January 19th, 2021 
AstroNerdBoy What Was the First Manga You Finished?
Hey gang. I was asked, in a round about way, “what was the first manga you finished?” I had to actually stop and think about this. So let me retrace my steps by thinking first about what were the initial manga titles I got into. And then I think I can deduce my way to figuring out which manga series I finished first.
First Manga Started
While I was clearly aware of manga, I didn’t actually start reading manga right away. However, after watching the first, 5-episode Ah! My Goddess OVA (titles Oh My Goddess! in the States), I lamented on some forum or other about how I would have loved to have had more than five episodes. Since there were no other Ah! My Goddess anime series at the time, folks told me to get the manga from Dark Horse.
I was hesitant at first, but eventually I did buy the first twelve graphic novels that Dark Horse put out. Back then, Dark Horse released Oh My Goddess! as a Western comic book, then did graphic novel compilations that didn’t match the Japanese tankoubon releases.
BUT, Ah! My Goddess was a LONG way from being completed. As such, it could not be the first manga I finished.
Finding the Manga!
Shortly thereafter, I watched Love Hina. I was discussing it on some forum or other and was told that I had to read the manga, which was far superior. So the second manga I scored was TokyoPop’s Love Hina release. I wasn’t sure where I scored it, but I found the records. TokyoPop had released the first eight volumes when I picked the series up. So I bought them all.
After that, the records show that I continued to buy the remaining four volumes as they were released. And while I was buying other manga at the time, such as Oh My Goddess, Love Hina was done and thus it was the first manga I finished.
So I pose the question to you. What was the first manga you finished? I’d love to read your responses in the comments section below.
Posted in 
Tags: 
The first manga I bought and read was Maison Ikkoku because the VCR tapes stopped about half way through the series. I wanted to know what happened to the characters. Then manga sucked me in even tighter and I bought the Viz graphic novel set as well as the un-flopped manga-like version in English Translation.
I had the original Viz release. I sold it off when I was paying off my massive medical bills. I never did pick up the manga re-release. If the re-release retained the honorifics, I might consider it. But I don’t trust Viz adaptations these days.
The oldest series I can remember finishing is Soul Eater, because a friend lent me the first few volumes and I sped through the rest in record time (I think our local library had a few of them?). That said I also read Love Hina around then, and there’s a number of non-mainstream series that I picked up and finished in the span of a single week. I didn’t start using MAL until a couple years later, unfortunately, so I can’t remember very many of them anymore.
I never read Soul Eater.
Ah, Soul Eater’s great. It’s unashamedly wacky, but more consistently serious than Gintama. In general it’s been polished a bit by nostalgia, but it’s still a great series.
Definitely “Love Hina.” Super delicious bait and I’ve been hooked ever since.
I actually double dipped on the series. I still own the old TP books, but the updated (and superior) translations of the omnibus volumes (and the first translator pinging me to tell me about it) got me to buy those as well. I need to reread the series sometime, but man, I’m so far behind on volumes I’ve yet to read.
the first manga i finished was nana.
I remember hearing about Nana. Never read or watched it.
The first one I both started and finished was No Need for Tenchi. 20 years ago, I was just starting off collecting anime DVDs, and I was really big into Tenchi Muyo at the time after having watched it during its original run on Toonami in 2000. Tenchi Forever was the first anime DVD I bought, and I got it from a movie store in the mall called Suncoast late in 2000. I’m not sure what exactly got me to do so, but in those very early days of me buying anime from Suncoast I decided to go by the Waldenbooks that was also in the mall and started browsing their manga selection and saw they had a Tenchi manga. I started buying the volumes regularly, finally finishing it when the 12th and final volume was released in 2002. It was when I was buying NNFT volumes that one of the clerks at Waldenbooks suggested I read Love Hina, and that’s how I ended up a Ken Akamatsu fan. A couple of years later, Negima came out, and in reading up about it online, I eventually found your blog.
Thanks for sharing!
