u salty bro?

yea u salty.
And so we are back from hiatus and here's our new project, Saltiness by Minoru Furuya, without giving too much away it's about a middle aged guy that's been divorced from society for a long time, like a NEET, and he now has to go on a journey to slay an elusive beast. If you're unfamiliar with Minoru Furuya, he started out as a comedy mangaka and had a huge hit called Ping Pong Club which was adapted into an anime, the manga sadly never got fully scanlated or licensed in english... At the turn of the century though, he started mixing in some realism into his works and developed the style he uses today. If you've never read anything from him, I'd recommend starting with Wanitokagegisu as I feel like it's positioned in the middle, if you want more comedy, you can go back to Boku To Issho which borders on slapstick, at least in the first half, the second half sees him kind of planting the seeds of what his style eventually develops into; if you want something more serious then you go forward and find Ciguatera, a coming of age story... and if you want to go further than that, you reach Himizu but that one's... actually his darkest work, he delves into the psychological state of mind of the characters and it's got a nihilistic vibe going on that is not found in any of his other works... it's actually my favorite from him 😅 and don't get me wrong, it still has plenty of humor but it's more like dark comedy...
Anyway, what Minoru Furuya excels at is creating these charming losers, his signature style is using these characters to tell stories about the pressures of society and hardships of adapting to modern life. The characters will often have these conversations about the dumbest things but they're so serious about it that... you really see their point... sort of. He's a master of facial expressions and when the situation calls for it, he can dig deep down to his background in comedy to give the characters these exaggerated facial expressions and it's just pure gold, honestly, what I find myself often laughing at in his manga is his choice of words in dialogue or inner monologues juxtaposed with these really stupid looking expressions the characters in said scenes have. 
Sadly, I don't know if he's still active nowadays but if he retired, he's left behind a fantastic body of work with plenty of stuff scanlated in english. You know, some would say that he was "dumb" for abandoning his initial slapstick comedy style, Ping Pong Club is still his most successful manga series iirc... but, you gotta appreciate a creator's guts to totally reinvent himself and tell stories that he wants to tell, I find his newer stuff to be funnier than Boku To Issho and Ping Pong Club (or at least what I've read of PPC...) because of the set up that he's able to do now instead of the always at 100mph style of every page is a joke... in a way, Wanitokagegisu had me "scared" of flipping the pages because I was preparing myself for laughter every time, so I don't find myself laughing less at his newer works(quite the opposite) despite it all, and I truly do love the way he explores his themes nowadays and he's unrivaled at using these hapless fools to tell his stories about the pressures of modern life and integrating into society.
Oh, but I will have to mention that his newer style isn't, like, super hated by everyone or... something. I hear Wanitokagegisu was adapted into a tv show (but I have not seen it) and Himizu was adapted into a movie by none other than Sion Sono and while he's not some super high budget director, he is very well known worldwide and you can't always hit when you pump out as many movies as he does but he does occasionally make some really great ones (movie is... okayish, you can watch it after reading the manga for a different perspective because it does change a bunch of stuff, it's a decent companion piece I guess but the manga is far better and should be read before the movie). Actually, I've seen a lot of appreciation for Himizu but I think Sono's Tag and Antiporno from that period of time are far better, and they work really well together as they're thematically linked, really great modern feminist movies, Tag is fun as hell, Antiporno is ...kinda dark but still funny.
But we were talking about Minoru Furuya and I can't end my rambling without mentioning that he is very handsome

Be honest, you didn't expect him to look like that based on how his characters look

But enough about that, this is what you've come here for:

Saruchinesu ch. 1
Saruchinesu ch. 2



And back to the present with Wet Moon... except this chapter is a flashback...

Wet Moon ch. 13



And Tokyo Kaido... but... like, this chapter isn't really "back in the present either", it's... back in Hashi's (exceptional) manga

Tokyo Kaido ch. 13