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Since I've been a Fumi Yoshinaga fan since last year, I decided to recommend Flower of Life for any readers who like a Slice of Life story, in a high school setting. In case you don't know, Fumi Yoshinaga is the mangaka for all of the following titles:
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (Seinen, also a live-action in production)
Kinou Nani Tabeta? (seinen, cooking manga, slice-of-life)
Antique Bakery (Shoujo/Shounen-ai, has an anime, a Korean live-action movie, a Japanese live-action series, and the doujinshi sequel counts as yaoi)
Ichigenme... The First Class is Civil Law (yaoi)
Gerard & Jacques (yaoi)
... and a lot more.
That said, the story of Flower of Life is about Harutaro Hanazono, a leukemia survivor, attending high school one month late because of his condition. He meets fellow classmates Mikuni (an adorable little fat boy), and Majima (an evil, megane, otaku version of Chikage of Antique), their fabulous homeroom teacher Shigeru Saito, among others. The topics tackled jump around because of the episodic nature of the story, ranging from issues with Leukemia to simple stuff like Christmas parties to manga industry (mostly because of Majima).
One conversation amused me in particular:

Majima, on a quest to turn introvert Takeda into a successful mangaka, decides that her old-style shoujo manga simply won't sell at the Comiket because it isn't slash.

This conversation should not have roses in the background.
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (Seinen, also a live-action in production)
Kinou Nani Tabeta? (seinen, cooking manga, slice-of-life)
Antique Bakery (Shoujo/Shounen-ai, has an anime, a Korean live-action movie, a Japanese live-action series, and the doujinshi sequel counts as yaoi)
Ichigenme... The First Class is Civil Law (yaoi)
Gerard & Jacques (yaoi)
... and a lot more.
That said, the story of Flower of Life is about Harutaro Hanazono, a leukemia survivor, attending high school one month late because of his condition. He meets fellow classmates Mikuni (an adorable little fat boy), and Majima (an evil, megane, otaku version of Chikage of Antique), their fabulous homeroom teacher Shigeru Saito, among others. The topics tackled jump around because of the episodic nature of the story, ranging from issues with Leukemia to simple stuff like Christmas parties to manga industry (mostly because of Majima).
One conversation amused me in particular:

Majima, on a quest to turn introvert Takeda into a successful mangaka, decides that her old-style shoujo manga simply won't sell at the Comiket because it isn't slash.

Majima: YAOI! For the money!
Takeda: D:
Me: D: poor girl
Takeda: D:
Me: D: poor girl

This conversation should not have roses in the background.

I started shipping them, sadly.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 07:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 07:59 am (UTC)That's ok, I don't live in the US, and no one sells manga in my country, so I just make do with scans and scanlations, etc.
If I want to buy real manga, I buy it in Japanese because 'official translations' put me off, especially when I can tell what got left out. I bought Kinou Nani wo Tabeta 1-2 and Antique Bakery already.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 08:02 am (UTC)Ahh, right. It's easy to forget sometime that even with the 'poor access to series in stores' you still get a LOT of choice for manga in the US since it is becoming so damn big. The Manga sections in most bookstores are larger than the graphic novel sections now. Not surprising, though, it's a lot more inviting than the American graphic novels, too.