The first manga I bought was probably the Sailor Moon manga but I missed a volume or two and it soon went out of print. I definitely read Love Hina all the way through though and was shocked at how much better it was than the anime (which admittedly got me a bit emotional at times).
Sorry for the delay. I missed this somehow. 😅
But yeah, I totally agree with you on how the Love Hina manga > anime.
Sadly a running theme with Ken’s work…
Alas, ’tis true.
Awww, but the second Negima tried so hard to do its best with the original source work… *eyesprain from rolling too hard*
If only they hadn’t been attacked by the insidious Crack Fairy and his buddy Like God (But Better), I Will Create This In My Own Image.
(Who, me? Still bitter? Surely you jest. (^_~) )
Yeah, I don’t understand why Akamatsu-sensei’s manga titles got such poor adaptations.
I’m hoping when he retires after UQ he puts some time into a proper adaptation of his most famous series. I see Shaman King is getting a proper adaptation after being out of the spotlight for over a decade, so why not Love Hina or Negima?
For sure. I’d love to see both those titles get a proper adaptation. I wouldn’t even mind seeing A.I. Love You get adapted.
It took me a while to figure out, but I believe technically the first I finished was Maison Ikkoku. At that time the rest of the anime had never been translated, and I wanted to know the ending even though it took some hunting to track them down in niche bookstores. And I didn’t get to read some of the material in the middle for years more.
(This was the very early days of internet shopping, back when everyone flipped manga and Amazon was some minor upstart that I got upset enough to boycott for what I thought were unethical business practices. I had no idea how much worse it would get.)
Not sure about the first one I read from start to finish, but my bet would be on either Maison Ikkoku, or Kare Kano and its cursed ending. XD
Boy, ain’t that the truth.
I sold off both manga series to pay medical bills years ago. So I don’t remember the cursed ending of Kare Kano. I do remember it went off the rails though and got bogged down in backstory of both sets of the MC’s parents. 😅
But I do remember Maison Ikkoku’s ending, and at least it got a proper ending.
I still feel weird about realizing it was Anno’s anime treatment of Kare Kano that made me fall so in love with the story – imo, Tsuda-sensei suffered from a moderately-common flaw of girly-romance manga. She treated her story way too seriously even when dealing with emotions and subject matter I’d call trite, and it only got worse after she decided Anno had ruined it by not being serious enough. (When in truth he made it possible to take it seriously instead of eye-rolling, by stirring in humor that both added value and complemented the story.)
But the ending graduated to cursed, with one element being really squicktastic. If you’re feeling brave, let me know and I’ll remind you of what your memory may have protectively blocked out. ,XD
The anime is why I started buying the manga at all. Like normal, I wanted to know the story after the anime ended. I loved the anime for the most part, though it too got sold back in the day. (Man, it depresses me to think of how much stuff I had to sell to pay off my medical bills.)
Haha! Hit me.
Spoilers for Kare Kano aka His & Her Circumstances
[spoiler]The cake: After a time jump we get a super-happy ending where everyone is ridiculously happy and successful, including Yukino who dropped out to have a baby.
The icing: Just before the time jump the MCs’ best friend / sensitive playboy
GenjiAsaba, makes a weird comment about knowing the MCs’ baby will be his soulmate. Time jump: He’s helped raise their kids as a father figure since birth (iirc Yukino even complains about how he spent more time with her and the kids than Arima). The aforementioned baby (now a teenager) confronts him about how she’s always loved him and she knows he feels the same. He “gives in” and admits she’s right.(I just wish I understood why this one sticks in my craw so much, when the sloppy storytelling in the latter half of Usagi Drop annoyed me more than the end itself.)[/spoiler]
I didn’t remember that at all. 😅
Thus “If you’re feeling brave, let me know and I’ll remind you of what your memory may have protectively blocked out.” Sometimes our subconscious knows better than we do. (^_~)/
Heh. Well, if I had time, I would probably try to reread stuff.