Umi no Misaki

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#1
From Kou Fumizuki the creator of the anime/manga Ai Yori Aoshi comes Umi no Misaki, an comedy/harem series.

Nagi Goro is a older teen from Tokyo who has just moved to the Pacific island of Okitsushima, where his late mother was born and raised. Left in the care of a neighbor when his father is abruptly assigned to NYC instead of joining him on the island as planned, Nagi tries to fit in with his new high school classmates, but for some reason they are reluctant to be more than polite with him.

The biggest surprise is when Shizuku Narumi, a gorgeous and friendly girl his age who saved his life when Nagi accidentally fell off a cliff into the ocean his first day on the island, suddenly becomes cool and remote toward him once she finds out that he is a new resident of the island and not a tourist. Along with meeting Karin Nagumo, a fiery neighbor who he first sees when she accidentally undressed in front of their open facing windows, and Soyogi Mitsurugi, an attractive classmate who is very protective of Shizuku, Nagi is starting to regret coming to the island.

Invited to a traditional festival, Nagi learns that the three girls are Cape Maidens, living goddesses and priestesses awaiting the return of the Dragon God, revered by the islanders for protecting them in past times. To his shock, Nagi learns of his legacy, one that has roots in his mother's past and results in a reboot of their relationships and new feelings by the Cape Maidens toward their newly discovered Ryujin...

This manga is published biweekly in Young Animal Magazine in Japan, and is currently at Chapter 46. In tankobon format it has been published in four volumes at three month intervals, with volume 5 coming out in May 2009. It has not been released in English, however there are scanlations available at OneManga, Crazy's Manga, and MangaFox, currently at Ch 39. There is no official rating for this series, but it is at the AYA level of fanservice, with lots of gorgeous drawings of the island and, of course, the girls (I actually bought the untranslated tankobons just for the art).

There is plenty to recommend in this series, especially if you enjoy harem storylines, yet hate it when the male lead is wishywashy about the girls attracted to him and therefore not picking one and hurting the others. In Ai Yori Aoshi there was never any real doubt who the male lead was going to be with in the end, but in Umi no Misaki the decision is still very much up in the air. Shizuku, Soyogi, and Karin are now very much attracted to Nagi, and he is attracted to them in return and they all know it. The fun really starts when the Cape Maidens start to act on their mandate to 'gain the favor of the Dragon God and devote their mind and body to his service', and all three girls move into Nagi's house for the summer break...

Hopefully, more people will read this outstanding series and discussions on this board will help inspire fics for it. I know of one well-known author on TFF that has several excellent ideas already.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
#2
I've been reading that since it was first referred to me back in November I think. One of the best unfinished mangas I'm currently following.

As for ideas... he may be on Haitus... but I know Alpha Zulu on his livejournal in the past week alone has put out two separate story snippets based on events in last couple released chapters. Pretty good.

Umi no Misaki, Black Lagoon, and History's Strongest Discple Kenichi are the only and last series I ever intend to follow using OneManga and MangaFox. And that is merely they are too awesome to drop. I even stopped following the older variant of History's Strongest Discple.

Those 3 series are worth even dealing with the horrible and unstable UI's on those two sites.
 

Watashiwa

Administrator
Staff member
#3
What, no love for "Til Death Do Us Part"?

For shame. -_-

Anyway, Umi no Misaki is... interesting. Most harem manga are romantic slapstick comedies. I don't need to mention any names. What impresses me most about this series is how the focus is on the romance and not the comedy (though it is very light hearted, as befits the premise.)

I'm very much looking forward to seeing where this goes.
 

The Sandman

Well-Known Member
#4
Watashiwa said:
What, no love for "Til Death Do Us Part"?

For shame. -_-

Anyway, Umi no Misaki is... interesting. Most harem manga are romantic slapstick comedies. I don't need to mention any names. What impresses me most about this series is how the focus is on the romance and not the comedy (though it is very light hearted, as befits the premise.)

I'm very much looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Well, that's actually a thing with Fumizuki. In AYA, he wrote some amazingly good romance. And not just the primary one; when he wanted to, even the secondary characters actually got some excellent development (especially Tina). It's just that the slapstick comedy part was, to be charitable, hit or miss, and was frequently a chore to get through when what you really wanted was his depiction of a fledgling relationship.

For Umi no Misaki, it looks to me like he's focusing far more on the relationship side of things than he is on the slapstick side. I mean, the latest chapter involved morning wood and still didn't go the slapstick route at all. That's pretty telling.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
#5
Watashiwa said:
What, no love for "Til Death Do Us Part"?

For shame.? -_-
Hmmm...

Of the 7 pages I was able to view on MangaFox using IE before the normal browser crash (this time even invoked my antivirus program blocking an infection, currently performing a full system scan), I did not care for the art style, and the plot description did not overly appeal.

So no... those factors make it a no go.
 

knight_of_ni

Well-Known Member
#6
Till Death do us Part really isn't worth it. I read the first two or three chapters and it was just "meh"-ish.

