Both David P. Welsh and John Jakala take a crack at listing their favorite humor manga. Lots of good stuff mentioned — from Sgt. Frog to Slam Dunk to Club 9 Your and My Secret. We’d advise checking out both lists, but we can’t believe no one mentioned Akira Toriyama, (Dr. Slump) but, you know, humor is subjective.
We just got a copy of the first volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei by Koji Kumeta, and it does for girls schools what Cromartie High does for boys: Parodying the “heroic teacher” genre, the main character is a depressed, suicidal jerk and in each chapter he meets some dysfunctional student and instead of helping her become a better person, encourages her to join him in a suicide pact. There’s a lot of very specific Japanese social satire here, and Del Rey helpfully includes a lot of notes in the back. The art is striking, too.
