Solo Leveling

for all the Vinland Saga-heads out there, I'd recommend The Bugle Call: Song of War. First chapter is among the best opening chapters I've read of any manga so far, especially among action/war mangas, and I've read one comment on MangaDex that likened it to the entire development of the first arc of VS, but more cramped and rushed. I might be a bit biased in my evaluation of it tho, given that I also decided to listen to the Tchaikovsky Manfred symphony while reading it, and listening to the first movement while reading the first chapter was a transcendental experience for me.

Issak is one I found and binged yesterday which I also enjoyed. Classic 'one apprentice seeks revenge on another for killing their master' premise, only its happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the outset of the Thirty Years' War. My only foreknowledge of the Thirty Years' War comes from Matt Christman's Hell on Earth podcast series, but it was still pretty pog when Wallenstein makes his appearance. One of the major charas is a follower of Thomas Müntzer, tho I doubt that connection will be taken as far as it could. CW for gore thruout, and attempted SA in first chapter.

If you don't mind long strip style, then I'd like to plug again Martial Wild West. A wuxia set in Han Dynasty-settled Turtle Island; it gave me a lot of Kenshi vibes. Am waiting for it to come out of hiatus...

I wouldn't mind getting a good isekai recommended.

Controversial take but Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation is actually good...

Kinda late to the party, but the new chapter of Radiant just dropped and I've been pushing that one hard for a while here, I think it's perfectly suited to any Hexbear who enjoys manga. It's actually French, and the story so far has been pretty amazing, with plenty of charismatic characters with such lovely nuance and runs the gamut tackling themes of marginalization, oppressive politics and class relations, even spirituality and environmentalism.

Seth is an apprentice sorcerer from the Pompo Hills. Like all sorcerers, he's an "infected", one of the few people having survived an encounter with a Nemesis, those creatures falling from the sky and destroying everything around them. Being immune to them, Seth wants to become a Hunter and fight the Nemesis. But what Seth really wants is to find the source of all Nemesis, the Radiant. Helped by his fellow sorcerers, he will seek the Radiant, under the harsh scrutiny of the Inquisition…

The sell is kinda tropey, but I swear it actually gets really good.