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raven_freak I have only watched parts of the anime, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
In my opinion you should try reading it from the beginning since a lot of the appeal of Nanbaka is the visuals. The anime has much more detailed backgrounds and is in general a great adaptation visually and story-wise, but I enjoy the manga more stylistically in part because I feel it is more colourful and portrays the characters better. One thing the anime doesn't do well, from what I can see, is Jyugo's eyes. In the manga they vary in colour from to frame, which is mentioned several times. In the anime though his eye colour seems oddly static to me. Not a huge thing, but is an example of differences in details.
If you feel that you know the characters already and don't want to begin from the start then the end of the tournament arc is a decent starting point. That's when the story really shifts into gear.
There's also the bonus chapters about how the gang got together, which I'm not sure would be part of the anime (again I've not watched it). Mentioning it just in case.