Yokohama Kaidashi KikÅ, also known as Records of a Yokohama Shopping Trip is one of the best manga I have ever read. "[S]etting in a future when robots look like people" may give you the wrong idea of it. It is a pastoral, slow-moving manga set in a post-apocalyptic Japan, only we're never told what the apocalypse is - it may be ecological - and the people there don't really know, either. The primary character is Alpha, a human-appearing robot who runs a small cafe in a rural community. She observes the people and the world around her, discovering the small beauties of life, watching local children grow up, and wondering about the people who came before her. This is the sort of manga where an entire chapter can consist of someone making a cup of coffee and drinking it while enjoying the sunrise.
HIGHLY recommended, and it's an utter shame that it hasn't been licensed yet.
Aqua/Aria is the same sort of story, only without the postapocalyptic angle. Not quite as good, IMO, but still well worth reading. I've just watched the first season of the anime (available via Netflix), and it doesn't *quite* have the feel of the manga, but if you like landscape porn, it's well worth watching. I took a bunch of screenshots to (eventually) make a post about it. Aqua 1-2 is the first part of the story, then the mangaka switched publishers and changed the name to Aria, which picks up almost immediately after Aqua 2. Like YKK, it's episodic without a larger story arc other than "Akari discovers the small wonders of Neo-Venezia and falls more deeply in love with her city."
My pimp post for Aqua/Aria on the yuletide Needy Fandoms Post is here (http://community.livejournal.com/yuletide/578158.html?thread=4058734#t4058734).
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-11-08 03:02 pm (UTC)HIGHLY recommended, and it's an utter shame that it hasn't been licensed yet.
Aqua/Aria is the same sort of story, only without the postapocalyptic angle. Not quite as good, IMO, but still well worth reading. I've just watched the first season of the anime (available via Netflix), and it doesn't *quite* have the feel of the manga, but if you like landscape porn, it's well worth watching. I took a bunch of screenshots to (eventually) make a post about it. Aqua 1-2 is the first part of the story, then the mangaka switched publishers and changed the name to Aria, which picks up almost immediately after Aqua 2. Like YKK, it's episodic without a larger story arc other than "Akari discovers the small wonders of Neo-Venezia and falls more deeply in love with her city."
My pimp post for Aqua/Aria on the