Top Five Manga I Can't Believe I Haven't Read
This is also a great list of manga for you to add to your Young Adult graphic novel collection, if your library has one (or a great place to start if it doesn't!)
Haruhi Fujioka was just looking for a quiet place to study. Instead, he ends up in the club room of the Ouran High School Host Club. Cornered by the Host Club's obscenely wealthy members and identified as the school's "scholarship student", Haruhi ends up breaking a vase that's worth a fortune.
To repay the debt, he's forced to work as their "dog", and later as a fellow host club member when they discover he's actually rather good looking. They agree that if he can get 100 girls to request him, the debt will be erased.
The problem? Haruhi is actually a girl.
Edward and Alphonse Elric have lost everything. Their father abandoned the family. Their mother passed away. In their attempt to use alchemy to bring her back, Edward lost his arm and leg; Alphonse, his entire body. They are now on a quest to find a Philosopher's stone: a mystical item that it is supposed to allow them to regain what they have lost.
Their search leads Edward to become a "dog" of the military at just twelve years old. As their search continues into the boys' teen years, they are enveloped in a world of forbidden techniques, corruption, war, devastating secrets,, and a plot to destroy everything they know and love.
Monkey D. Luffy is an idiot, and there is no getting around that fact. As a child, he ate a "Devil's Fruit" that turned his body into rubber- while taking away his ability to deal with seawater. Still, he is determined to become not just a pirate, but the next Pirate King. The series chronicles his adventures as he is joined by the swordsman Roronoa Zoro, sniper Usopp, navigator Nami, fighting cook Sanji and a host of other characters: each with their own dreams, aspirations, and an unswerving loyalty to the idiot who proves, time and again, that he will do anything for those he considers his friends.
This anime... man, I cannot say enough good things about this anime. It's made me laugh like a lunatic, sob as it shattered my heart, and rejoice in its brilliance. It's one of the longest-running I know of (it celebrated its 25th anniversary last year), and the wonderful thing about it is that it only gets better as time goes along. The length may be off-putting to many, but man is it worth it.
Fairy Tail followed the adventures of the wizard guild Fairy Tail- particularly its celestial wizard Lucy Heartfilia and dragon slayer Natsu Dragneel. There are so many elements to this one: conflicts between guilds, assignments that lead to entire devastating story arcs, and the continuing mystery of why all the dragons disappeared seven years before the series' start.
The characters' voices sometimes annoy me. The anime has a ton of fillers. The anime takes forever to get through an arc because of said fillers. So why am I not reading the manga instead? I have no clue.
As President of the Student Council, Misaki Ayuzawa is determined to make the formerly all-male Seiko High School a more comfortable place for girls. Her actions, however, can be a bit extreme, and results in her being hated by most of the male populace. The boys appeal to Takumi Usui for help, but he doesn't concern himself with it too much.
Until he discovers that Misaki works part-time in full costume (and servant mentality!) at a Maid Cafe.
This one is hilarious, and adorably sweet as the inevitable happens between Ayuzawa and Usui. Still, I've always thought that there was an obvious lack of any sort of background, history or further development of Usui, and he's such a great character that he really deserved it. The manga, by all accounts, provides those missing pieces, and even now I am angry at myself for not getting into it yet.