As per usual, it doesn’t seem like mainstream media always knows what to do with Manga. In some cases, I think it’s best to just leave it alone all together, and let the original books stay pure.

Yet, there have been others that I completely love (the excellent anime versions of Zom 100, and My Hero Academia, and the spectacular live action of Alice in Borderland, for example). It’s a hit-and-miss for sure.

There are a couple of new ones hitting that I think will do a fairly loyal job to the source material I suggest checking out:

Kaiju No. 8 on Crunchyroll

The anime service Crunchyroll premiered the anime version of Naoya Matsumoto’s Kaiju No. 8 this past week. The manga is solid, fast read with some of the coolest fight scenes on paper mixed with really solid character development. It’s a good underdog story, following Kafka Hibino, a man who wanted to join the Defense Force (to fight Kaijus) as a child, but ended up landing a job on their clean-up crew. A Kaiju guts janitor pretty much. Some how a small kaiju worms its way into Kafka, and gains an ability to turn in to one of these monsters…and a pretty powerful one at that.

Parasyte: The Grey on Netflix

A live-action horror K-Drama series for Parasyte. Based on the horror scifi manga Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki, there’s a similarity between this and Kaiju No. 8 in our protagonist Shinichi Izumi is taken over by a non-human entity. The entity in question, is an invading monster known as a “parasite” that enters people’s brains and turns them into one of them….in a very ugly way. When Shinichi manages to stop a parasite from crawling up his nose, it jumps to is arm and take over his hand.

However, this series, that aired April 5, expands the universe of the parasites from Japan to South Korea, so we get an entirely different group of characters. Shinichi does a cameo in the most recent episode, so it will be interesting to see if we see more of him in the future. I have to give this one a chance since it is directed by Yeon Sang-ho, who did Train to Busan, and King of Pigs.

There is an anime and two live-action Japanese films Parasyte Part 1 and Parasyte Part 2 that came out around 2015 and follow to the original tale. The movies have some fun dark humor in them, as well. I would watch the two movies first if you want to see why Shinichi’s appearance is a big deal…or read the manga.

Also, don’t get this messed up with the Academy Award winning Korean film Parasite. Totally different baby there.

City Hunter on Netflix

Back in the 80s, the manga City Hunter by Tsukasa Hojo was huge. It had such a cool action vibe with elements of comedy in that only the 80s could produce. It was so popular, there was a 1993 action comedy starring Jackie Chan, an anime, and a K-Drama in 2011. This newest Netflix adaptation out of Japan looks to be taking on the old celebration of the nostalgic goofball action comedy set in today’s world. Don’t take it too seriously. They don’t. This one hits Netflix April 25.

Once again, it seems like Japan and South Korea are still leading the way in good manga and webtoons adaptation. Let’s hope they don’t disappoint.