - Because of the movie. - Oh. - The movie. - I was like, what? - The movie brought an entire new generation back to the market. - Yeah, okay, keep going. - Still relevant, baby. - Hell yeah. - One Piece number three, "Jujutsu Kaisen" number two, checks out. - "Blue Locket" number one. - "Blue Locket" number one. - 10 million copies. - Yeah, that's crazy. - Yeah.

- That's crazy. People got so mad when I called it "ite." Called it "mid." Maybe it gets better. Did it get better, the anime? - I don't know. - Did you finish it? - I actually just continued reading the manga and it's "ite." - That is crazy how when you say it, you don't get flack. When I say it,

I get destroyed. It's 'cause I said it in that period when everyone gets hyped about the first three episodes. You can't call shit mid in the first three episodes. People get like so like, "This is the greatest thing of all time. "What are you talking about?" - I didn't necessarily have a problem with it.

- I think the biggest reason I lost interest was just because I thought I was like, ah, this is the first time I've read a manga about a sport I genuinely have an interest in. And I think I would be more interested in watching the actual sport. - The whole time I was like, actually it's just way cooler to watch real football. - And that's what I, I had that realization of like, oh, okay, this is the first time I've experienced this.

'Cause normally when I read a sports manga, I have no interest in the actual sports. So this was like actually the first time that I saw a football anime and read the football manga. And I was like, I think I'd just rather watch football. - Yeah, the real storylines of actual football is just actually so high. - I think the actual storyline that you found in the World Cup this year was more hype than anything you found in "Blue Lock." - 100%. - I mean, as someone who has never had an interest in football or soccer or whatever,

and read I think I read the first five volumes of "Blue Look." - Yeah. - It was all right. It was fine. - It is wild. This happens I feel like every year in Japan, like the manga that pops off the hardest, I feel like normally like is quite popular in the West, but not like nowhere near to the same level.

But "Blue Locked" like after the first few weeks, I haven't heard anyone say anything about it. - I mean, again, it's fucking everywhere in Japan. I think right now in Japan, it has a massive female fan base. - Of course. - Because of, you know, 'cause all the boys are pretty and badass and you know, everything that makes, you know, girls fanboy of anime boys. - I really didn't like the side characters in this show. I really just thought none of them were that cool. Like none of them I thought were like,

- How far did you get in the show? - Like six episodes in. - Okay, okay. - All the characters introduced to us, I was like. - I think the biggest problem with "Blue Lock" at the beginning is that so many characters get introduced in a very short amount of time. As the manga goes on, you get time to really like develop and get yourself attached to more characters, which kind of offsets that. - Right, right. - But yeah, at the beginning, I had the same problem where I'm like, this is a lot of people that I don't really care about.

- It was, yeah, I mean, it was just fine. I mean, yeah. I'm surprised it sold that many, but also not at the same time. 'Cause everywhere I go in Japan, there's some Blue Lock collab happening with something. It doesn't even have to be football related. There was, I think it was like a bus stop I saw the other day. It was a Blue Lock bus stop. - Why? - So something very, very like whatever. And I was like, what?

- Yeah, and then, okay. - Let's go back to the list. I'm kind of curious. - "Tarot of God", "Noragami". - "Bullock" hasn't even come up yet. - Yeah. - Yeah, so obviously there's a very big disparity between what's popular in Japan and what's popular here. - "Pandora Hearts", being in top 50 is surprising. - I'm gonna Google something as well. I wanna check something. - When was the last time you heard anyone talking about "Pandora Hearts"? - I don't know. - I don't even know what that is. - What is it? - I mean, it's a good manga. I enjoyed it. - What is it about?

I don't fucking remember. It's been a long time. It's Clamp, right? No, it's not Clamp. It's Mochizuki Jun who did, he did another manga. I forgot. What was the other one that I really like? - Oh, Lagrange, yeah. - Yeah, I just went to Google trends of my anime list. 'Cause I was curious to see if there was like, this website had more users. And yeah, it did. And like 2013, 14 is when it had the most users.

- Wait, is this Bluelock? - No, no, no, MyAnimeList, the website. - Oh, okay. - The website, I mean, this is Google Trends, so it doesn't really mean more users, a more active thing, but people were Googling MyAnimeList the most in like 2015. - Okay. - Since then, it's kind of been slowly,

but generally down. - That makes sense. - I always found the culture of my anime list curious or interesting. - But it explains a lot here. 'Cause it explains why some of the, especially shows that were very popular, "Tokyo Ghoul", "Akeme ga Kill", these 2015, 2016 shows that are really popular have such representation on this. - Because is my anime list like a,

kind of thing because I can't think of, okay, I'm sure there are like services and sites about it, but I can't think of, you know, moviegoers having a list or having like a website where they track what they watch. - Letterboxd media. - Is that a thing? - Yeah, people always do Letterboxd. - Okay, the one for gaming as well? - I actually don't know. Maybe, I don't know. I know Letterboxd is like the joke of like when you review something now, it's like, "I just got on my Letterboxd."

