Birdy the Mighty

It's an unfinished concept volume that's been made obsolete by the author's later remake of the franchise. The only reason to read it is to understand how the successors improved upon it. With a barely existent plot and bare-bones characters the appeal of the manga past being a predecessor is pretty slim. The interactions between the characters can be enjoyable but anything spectacular is cutoff with a cliffhanger. Checkout the remake manga and the 2nd anime adaptation. But unless you want to "experience everything" of the franchise, I'd not read this. There's a OVA adaptation of this that you can watch anyway.

I think this is SO MUCH better than the remake. This is short, sweet, and to the point. There's no unnecessary side plot or filler, and everything shown has a purpose. Beautiful artwork with a nicely engaging storyline, it is a great manga. I've been seeing a lot of hate towards this piece with an obvious preference towards the remake, and I think that some of that stems from personal preference, and also people not reading this until after they're fully invested in the remake's storyline and characters and the feel of that whole thing. It might just come down to which one you readfirst, and to be honest, I've only read this version of this, and I don't plan on reading the newer manga, if it's anything like the anime, and that's ok. I understand that there's an audience for that, but it's not for me. This on the other hand, is. All in all, this manga is all that it needs to be. Nothing more, nothing less. And I think it's simply wonderful! I will likely be reading this again.