Would you suggest the Moribito manga/light novel?

[kco143]

I just watched Moribito for the second time and now I'm craving for more. What I loved about it are the characters. They're so genuine in their personalities, their behavior and their actions that they seem like real people.

I'm hoping that by reading the manga I will be able to learn even more about my favorite characters. So, to anyone who has read the manga, would you recommend it? Or will I pretty much just be getting the same exact experience as watching the anime?

[Guardian Enzo]

I think your best bet would be reading the novels themselves, but only the first two are translated into English. The second is almost entirely material not in the anime. They're very good reads and are slightly different from the anime in terms of character and plot construction. Kamiyama Kenji actually expanded on the novel and made it quite a bit more mature, and I prefer his version - but the original is well-worth reading.

The manga is just a brief snippet of the TV events, really. I adore Moribito - it's my #1 show ever - and I was so hungry for further development for Balsa and Chagum and Tanda (the latter two aren't in the second novel) that I wrote a follow up myself, just to see where the characters would go.