And the Funniest Manga Is…’Gintama’!
Oricon took a “funniest manga” poll and TokyoGraph has the results: Gintama (licensed in English by VIZ Media) took the top spot! Gintama is one of those funny series that is huge in Japan but not terribly popular in the west– although that could be in part because its anime remains mysteriously unlicensed.
And the full list is:
- 1. Gintama
- 2. One Piece
- 3. Ping Pong Club/Sexy Commando
- 5. Gag Manga Biyori
- 6. Nodame Cantabile/Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku
- 8. Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo
- 9. Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar and Lovely Complex
You should check out TokyoGraph’s coverage, because they’ve got notes on how things were across gender lines (Gag Manga Biyori was the only title to hit the top 5 for both sexes, for example). It’s kind of neat to see the list because while some of them are popular in the west (Nodame, Love*Con, One Piece), some of them I’ve never heard of (…Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo).
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:08 am
I disagree with the majority of this list.
Lovely Com and one piece can switch places, and then REDO THE REST. What about Cromartie, or love hina… yeesh.
Atleast bobobo isnt on this.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
I agree, there are a lot of other series that I think are hilarious. Of course, I imagine that if you ran this poll in America, the results would be profoundly different.
And yes, if bobobo were on that, I’d have killed myself.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Gintama is hilarious but I got like 1/3 of the way through the Sexy Commando manga before I wanted to shoot myself in the face.
Also, for a while I didn’t know what that long-ass named manga was until one day when I saw “Oh, that’s KochiKame.”
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 am
LOL Noob, that’s Kochikame. Anyway, Gintama IS the funniest thing to have appeared in the past 40 years. Or even 100. Or 200. People who don’t get it either a) do not know Japanese or b) do not know enough Japanese to understand bad subs by Rumbel or c) think Bleach is funny.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Oh I notice one guy above wishing for Love Hina to be on the list. Haha! A guy burying his face into many girls’ panties is SO SO FUNNY OMG!!
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I agree, after reading a bit of Gintama and throughly enjoying, I asked my friends if they knew it, and apparently it’s short appearance in shounen jump wasn’t impressionable to them.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Where the heck is Keroro Gunsou ?_?
April 24th, 2008 at 3:32 am
[...] from Japan: Readers in a recent Oricon poll voted Gintama the funniest manga; Gia has more results at the link. Two old pros return to the drawing board: Kare Kano manga-ka [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
gintama is definitely hilarious. but I think the new series, Beelzebub is a serious contender for the top!