Not sure the second two are that obscure =)

I've seen the whole anime adaptation of Flame of Recca back when it was fansubbed, and it was all right. Which is to say, I enjoyed it quite a bit as a shounen fighting tournament show, but plot and animation-wise it was sort of a lower budget Rurouni Kenshin. It had a lot of heart, though, and was pretty likable.

Legend of Basara is easily my favorite shoujo manga, but again, I'm not sure how obscure it is... It even got a US release. Epic fantasy with the premise that the "child of destiny," Tatara is prophesied to be the savior of the land and lead a ragtag rebellion against the brutal Red King, while his twin sister Sarasa is ignored. The Red King raids their village and kills him, putting his head on public display. Sarasa dresses as her brother and tells them all that the twin sister was killed, and "he" will lead them all to victory, in so doing fulfilling the prophecy. Now she just has to lead a peasant insurgency against the brutal Red King while keeping her identity secret from all but a few lieutenants. Meanwhile, the Red King is actually a young prince who is beset upon from all sides with his bloodthirsty relatives plotting to take his land and kill him, as well as foreign powers eyeing the country as a whole. If he doesn't crush the peasant uprising, he risks destabilizing his provinces and opening up his citizens to worse attacks. The whole thing is rich with dramatic irony as "Tatara" and the Red King run into each other as their civilian identities, become friends and then lovers, never talking about the facades they put up for the rest of the world except as vague abstractions. The two main characters are pretty sympathetic, it's just that with their differing positions and worldviews, destiny has set them on a collision course they can't turn away from. It's done in a sort of classic tragedy style how they barely miss finding out that they're actually trying to kill each other. I don't want to give away too much, but eventually they do figure it out, and the series continues to be interesting.

Not nearly in the same league, I read Hinagiku Kenzan back in the day, which is by the author of Mamotte Shugogetten, which is like a Saber Marionette J/Tenchi type show, but slightly less annoying. Anyway, Hinagiku is about this chick who's a detective in the Meiji-era and her bumbling rookie partner whose alternate identity is the master thief Mugensai. Pretty fluffy and general kaitou-related angst ensues with her being either exasperated at his clumsy Clark Kent-ish secret identity, or blindly denouncing thievery when of course he's just stealing things back for their rightful owners, etc. It was really nothing that special, but I remember liking it on its premise.

I also like City Hunter, but that's not obscure by any stretch. Honestly, I don't read much manga. A lot of what I have read is when an anime series like Rurouni Kenshin or Legend of Basara ends, and leaves the coolest parts of its story in the manga.

Obviously JoJo's is not obscure, but I will bank off Tasty Sub's reference and reiterate here that I love that manga so much.

I don't really know what obscure means in the context of manga so I'm just going to pick something I liked: Shin Angyo Onshi. I got a pretty good kick out the couple issues I was able to track down.

I'm reading Oishinbo, but I don't really know if it's that obscure...

I only recognize half the names mentioned so far, so your in the clear on obscure.

I wouldn't consider Blame! all that obscure, though it's sadly out of print now following the collapse of Tokyopop. I've gotten some good recommendations out of this thread, so I'll throw my two cents in:

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service: A group of students at a Buddhist college (a guy who can talk to the dead, a dowser who can find only dead bodies, an embalmer, a hacker, and a guy who claims to be channeling a rather foul-mouthed alien through the hand puppet he's always wearing) form a the titular delivery service to contact the spirits of dead bodies in order to fulfill their last wishes/solve the mystery of their demise. Drawn in a fairly realistic art style, it can be very (realistically) gory, with plenty of light and dark humor to liven things up. Usually episodic, though some stories cover multiple chapters. One of Carl Horn's pet projects, for what it's worth.

Excel Saga: Everyone knows about and has probably seen the anime, but the manga is far superior. Where the anime was motor-mouth genre parody and sight gags, the manga's humor is much more social satire and character-driven, not to mention it actually develops a fairly intriguing plot and eventually goes full-blown seinen, though never loses it's sense of humor. Also introduces new characters not in the show, such as the third ACROSS girl Elgala (my favorite character, as it turns out). Even if you didn't like the anime, as I did, you may very well enjoy the manga, especially once it starts to diverge. Another of Carl Horn's pet projects.

Eden It's An Endless World: Summarizing the plot of this manga would take way too long, but suffice it to say it's a post-apocalypse cyberpunk work where civilization has rebuilt itself/survived and is now beginning to go through yet another potential apocalypse, is very character driven with excellent characterization, and anyone can die. Look it up on Wikipedia for more details, but it's easily one of the best manga being published in English right now.

And that's all I got for now, but I'll post more if I think of any.

Claymore is one of the mangas I follow since it's only once a month. I know what you mean by squandering its potential but it does have its moment and when it does it certainly worth it.

It's pointless trying to remember all their names just go by their hairstyles it's easier.

I just looked at this Fourteen thing. Holy hell, man.

Zim: Thanks for the tip on Fourteen. I read everything I could find. Exceptionally weird and always hilarious. Dr. Chicken George, how did you turn cancer into immortality?!

On-topic: I haven't run into anyone else who's read Kazan, but I don't know how obscure it really is. The whole thing was seven volumes, so it's not one of those major, unending stories - it actually wraps up very nicely. Shed some manly tears at the conclusion of it all.

RRR. Just read RRR. Also Onepunch-Man.

It's funny that this thread just came back up, because I'm re-reading Fourteen right now. It's the best thing ever. Green babies. Rape aliens. Chicken love triangles.

Let's Bible. It's about a Croatian kid trying to bone down on the second coming of Jesus. Also Jesus is a teenage girl, as if that wasn't a given.

ShadowbladeEdge said:

Let's Bible. It's about a Croatian kid trying to bone down on the second coming of Jesus. Also Jesus is a teenage girl, as if that wasn't a given.

Does he lift the fridge up, one punch?

ZeonicFreak said:

@TacticalMax GUNSMITH CATS!!!! HELL YEA!!!

GSC is a manga series I had no problem picking up and reading and being a huge fan over it. Whenever a new Burst came out, I was there that day to buy it and took my sweet time reading it. I still need to finish up the last Ombius volume that had the Bean Bandit manga in the back, but from what I saw he punches a machine gun from someones hand as its firing at his fist.

I read Gunsmith Cats back as a young teenager (of course). I picked up the Dark Horse version, and remember a scene with the not-so-legal looking Minnie May going down on some random dude with the dong photoshopped out. There's some great gunfights and car chases and crazy machine gun/machete limbs amid the often creepy Kenichi Sonoda fanservice, I admit. As I got older, I moved on to City Hunter, which injects way more melodrama and replaces the underage boobies with boner jokes, which sits a little better with me. I will say GSC: Shades of Gray #4 had probably the most memorable car chase in manga outside of Initial D.