I wouldn't say it is derivative, but it is bland and lacked anything that made me want to really read it. Iirc, I found the main to be fairly typical of the archetype that he represents and I can't remember the issue I had with the girl.
 
#7
This manga is published biweekly in Young Animal Magazine in Japan, and is currently at Chapter 46. In tankobon format it has been published in four volumes at three month intervals, with volume 5 coming out in May 2009. It has not been released in English, however there are scanlations available at OneManga, Crazy's Manga, and MangaFox, currently at Ch 39
I didn't realized the series had gotten that far already. I had been keeping up with it on onemanga since they started posting it, then one day it just dropped off my radar and I forgot about it. Not sure how that happened, because I remember enjoying it greatly, the lack of 'predestined pairing' was a major high point, although I'm still kind of expecting it to be Shizuku when it's all said and done.

I'm gonna have to go back and reread the whole thing to remember all the details now.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
#8
Legendary Legacy said:
This manga is published biweekly in Young Animal Magazine in Japan, and is currently at Chapter 46. In tankobon format it has been published in four volumes at three month intervals, with volume 5 coming out in May 2009. It has not been released in English, however there are scanlations available at OneManga, Crazy's Manga, and MangaFox, currently at Ch 39
I didn't realized the series had gotten that far already. I had been keeping up with it on onemanga since they started posting it, then one day it just dropped off my radar and I forgot about it. Not sure how that happened, because I remember enjoying it greatly, the lack of 'predestined pairing' was a major high point, although I'm still kind of expecting it to be Shizuku when it's all said and done.

I'm gonna have to go back and reread the whole thing to remember all the details now.
Note... there is one chapter at mangafox that is not at onemanga. Or at least it was not when last checked...

That was the chapter 34 special. MangaFox lists it as 34.5
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#9
PCHeintz72 said:
Watashiwa said:
What, no love for "Til Death Do Us Part"?

For shame.á? -_-
Hmmm...

Of the 7 pages I was able to view on MangaFox using IE before the normal browser crash (this time even invoked my antivirus program blocking an infection, currently performing a full system scan), I did not care for the art style, and the plot description did not overly appeal.

So no... those factors make it a no go.
That is because you are using the Spawn of Redmond as your browser. I use Firefox with Norton 360 Antivirus and I've never had any problem with reading the manga pages. In fact, the biggest problem is that I have to scroll the computer screen to read the manga page. ^_^


I glad to see there is some interest on TFF for UnM. To keep it going, I'm going to see about setting up a photobucket account and posting some pictures of the girls, and afterwards maybe do a quick write-up of the main characters.

Note... there is one chapter at mangafox that is not at onemanga. Or at least it was not when last checked...

That was the chapter 34 special. MangaFox lists it as 34.5
The first summer special chapter (ie Ch 34.5) is also posted at Crazy's Manga as UnM - Innocent Days. A second summer special (ie SP 2009-08) is in the raws section of UnM at Crazy's.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
#10
That is because you are using the Spawn of Redmond as your browser. I use Firefox with Norton 360 Antivirus and I've never had any problem with reading the manga pages. In fact, the biggest problem is that I have to scroll the computer screen to read the manga page.
No... that has nothing to do with it.

I've stated this before. For both OneManga and MangaFox, I've tried three browsers (IE, FF, and Opera), on three computers (two notebooks and a desktop server), and had issues on each configuration. Note that while each browser had different issues from the others, they were the same issues no matter the system.

Of the three browsers, Opera was the most stable and livable with the two site UI's, though even it's issues are annoying. IE tended to crash at least every 2-15 pages, and FireFox crashed at least once every 1-2 chapters, Opera crashes rarely and recovers better, but has other issues, as do the others.

I do not experience this behavior elsewhere, even other on-line manga reading sites.

Due to my experiences, I've come to two inescapable conclusions regarding these two sites...

1. Despite what the mission statements of those sites state, there is no way on-line reading is remotely comparable to the wondrous experience of simply downloading it and reading offline.

2. The UI's for those sites are crap.

Currently, I no longer have FireFox... I dropped it with the introduction of the crapped out version 3.x, for completely unrelated issues. Those issues were mentioned elsewhere on this forum.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#11
As promised... pictures of the Cape Maidens.

Shizuku Narumi, Maiden of the Sea



Soyogi Mitsurugi, Maiden of the Wind



Karin Nagumi, Maiden of Fire

 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#12
Color pictures of the tankobon covers. Enjoy. :D

Volume 1



Volume 2



Volume 3



Volume 4



Beach Pin-Up

 

alpha zulu

Well-Known Member
#13
GreydonCreed said:
That is because you are using the Spawn of Redmond as your browser. I use Firefox with Norton 360 Antivirus and I've never had any problem with reading the manga pages. In fact, the biggest problem is that I have to scroll the computer screen to read the manga page. ^_^
Funny, PRK boy, but I use IE7 and IE8 and have never had a crash on either OneManga or MangFox. So it ISN'T the brower. I use an XP machine and a Vista machine, and both work fine, so MS isn't your problem.

