2011 Comic-Con Best and Worst Manga Panel

Best New Grown-Up Manga: Lychee Light Club by Usamaru Furuya (Vertical)

Carlo Santos: "All of you guys have been picking these nice and wonderful stories! But this one? This is evil, foul, and disgusting and it's amazing! It's like Lord of the Flies turned up to the nth degree. It's really disturbing."

"It's about a group of middle school boys who create a robot that kidnaps a young girl. They tie her up and make her a prisoner, to treat her as their goddess. As a result of their freakish and disgusting behavior, they all start turning on each other and descend into a pit of madness. It does completely terrible things to my mind, but I'm glad it did."

Chris Butcher: "It was summarized to me like this: a group of violent perverts build a robot to try to meet girls. And that almost does it justice."More »

Best New Grown-Up Manga: Bad Teacher's Equation by Kazuma Kodaka (DMP)

Eva Volin: "A crackfest of a story about a high school boy's crush on the school nurse gradually changes into an exploration of love in all its incarnations. This is a series that takes a volume or two to find it's footing, but once it does the characters become so engaging the reader won't even care that no one has sex until almost the very end."More »

Best Ongoing All-Ages Manga: Chi's Sweet Home by Kanata Konami (Vertical)

Eva Volin: "Chris says this is a harrowing book about a kitten who gets lost, moves in with a family and gradually forgets his mother's face. Yep, it is. And kids love it! It's also sweet, funny, and very true to what cats are actually like. It's one of those true all-ages books. You can give this to 9 year old, a 15-year old, or my mom; they'd all love it."

Chris Butcher: "It's so harrowing and dark!I got into so much trouble talking about this book last year, but think about it! This kitten is separated from her mother, she can't remember her mother's face! She learns that humans are only nice when they want something! There's darkness to this manga! Kids pick up on this! 'My parents are keeping me around, but I'm not sure what for!'"More »

Best Ongoing Teen Manga: Kekkaishi by Yellow Tanabe (Shonen Sunday/VIZ)

Deb Aoki: "From its premise, you might think it's just another shonen manga series. And in some ways it is -- there's a young boy and a girl who is his friend/competitor. They have to fight demons that are attracted to a mystical site beneath their school. But as you read Kekkaishi, you'll discover it's much more than that. Great characters and story, with action, humor, and heart."

Chris Butcher: "It's so popular in Japan! When I went there last, everyone's cell phone charms weren't from Naruto or Bleach, they were from Kekkaishi. People there asked me, "Really? You don't have it there?" and I'd say, 'Well, we do, but in the U.S., not as many people care!' (laughs) Except for Deb."

Deb Aoki: "It definitely deserves to be way more popular."More »

Best Ongoing Teen Manga: Twin Spica by Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)

Chris Butcher: "A seinen adventure heavy on slice-of-life and magical realism, not to mention melancholy. What might otherwise be a straightforward and charming tale of a girl trying to do her best and enter the Japanese space program is knocked off-kilter by a somewhat disturbing imaginary friend that influences the lead character's life and decisions. Always surprising and engaging, especially for fans of manga like Planetes."

David Brothers: "I had a copy of this for like, three months that I put off reading. From the cover, I thought it was some shojo love story. And then I open it up, and wow. I wanted to go into space when I was a kid, so this is a perfect book for me."More »

Best Ongoing Teen Manga: One Piece by Eiichiro Oda (Shonen Jump/VIZ)

David Brothers: "One Piece is not just the best shonen manga or best Japanese comic, it's one of the best comics out there, period. I've never liked reading any book as much as I like reading One Piece. It's all about being friends. They just take it to extreme levels, but there's so much to like! The characters are so fully formed."

"Towards the end of volumes 9-12, One Piece goes from good to incredible, as we learn the back story of Nami, the navigator. This sets the stage for the rest of the series. You come to understand how much Luffy wants to be a pirate and how much he loves his friends. He would die for his friends. For a kids' comic, Luffy gets really close to dying several times. It's a long series, but suck it up, and read it."More »

Best Ongoing Teen Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (VIZ Media)

Carlo Santos: "Two brothers who have the power of alchemy discover a conspiracy that can destroy the world. Fullmetal Alchemist is the complete adventure story. Not just the part about the saving the world, but the two brothers' family bonds. There's love, and sacrifice, the thrill of conspiracy, where you never know what the other person is really thinking or planning to do. Then it's revealed and your mind gets blown, and it happens over and over again, all the way to the end, and that's why Fullmetal Alchemist is awesome."More »

Best Ongoing Teen Manga: Itazura na Kiss by Kaoru Tada (DMP)

Eva Volin: "A ditsy girl falls for the smartest, most pompous boy in her class. It sounds like the same old formulaic dreck, right? Only this one has been sprinkled with the same magic classic girls stories have: characters so richly constructed that no matter how silly the situation they're placed in, the reader can't help but follow them and be charmed."More »

Best Ongoing Grown-Up Manga: 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa (VIZ Media)

Chris Butcher: "In 20th Century Boys, there are a group of kids who create a story in a notebook about saving the world. Many years later, when they've all grown up and failed at their lives, the things they wrote in their notebook start coming true, and it becomes a race against time to try to figure out who and what is behind these world-destroying events, how to stop it. And that's just the first three volumes! It keeps turning on itself, and the conspiracy just gets bigger and bigger. It is so ambitious, so smart."

"No one is doing what Naoki Urasawa is doing in serial comics--no one is operating on his level. Period. Taut, precise, beautifully drawn, edge-of-your-chair cliffhangers on every chapter, and surprisingly affecting. "More »

Best Ongoing Grown-Up Manga: Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga (VIZ Media)

Eva Volin: "After a plague wipes out most of the male population of Japan, the remaining men become commodities for both pleasure and procreation and the women are left to run the country. This is Alternative Universe done right. In what may be Yoshinaga Fumi's most ambitious work, this series creatively explores class and gender politics in ways that are only possible if the rules of society have been shuffled. "

Deb Aoki: "Every time a new volume of Ooku comes out, I feel compelled to re-read all the prior volumes, because each new chapter reveals something new about past events. It's a very smartly-written, multi-layered story, created by a real master of the craft."More »