Japanese comics for people who don't like Studio Ghibli

What does Studio Ghibli do?

Miyazaki mainly (Mononoke Hime, Spirited Away, etc.) Adam do you mean movies or paper comics?

I want paper comics for people (like me) who do not really enjoy the films of Miyazaki and that whole aesthetic. What are the alternatives?

In descending order of non-ghibliness:

Lone wolf and Cub - (Koike/Kojima)
Gyo - Junji Ito
Hino Horror's 1,2/5/7,8 - Hideshi Hino
Uzumaki - Junji Ito
Parasyte - Hitoshi Iwaki
Voyeur/Voyeurs Inc - Hideo Yamamoto
Cannon God Exxaxion - Kenichi Sonoda
Strain - Buronsun/Ikegami
Icaro - Moebius/Taniguchi
2001 Nights - Yukinobo Hishino
The 2 faces of tommorow- Yukinobo Hishino
Blade of the Immortal - Hiroaki Samura
The Walking man - Jiro Taniguchi
Battle Angel Alita/BAA Last order - Yukito Kishiro
Black jack - Osamu Tezuka
Banana fish - Akima Yoshida
Silent Moebius - Kia Asimiya
Revenge of the Mouflon - Yoichiro/Jiro
Galaxy Express 999 - Matsumoto
Buddha - Osamu Tezuka

that should be enough to keep you busy. I hope to start a manga thread soon with a few pics and descriptions, but for now, Id highly recommend anything from the list above...

better go and warm up the old scanner...

Cowboy Bebop
(I find Buddha excessively twee)

Well its certainly more twee than say.. 'Strain', or 'Living corpse', by Hino.. but it still aint in the Ghibli-zone of tweeness.. that's not to say that i dont love the tweeness. Tweeness Rocks! (and Buddha just gets better and better IMO. Vol 4 is top class stuff..)

I'm a manga-neophyte, but I will say that Uzumaki is free of the big eyes/speed blur backgrounds/Dragonball Z-type cliches. It does have plenty of school girls though.

I'm still cautiously interested in the Helsing and Battle Royale books.

I checked the 12 volume Parasyte out from the Seattle library, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Vol. 8 was missing (I'd guess for having the massacre plot event being too sensitive), though. Affecting resolution, good character development, interesting heroes and villains.

Berserk by Kentaro Miura

VERY good. The television series (and now the trades) are a favorite in my sister's house. In face, her and her boyfriend named their kittens Gatsu (the brown one) and Griffith (the white one). Now mostly grown, Gatsu is the skinny one and Giffith is the stocky bully; if you know the story, you'll get the irony.

OR you could tell us what the story is about.

It's Fist of the North Star-like medieval battle stuff (if I remember correctly).. loads of gore and large men fighting with each other..

S'okay - quite dark, but nothing special imo. Havent seen the anime, but the manga is available from Dark horse.

Uh, actually, the irony is pretty straight-forward. In the story, Gatsu is big, tough guy; Griffith is skinny, fem-like. So it's like the opposite with the cats. Ha ha. Ha. [cough] Ahem.

x-post

Parasyte, broad summary. Space larvae enter human hosts, replacing only their heads to become alien/human hybrids. (The alien heads can morph into wicked spinning blade shapes, which they use to kill human prey.) Shin, a teenage boy, is attacked by a larvae, but using a tourniquet, restricts the alien to his left hand. Lefty is dependant on Shin for his survival, and not able to dominate the body like the other aliens. Shin and Lefty, a curiosity because of their unusual fusion, are a threat to the aliens. Over the course of the series, the aliens infiltrate and adapt to human culture, carrying out various plots, while Lefty and Shin move from enemies to allies, and then to friends.

Amazon has better write-ups of the individual books.

Parasyte is BRILLIANT! Gory, funny, sad, and action packed.. its like a japanese version of invasion of the bodysnatchers.. I cant recommend it enough.. (although certain volumes are now out of print, so id snap it up quickly if youre interested.. i was stuck at Vol 5 for about a year...)

I think it would (or could) make a great film as well..