Nice try, though. :p
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#14
New Updates for UnM...

Scanlations for Chapter 40 and 41 here.

Karin reveals her feelings toward her duties as the Maiden of Fire, the Dragon God, and Nagi.


Raw Chapter 47 here.

Morning after the Maidens were all *ahem* tied up. ^_^

Enjoy.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#15
New Updates for UnM

Scanlations for Ch 42 here.

Nagi learns a bit more about the Maiden of the Sea, while Shizuku learns about the hazards of using a public access computer. ;)

And to show the kissing scoreboard so far...



The first kiss start from the 11 o'clock position and are clockwise in order of occurrence (mosaic by Tri-ring at AnimeSuki Forum).
1) Soyogi 2) Shizuku 3) Karin 4) Shizuku, 5) Soyogi and 6) Karin

Although if you want to get technical, Shizuku did give Nagi CPR in the first chapter. ^_^







And Soyogi did ambush Nagi in his sleep in Ch 21. :lol:

Enjoy. :evil2:
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
#17
nick012000 said:
Urk. Predestined romance. Seems rather close to rape to me.á :rolleyes:
Hmmm... I find it interesting whenever I object to Sailor Moon's Usagi/Mamoru relationship on grounds they hated each other before finding out they were destined for each other, fans berete me for it.

This is a much slower approach... He has actually been resisting their efforts (efforts that are humorous, since they know little of romance outside what they've read) and trying to get to know them, and in turn he has been trying to get them to know him better. In an unusual move, the pace is set more by him, than them. He is willing, and likes each of them. But has been quite against them merely throwing themselves at him.

He was seemingly set up by several people, one of which I believe his own father.
 

trevelyan1983

Well-Known Member
#18
nick012000 said:
Urk. Predestined romance. Seems rather close to rape to me. :rolleyes:
And you sound more and more like a troll. If you don't like it, then find a manga that better suits your tastes.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#19
The premise between the Dragon God and the three Cape Maidens is that they are supposed to serve him with mind and body, and in turn the Dragon God is supposed to give his favor to them.

The thing is, we don't know what the Dragon God 'giving his favor' actually means. We are all assuming that it means that the DG enters into a physical relationship with a Cape Maiden, but that has NOT been specifically stated.

The only nitpick I have with this series is that Nagi has not gone up to Karin's grandmother (the high priestess) or the girls themselves and directly asked what is expected of the Dragon God. The only info that Nagi has was gleaned from what the girls and the high priestess have said to him, which is nowhere near complete or accurate as far as we know. For example, Soyogi is the one that told Nagi that he has to pick *one* of the Maidens; for all we know he has the right to pick all of them. Another thing is that we don't know what his 'favor' entails - it could be a little as his spoken blessing of them and the island, to the DG fathering children with the Cape Maidens.

I look forward to seeing more, especially from what we've seen in the raws. ^_^
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#20
With the permission of Alpha Zulu, who is currently on hiatus after completing two massive fics here on TFF, I am posting his fic snippets for Umi no Misaki. His original posts are on his LiveJournal, and I will link to those posts at the start of each chapter.

Fic Snippets 1 - 5 here.

Edit - Snippets now at the TFF Lemon Section, at the Others thread.
 
#21
GreydonCreed said:
With the permission of Alpha Zulu, who is currently on hiatus after completing two massive fics here on TFF, I am posting his fic snippets for Umi no Misaki. His original posts are on his LiveJournal, and I will link to those posts at the start of each chapter.

Fic Snippets 1 - 5 here.
Link isn't working.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#22
the DragonBard said:
Link isn't working.
I realized as I was posting the snippets that eventually AZ was going to have the story go into Lemon/NSFW territory. Therefore I deleted the topic on the regular boards and reposted it on the Lemon board, in the Others section. If you don't have lemon access on this board, you can go to AZ's LJ board and read the posts there. The first one was posted 04-21-09.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#23
Update for UnM

New Raw Chapter 48 here.

The competition heats up when the three Cape Maidens break out the heavy weapons, and Nagi goes into shock! :D


Ch 48 Cover


The double ambush.


The counterattack.


Aftermath.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#24
New Updates for UnM

Scanlations for Ch 43 here.

Shizuku shares her personal thoughts about the Dragon God to Nagi.

Enjoy.
 

GreydonCreed

Well-Known Member
#25
New Updates for UnM

Scanlation Downloads for Ch 44 here.

Karin reveals both the depth of her feelings for Nagi and also how well she knows her fellow Cape Maidens. Shizuku and Soyogi should be feeling rather nervous at this point. :)

Enjoy!

Welcome Home Nagi


The Question


The Answer


The Gauntlet and True Feelings
 
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