- I've never heard of that. - This is the first time I've heard of it. - It's very American. - Yeah, yeah. - Go to next 50, I shall see what's next. - 'Cause I feel like a lot of these are not matching up to what I think. - Oh look, "Blue Locks" is there. - There's "Blue Locks" 57. - "Blue Lock" is there, yeah. - Like that's crazy that the number one best-selling manga of last year is 57. - Yeah. - On the global. - Below GTO. - Yeah, that's like. - And "Nagatoro".

I mean, this is like bizarre. - Wow, quintessential quintuplets. That's great. - I mean, Kaichou made some of it, let's go. - If we counted how many anime figures or merchandise were sold in this, I'm sure quintessential quintuplets would be number one with the amount of merch they've made in Japan, my God. - Do you think the anime's like slowly carrying that or like? - Yeah, probably. Well, I don't know.

- I don't know. I actually never watched the anime for "Quintessence of Quintuplets." I just read the manga. It was good. I had a fun time with it. - It was great. Awful ending, but it was- - I mean, yeah, again, pick the wrong girl, but that's fine. - Awful ending? - Hell no. Actually, I think she got fucked over the most. - Oh no. - So yeah, but yeah, I think- - I can never guess who your girl is. - Use your finger, which one?

- One to five, which one do you think it was? - Were they all numbered? - Hell no. - No? - That's yours. - Oh yeah, actually. - Wait, they're all numbered? - That's my least favorite. - Oh no. - Mine is, of course. - They're all numbered? - Yeah, yeah, all the girls have, because they're five quintuplets, right? In their names, they have the numbers one to five in them. - Oh right, yeah, they do, I forgot about that.

- So it's Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, Ichika. Have one, two, three, four, five in their name. - I see so many figures of the show. - Yeah. - It's insane. - Yours is two, most definitely. Mine is one, most definitely. We are not the same. - Did three win?

- I mean, it's kind of spoilers. - Okay, okay, okay. - So we'll let you know. It's not one and two, that's for sure. Which it should have been. And then "Kaishou Meisoma" again, like underrepresented because it's a Shoujo manga, but it's so fucking good. - "Dragon Ball 63", ain't no way this list is accurate, man. Ain't no way, yeah. - Also "Made in Abyss" is that far?

- Yeah. - Down. - What an interesting. - This is an interesting. Can you search up what are the top selling manga of all time just to. - One Piece. - Yeah, One Piece is gonna be at the top. I think One Piece is the top selling comic of all time period right now. - Just go to the Wikipedia page. There's a list there. - 'Cause I think it's outsold Batman and Superman. - One Piece, Golgo 13, Detective Conan, Dragon Ball. - Wait, this isn't in order, is it?

- Oh, it's average. - Approximate sales. - Oh, wow. - Yeah. - Oh my God. - So, One Piece has sold 523 million copies. - Jesus. - Golgo 13 is 300 million. - Case closed. - Detective Conan 270, Dragon Ball, Doraemon, Naruto, Slam Dunk, Kochikame. Again, I think with Golgo and Kochikame, it's just because they have over- - What the fuck is Kochikame?

It at one point was the longest running manga series ever created. - Okay, okay, I've seen this one. - 201 volumes. - Yeah, but Golgo has 208 now. - What the heck is Golgo? - So Golgo is actually the longest one.

- So Golgo 13 is, when did it start? 1968, still going to this day. It's basically just a story about a dude who's like a professional sniper assassin. - Has been in the business for a long time. - Yeah, and he goes around just doing dirty jobs to whoever can afford it. And it's been going on for 208 volumes. - "Kingdom" as well is on that list. This is an all-star, "JoJo's Adventure", wow. - "Hajime no Ippo". - Really impressive. - "Touch", wow, that's an old one.

- What is Touch? - Touch is a baseball manga. - Okay, so all of these are pretty old. - Classic. - Yeah, a lot of these are classic. - I mean the newest one on this list is Kingdom? - No, probably Demon Slayer. - Oh no, Attack on Titan. - No, it's Attack on Titan. - Attack on Titan is the newest one on this list. - Or Demon Slayer. - Demon Slayer I think is the newest one. - Wait, when's Demon Slayer? Oh yeah, it is 2016. - Wait, Demon Slayer is 2016? - Yeah. - With the art style, I thought it was like 2016.

- Bro. - Bro. - Bro. - Do you ever remember hearing people talking about "Demon Slayer" in 2000? - Dude, I don't ever hear anyone talk about any manga before like the 2000s, 2020. I was never on the online discourse of manga before like 2015. - Fair enough. - But manga also has nothing to do with time. - Yeah, but to me, the style looked dated.

- Is that a horrible hot take? - Okay, if that's, that means berserk is like made in 2100. - Yeah, true, true, true. By my logic, yeah. - But like, okay, when you look at any, it just, I don't know how to explain it. It just looks dated.

