Hotman
 

Everyone should look into the manga Hotman. I just discovered it. It's basically about a man who deals with his hardships with his family and his own worries with his daughter.


Enzo Takaya, character inspired by Jean Reno, is a teacher and the oldest son of his family, as such, he takes care of his siblings like a father. One day, a 5 year old girl is found on their doorstep with a note: she is the result of Enzo's former life of crime and luxury as a gang member. Altough he ignores who the mother is, he decides to take in the little Nanami. She unfortunately suffers from a skin disease due to sensitivity to pollution and certain types of food. So, Enzo becomes a health freak...

The lead actor of the 2 seasons drama series adapted from this manga also played Onizuka-sensei in the GTO drama, but don't let this fool you: I know the title is strange but Hotman is a seinen manga dealing with a family's everyday emotions and problems in a subtle way; it's no use looking for your white panties fix. Those of you who read the first 9 volumes know what I'm talking about.
(taken from NULL's site)


Main character: Enzo
He's a kind, caring father who is an art teacher at a middle school. A health nut due to his daughter, he is crazy about which food is healthy and not. More importantly, he brings his broken family of five together. They have no mother and father (explained in the manga). He used to be a gang leader when he was young but quit when Nanami landed on his doorstep. When provoked, he can become as violent as his former self, usually dealing with things involving Nanami.


Nanami
Enzo's five year old daughter who suffers from a skin allergy. Enzo completely changes his life of a delinquent and takes care of her. He believes that he is the source of her disability (more from Vol. 2). She is very innocent, but is also mature enough to know that she has a skin allergy.


His family

Shima
She is the next oldest, Enzo being the eldest. She acts as a motherly figure, often doing things for the home and family so much that she neglects her own well being.

Hinata
A high schooler who deals with typical high school troubles. A little immature, but when she catches onto things, she learns very quickly.

Haiji and Ryu
They are twin brothers, but their similarity ends there. A middle schooler who isn't very smart or hardworking, Haiji is known to be tough and will protect Ryu, who is smart, a literature freak, and anti-social.

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You can download the manga from gotlurk.net, and I've put it up here too. So far I've only read three volumes, but the down to earthness of it makes me not want to put it down. It's a completed manga at 15 volumes, so far up to a little of volume 10 has been translated. Although the first 9 volumes were translated and scanned by SLQ, you can still get the first three (much better quality) chapters from www.n-u-l-l.net and the vol 10 chapters from there. SLQ's quality is, really, "super low quality", like their name implies. They don't bother to crop page folds, and there are plenty of grammatical errors. But that doesn't make the manga entirely unreadable.

Vol 1
Vol 2
Vol 3
Vol 4
Vol 5
Vol 6
Vol 7
Vol 8
Vol 9

Vol 10, ch 102
Vol 10, ch 103
Vol 10, ch 104

This actually looks intriguing. Lately I've been getting back to more mature series (and by mature I don't mean violent) and boy do I wonder why I didn't sooner. Is the series very centered on drama and shocking events or does it handle things with more subtle humor?

Either way another series I'll be sure to check out.

I think if you've read GTO, it follows things in a similar manner where you have a student (GTO) dealing with problematic adolescent situations and Onizuka finding a way to deal. Similarly, Enzo deals with his sibling's hardships, be it friends, family, romantic relationships, rebellion, etc. in the same way. Hotman doesn't have the crude humor of GTO, and it does have emotional events that aren't necessarily shocking or surprising, just more real life-y.

Well, just as long as it's not tragedy after tragedy, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Sounds very promising so far, now it's just a case of making myself time to read again.

Funny you should mention that Dee, as both the role of Onizuka and Enzo are played by the same actor (Takeshi Sorimachi) in their respective TV series.

ok, carry on~

Yeah, I think that was mentioned on Null's site. =) Have you seen the drama?

I've seen the first series, but have yet to see the second.

It was really good, I thought.

Ah, that's awesome. Do you have it on your computer? How many episodes is it?

The first series (2003) is 11 episodes + one special and the second (2004) is 12 episodes.

I don't have either series sitting on my computer, but with some luck you should still be able to get (atleast the second series), thru BT, from here. What is available as far as subbed versions go are; pretty low quality tv encodes for the first series (and ~800 mb/ep at that :() and hdtv encodes for the second series (SARS releases - great quality and good subs).