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Originally Posted by babybro
So perhaps to break it down even further. Let's go into the specific genre's. What makes a comedy manga/anime good? What about romance? Action-Adventure? Drama? Sci-fi?
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Comedy is my overall favourite genre, I think. I like to laugh. The zanier, the better, IMO. I love things like FLCL, Yakitate Japan, School Rumble, Shinobuden etc. Absurdity is awesome. Funny characters doing really dumb stuff (Reactions in Yakitate, anything Onsokumaru does, etc) is just the best.
Romance... I'm partial to, but I prefer comedy/romance like Lovely Complex (and School Rumble, if you want to call that a romance) over drama/romance, because I think it's more interesting to laugh about relationships and the trials and tribulations people go through in their interpersonal dealings, than just solemnly watching some relationsihp develop over the course of various events that drama tends to do.
Action-adventure, well, most of the long running series such as Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Inuyasha etc I'd probably consider action-adventure, with comedy and romance and other elements (all long series tend to be a bit of everything) and they're all compelling in their own right. Long series have a chance at excellent character development, though it's difficult to keep a story running that long without becoming boring (all four mentioned examples have some reeeally boring arcs, and poor pacing in places) there are of course shorter series, such as Black Lagoon that'd be action-adventure. They don't suffer the long boredom issue, but instead disappoint in you don't get to know the chars as well as you'd like over the course of the series.
With drama, as I already mentioned in romance, I think it's important to keep it interesting with some sort of other elements. Pure drama is kind of boring to me personally, yet add it in with another genre, and you get some of the best anime ever made, like PlanetES (drama/sci-fi) though drama/romance is a common one (School Days, Myself; Yourself) and can work, and be good, it is rare for it to be pulled off well.
Sci-fi, is very easy to screw up. As broad as the genre is, especially in anime (mecha, space, robot girls, all sorts of sci-fi around) a lot of it is really boring. I think again because you need to cross genres. Comedy/sci-fi (Galaxy Angel, UFO Princess) works well, but adventure/action tends to be best (Scrapped Princess, Soukou no Strain, Ghost in the Shell, Macross, Gundam etc etc etc) but judging by those titles, they all cross multiple genres, have excellent character development, interesting plot hooks, and solid conclusions.
So ultimately, it's all in the story itself, not so much the genre.
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An excellent question I have is, is it possible to create a manga with strong emotional and personal ties like a comedy/drama/romance manga-anime, and yet still have a very strong plot theme like action-adventure/sci-fi/fighting anime-manga?
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I kind of answered that above, I think. See Scrapped Princess for a perfect example of crossing multiple genres (comedy, drama, romance, action, adventure, sci-fi, fantasy) with a solid story that is well paced over the course of the anime run.
All of that is, though, talking about anime, using recent and popular examples, not manga. But I think the same still applies since most are based off manga and the best tend to be faithful to the manga. (though some are based off novels, too...)
But yeah. It's all in the writing, not the genre. I think it's possible to make anything good, with the desirable aspects of characters you can relate too/root for, while having comedy elements, your required drama, romance, while in a sci-fi or fantasy setting, with lots of action and fighting and adventure going on. There are numerous series out there that prove it's possible. Though naturally they do tend to be diamonds among mountains of coal.