Excel Saga, Volume 1 Book

The first in what would become a long manga series, Rikudo's experimental work is an interesting beast - the wackiness of a gag manga but the excellent technical drawing skill of a normal/battle manga (Rikudo does both the writing and art so it's a true representation of his (twisted) vision).

I partially have ruined the surprise of the early books due to watching the anime adaption first (the anime isn't a literal scene for scene adaptation but in starting off it's at least very close), it will be interesting to see if the manga and anime diverge the further I read into it.

Special note should be made for the efforts the English translates have gone to - they have rigorously explained the manga concept of sound effects (not just literal sounds, but also symbols to explain someone's mood or the atmosphere of a peace), and then in a scene by scene index at the back written translation notes on what each use was, even with English appromixation of the onomatopoeic sound.

There's also translator notes on where they deliberately had to change a piece of word play or dialogue to make sense to Western sensibilities. These were well written had had a light personality of their own.

I hope both of these features continue with the books (it's clear the books were released serially based on reader feedback) as it made it stand out above other manga I have read.