Could someone suggest some (good) Utopia themed manga ?
I am struggeling a bit with suggestions. I know of very positive Sci Fi Mono no aware or Slice of life but Utopia means more. Please broaden my horizons. The ONLY manga on this site with the tag is this Marie no Kanaderu Ongaku and that was NO Utopia to me.

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

I'm more of a positive guy so I chose Utopia, but I'm more for the dystopian utopias (like YKK) and the utopian dystopias (like psycho-pass)

Dystopia stories are great when you're gripped by teenage angst and want to think that life sucks and everyone around you is a bastard. You grow out of it eventually. Unfortunately, telling a gripping story based in a utopian society takes much talent, so such stories are rare. But I'd certainly love to read some.

________________
Active translations list
Completed translations list
Dropped translations

I prefer utopia because... i feel like we are living in a Dystopia already and to me most works are about dystopias so... one prefer new stuff.

Dystopistic settings give characters more opportunities to show depth. It's also way easier to feel strongly about the characters when they face ordeals and have to take chances and maybe act against their will. It's a lot harder to change pace in utopistic settings since there won't be catharsis and it will instead be smooth sailing, which I imagine would get tedious fairly easily. I could read a few series like that, but there's a limit to how long they'd be intriguing.


That's awfully pretentious of you. Either kind of setting can be good if written well or garbage if executed as such. You need one thing to keep your story interesting if you plan to run it for longer than a couple or tens of pages and that is change, which won't happen if the story is really about a real utopia which doesn't turn out to be a sham, since everything is already perfect and if anything changes, it can only get worse and then it will quit being a true utopia. This of course would require the introduction of the society and all that, which creates the utopia. You can run feel-good slice of life stuff for longer, but then the utopia or dystopia part doesn't play any actual part in it and even if it isn't gloomy at all, like say, Yotsubato, we can't say what kind of a world it actually is, since to be called a dystopia or a utopia, it must be explicitly pointed out to us or we just won't know. Sure, it could be possible to have people live in a utopia, something going slightly off and them fixing it and everything returning for the better, but I don't think that would keep people entertained for long and that certainly wouldn't be better than a mediocre writing of a dystopia scenario. Either way, drama and negative themes aren't something you grow out of and become a follower of Teletubbies again, it's not some kind of an upgrade. A good story is a good story and to flesh out characters properly and really make them individuals, you need to put them in varying situations that allow us to pick their brain from every angle.

Last edited by Mamsmilk at 3:14 pm, Nov 22 2014

Since it's one or the other, I go for dystopia. Just because in my head it's more interesting. And if I consider the manga that I read, chaotic and lawless worlds with a general survival of the fittest feeling is best. And I can't even think of a story with a utopian world. Would it even be interesting? Would there be a way to make a good story out of it other than gradually degenerating it into a dystopia?

i voted for utopia. 'cuz it's fun to see it crash

________________
WEBTOONS ヽ( ★ω★)ノ

huh. I guess a utopia manga would be one that focused on character development? and not bad guy to good guy! Naive good guy to experienced good guy? Would probably need non-utopic* societies for conflict.
*not a word, don't care

this is kind of fun. Conflict could also arise from the technology? "Our ideals (because morals are flawed) are constrained by isolation. We can't discuss this democratically mind-to-mind so we have to discuss this democratically through handsignals."

Looking for: Star Trek + rationality + Capital fashion (Hunger Games), please. I need Zeerust, inclusiveness, and nice people crying over split milk/exploited cows.

edit: A Dystopia "can't" exist either

Last edited by chirpy at 9:23 pm, Nov 26 2014

________________
This is an interesting planet.

Stories are driven by conflict. While I'd prefer to live a Utopia, a Dystopia makes a much more interesting story.

If one day I wake up and find the internet where you can state an opinion clearly and openly without apologizing 10 thousand times for it in advance, and there's no teenager to show up and call you "pretentious", then I will know that humanity has achieved utopia (at least on the internet). I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, but... I'm not really sorry.

Other than that, I think you're simply misunderstanding the term "utopia". No utopian society ever described was "perfect". A utopian society in sci fi is not a society of absolute perfection, but a society of fairness and justice for its members that exceeds that of our own world, at a given technological level. There are many problems it can face that can be described by talented writers, without resorting to the "the world is a sucky place and everyone should just die" paradigm. But yeah, talented writers are usually in short supply, while mediocre ones typically go for dystopia. That's why the ratio of utopian to dystopian stories is what, 1 to 100K?

________________
Active translations list
Completed translations list
Dropped translations

I find it really funny that most comments about choosing utopia, describe in fact a dystopia.

For some who think that utopia is more interresting because there are less of those, I would say that dystopia were written because it gave the other side of a perfect world and challenge for the characters. Before, it was Utopias that was the premium choice to transport thoughts, but always have lacunas, mistakes and banalities.

Utopia is watching people who are happy about their world while there are no injustices, no conflicts (such thing can't exist), dystopia is watching the people who can't integrate this same world (pointing out the mistakes in utopia).

In a sense it is quite boring to watch every person happy about their situation, gouvernement and for real, saying ''I prefert stories about utopia'' whitout even have read some is quite weird. I found those less interresting, since it depicts a world were one would see perfection, but not neccessary the other: at the same time, it is a world connected to the writter, where all the wrongs in his society is made right.

Dystopia

A utopia is just a perfect society where nothing is wrong what-so-ever, and who really wants to read that?

________________

Dystopia

A Utopia is a perfect world right? There is no such thing. Everyone is different so there is no world for everyone. Actually, that is what a dystopia normally is: One person's view of a perfect world that everyone else lives in because they can't change it.

________________
[CENTER][/CENTER]

Well, Dystopia is a pretty obvious choice, and I chose it too

Not much to say about it, tough sometimes the idea of Dystopia state of world is overused and some bad written manga actually striked with it. To write a Utopia that has a good plot would be harder and more respectable in a way, too bad most people cover the topic of Utopia with a twisted touch that makes Utopia a name only in the end.

Dystopia, been there done that. More utopia pleas ^^

________________
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"