Quite the range of subjects and genres...except most of them are published by Viz Media. Hmm.
Anyway, in alphabetical order:
1) 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa Had to wait for Viz to finish Monster for this one, and the wait was worth it. 2) A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi Everything you ever wanted to know about manga creation in the postwar period...and then some. 3) Butterflies, Flowers by Yuki Yoshihara The horrors of life as a working woman, played for laughs. Nostalgia for Kimi wa Pet. 4) Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi It's pretty, and the paper quality is excellent. Yeah, that's plenty. 5) Detroit Metal City by Kiminori Wakasugi So campy. I nearly died from laughter. 6) Gravitation Collection by Maki Murakami (two-in-one reissue) Boyband bishounen, just as good the second time around. 7) Kimi ni Todoke by Karuho Shiina Pitch-perfect school-days shoujo romance. 8) Moyasimon by Masayuki Ishikawa If only because the subject matter is so darn unlikely. 9) Ôoku by Fumi Yoshinaga Gender-bending costume drama, ahoy! 10) Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei by Koji Kumeta A satirical education in Japanese literary and popular culture.
I happened to be looking at my f-list while waiting for a download and have to say Gravitation FTW! It's the manga that got me into fandom and writing fanfiction, much to my daughter's dismay. But it's her copy of Gravitation that did it.
Another vote for 20th Century Boys. I do the Dutch translation for that one, and the longer I have to look at the text, the more fascinating the story gets. And the way Urasawa draws faces is simply amazing. Whenever someone asks me to recommend "a manga" because they want to see what the fuss is about, I tend to throw this one at them.
OCCUPATION: Sociologist by calling, writer by trade
LANGUAGES: English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean (a little)
HOBBIES: book collecting, reading, writing
QUOTE: When the Last Trumpet sounds and we are couched in our porphyry tombs, I shall turn and whisper to you, "Robbie, dear Robbie, let us pretend we do not hear it." - Oscar Wilde