- You know what I mean? Like, am I crazy? - It's like a historical- - I mean, it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of just an old school style. - My favorite historical manga, "Demon Slayer." Fuck off, Garnt, that's not a good excuse. - It also won best fucking fantasy at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. - I'm not one of the judges, Garnt, all right? - I know, I know, I know, I know. But you know, what it was, things would have changed, Garnt. - All I'm saying is maybe because it takes place

in that time period. I don't know. I don't know, man. Maybe just the vibes just aren't- - Fair enough. Yeah, the vibes don't connect with it. - Maybe the vibes- - I'm not afraid to say it, Garnt. - Maybe the vibes were just off. - I don't like how the manga looks, okay? Is that crazy? Am I crazy to say that? - Do you like how "Attack on Titan" looks then? - No.

- It doesn't have the vibe. - It don't got the vibe. It don't got the vibes. That's why I'm glad that the animation looks amazing. - What I am shocked about on this list is that Bleach has outsold JoJo. - Bleach has outsold JoJo? That's surprising to me. I don't know why. - 130 million, I feel like.

- I mean, JoJo only- - Isn't that surprising? - Was JoJo ever popular in other languages until like recent? - No, but it was an absolute like cultural phenomenon when it first came out in Japan. - Yeah, but are those sales only- - But so was Bleach. - Are those sales only from Japan or are they worldwide? - No, this is worldwide, I believe. - This is worldwide. - Well then I feel that like Bleach worldwide probably brought in a lot of additional sales during its peak, which is probably in multiple languages, not just English. - I feel like JoJo is very, very popular in the anime community, but-

- But only recently too. - Yeah. - Since the recent adaptation of the anime. - Yeah, since the recent adaptations and it was just like, JoJo was always like the second tier of like anime popularity. It was popular if you are really, really into anime, into internet culture. - It wasn't the big swing. - But it was never like Naruto, One Piece, Bleach level of popularity worldwide.

- Oh, my God. - Yeah. - I gotta stop talking about manga. I'm gonna get all the manga fans pissed off. - So what's the next manga you're gonna try out? - Yeah, I gotta finish Slam Dunk, which I feel like is solid. And then I wanna read 20th Century Boys, but I'm also secretly praying for a hype anime for that. - Well, we just got a Pluto. - We've been waiting for decades. - I know. - We just got a Pluto adaptation. - 'Cause we just got Pluto, so I'm like.

- Oh, true, true. - Now is as good a time as any to adapt the other stuff. - I mean, you would have thought so when they fucking made an adaptation of "Monster" as well back in the day, but. - But Pluto, they spent a lot of time making, right? That was the anime adaptation took a long time. - Well, 'cause it's Urasawa. - I know, I know. - The expectations are high. - And it was fucking delivered, it was amazing. But that's all I have to say about manga.

- Yeah. - And I've said a lot that I shouldn't have said. I wanna get a flame. - Took 10 years to make Pluto. - Yeah, right? That's like, that's scary. - Damn. - You still read a lot of manga, Joey? - I do actually. Not as much recently just 'cause I've been a lot busier, but I still try and like go, I go to my local bookstore every week just to see what new stuff I can find. - What's trending. - Yeah. - Just to see what's trending. And like, I don't read everything obviously, but

Yeah, some new ones I've kind of picked up where it's like, okay, I can, you know, this might be interesting. This might have potential to be potentially the next big anime adaptation. I don't know. But yeah, I don't know. It's just the whole pick up and just like read nature of manga is just a lot easier. Yeah, I like the whole, I like like,

seeing what different mangas are trending because I feel like you get way more variety of stories in like trending manga. - Totally. - Whereas in anime it's always going to be, "Hey, this week is Jujutsu Kaisen, Jujutsu Kaisen." Oh, it's Demon Slayer this week. - It's more formulaic I think in the anime world as opposed to the manga world where it's just like people can just make the most like, "What the fuck? Like this was clearly not made to make money" type of manga. - Yeah. - All right. - The true definition of art. - They just wanted the vibe. - Yeah, that was just like, "We're gonna go with the vibes." - And I'm right.

But anyway, that was our shitty analysis of top 100 manga according to my anime list. What did you guys think? Did you agree? Did you disagree? Let us know in the comments. - I'm gonna forget about recording this 'cause we recorded this in advance and I'm gonna wake up in like a month and a half, people will be like, "Why did Connor say that?"

- I feel like all three of us said some like pretty outweighed shit this episode. - We turned into like pretentious art snobs five minutes into recording. - Yeah. - Then I got a dent in my brain. - That's how you know it's gonna be a banger. - All right, well thanks for watching guys. - Hey, check out these patrons though. What did you guys think? Let us know. And hey, if you're already on Patreon, you know about this already. - Can you shut up? I'm trying to do a Patreon now, shout out.

- Fucking dip in the brain. - Hey, if you've already joined the Patreon, you guys already know this, but in case you haven't, every week over on our Patreon, we give you guys an extra piece of content after this episode that you can go and watch. And this week we have a brand new one as well.

But hey, if you want to go watch that as well as a bunch of other past Patreon videos and just support the show in general, then head on over to patreon.com slash trash days. Also follow us on Twitter, send us some memes on the subreddit. And if you hate our face, listen to us on Spotify. And that's it for now. We fried our brains with all this art talk. Bye-bye. Bye.