General Manga Recommendations?

[One Vorlon]

One of my local bookstores is going out of business, and they're having a no-holds barred sale on everything (including manga). So does anyone have any recommendations on what I should pick up? Recommendations for titles that have come out recently (say the last 2-3 years) would be highly appreciated*, but if there's an older title that deserves a look, feel free to mention them.

I've sampled a wide variety of titles, but I currently have:

Fruits Basket
Negima
Saikano
Shaman King
Tramps Like Us


*I sort of lost track of the manga world between late 2006 and mid-2009

[ABCBTom]

Not every bookstore carries it because of its darker nature and 18+ rating, but I think the best manga currently being released in this country is Eden: It's an Endless World. Very difficult to sum up, it's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a lot going on. I can recommend nothing more highly than it.

[Betenoire]

Hayate X Blade is a series full of action, humor and incredibly stupid characters that make me laugh. It is a lot of fun and matches some of the feel I get from Negima when it goes action and silly, though HxB can be touching at times as well. It and Negima are the two titles I will go quite out of my way to get the new volume for and try to get immediately upon release.

[njchobitsfan]

Love♥Com is a great love/comedy series that's still going on, it's a fav. Black God has great action and artwork with a smattering of humor and fanservice, it's also ongoing. If you want to laugh your butt off with great fanservice and is a short series, you can't go wrong with Pretty Face, it's the funniest manga I've read so far. If you want some good satire, try Welcome to the NHK, jet black humor that skewers the otaku culture, 8 volumes long and very well written. My current can't wait to get the next volume manga is Sundome, very adult theme, very funny characters, very dark and daring which really pushes the envelope subject-wise and with artwork that has a loose style but fits the manga well, not one for the kids :nosebleed:. Give any one of these a shot and I think you won't be disappointed.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

Hayate X Blade is a series full of action, humor and incredibly stupid characters that make me laugh.

Emphatically seconded. Hayate x Blade is an official co-sponsor of AoD, I think. Or is it the other way around? :sd:

Also, Azumanga Daioh and School Rumble are great school comedies.

[mashimaro]

If you like school comedy mixed with black comedy, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is certainly one of the better titles that has been released in the US in the last year or so. Whenever the newest volume comes out, I always look forward to seeing what is causing Itoshiki to proclaim "I'm in despair!".

[Gatts]

Since I like suggesting complete stories, I would say go for Karin. It's a very solid series that doesn't loose it's focus later on like so many manga tend to do. The ending it a bit up to interpretation, but I don't think anyone was upset with how it ended.

Another completed series I would suggest (although it's a bit older) is Psychic Academy. I don't like going into too much detail about this one. At first it seems like it will just be a generic fanservice series, but it goes all out on the story and leaves very few loose ends.

If you don't mind shoujo works, a nice short series that I enjoyed was Zodiac P.I.. It's not high quality, but it's fun and doesn't try to stray from it's formula. Since it was only 4 volumes, it's a good filler series for cheap. Other good filler series that are short are Imadoki and Alice 19th, but I have an irrational love for Yuu Watase series so take that with a grain of salt.

Sometimes, for me, a series that knows when to stop and doesn't belabor it's point is the best. This is coming from a person who loves never ending shonen titles like One Piece, Rave Master, Bleach, Dragonball, GTO, etc.