Shonen Beam

For those of you who came tonight: Thank you! I’m very pleased with how the event went overall, and by the size of the crowd. I’m somewhat amazed that I was able to speak for nearly five hours, but time seemed to fly by (at least, to me), so I hope it was as entertaining for all of you as it was for me. I loved the casual atmosphere, and I was completely flattered that non-regulars to anime club actually came to watch me. Thank you so much.

The series list I promised is right here:

History of Shonen series list

Series in bold are an arbitrary declaration of the more important titles, and are a decent indication of series to read in terms of overall relevance (not necessarily quality).

I must ask that no one use the list for any purpose other than personal enjoyment or reference without my permission.

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I also want to briefly elaborate on a claim I made a few times about some series, which may be hard to understand without proper explanation. I mentioned how some series are able to do comedy brilliantly well, but then feature uncharacteristically heartfelt chapters which were done very effectively. A perfect example:

How to set up and deliver a punchline: Gintama 171
How to charm your readers: Gintama 172

The effect is only strengthened by the fact that these chapters are back-to-back. The non-comedy chapters of Sket Dance achieve a similar effect.

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For the record, I wholeheartedly recommend changing your online manga reader to MangaToshokan. Uncompressed images and a clean website layout make it markedly better than OneManga or MangaFox, which I only use for anything not yet uploaded to MT.

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If you’ve been inspired to discover new series, and are pleased with what you find, please let me know! I’m curious to know how well-received my recommendations are.