308 reviews in this genre
by Sekihiko Inui
A review of Comic Party — Sekihiko Inui's four-volume manga adaptation of the Key visual novel, following a reluctant art student who gets pulled into the world of doujinshi and Comiket by his enthusiastic friend.
by Novala Takemoto (story), Yukio Kanesada (art)
A review of Kamikaze Girls — the manga adaptation of Novala Takemoto's novel and cult film about a Lolita fashion devotee in rural Japan who forms an improbable friendship with a loud, motorcycle-riding yankii girl.
by Natsumi Ando
A review of Zodiac P.I. — Natsumi Ando's four-volume shojo mystery about a girl who uses magical zodiac rings to solve supernatural and real-world mysteries, aimed at younger readers but with enough charm to work for older shojo fans.
by Sirial
A review of One Fine Day — the Korean manhwa iyashikei about a young wizard and his animal companions living peacefully in the countryside, with no particular goal beyond the specific pleasures of daily life.
by Mari Okazaki
A review of Suppli — Mari Okazaki's josei manga about a 25-year-old woman working in advertising who navigates career ambition, complicated relationships, and the specific exhaustion of trying to have both a professional identity and a personal life.
by Sumito Oowara
A review of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! by Sumito Oowara — the manga about three high school girls forming an animation club, which turns out to be one of the most accurate portrayals of the creative process in any art form.
by Virginia Nitouhei (art), Natsuya Semikawa (story)
A review of Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World — the iyashikei food manga where a Japanese izakaya bar has its back door connected to a European-analog fantasy city, serving medieval knights and merchants Japanese pub food they've never imagined.
by Kosuke Fujishima
A review of You're Under Arrest! by Kosuke Fujishima — a slice-of-life police comedy about two traffic cops whose friendship, professionalism, and occasional high-speed bicycle chases make them the heart of their precinct.
by Marimo Ragawa
Baby and Me follows Takuya, an 11-year-old boy who must help raise his baby brother Minoru after their mother's sudden death, while their father struggles with grief.
by Kakeru Utsugi
How to Keep a Mummy follows high schooler Sora as he receives a tiny adorable mummy from his adventurer father, navigating the joys and challenges of caring for a mythical creature companion.
by Osamu Akimoto
Kochikame is the legendary 201-volume comedy manga about Ryotsu Kankichi, a bumbling police officer in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, whose get-rich-quick schemes and eccentricities make for endless comedy.
by Takatoshi Yamada
Dr. Koto Clinic follows Seiryu Goto, an accomplished surgeon who abandons city medicine to become the sole doctor on a remote Japanese island, where he practices general medicine with whatever resources he has — and transforms both the island and himself.
by Aito Yuki
I Want to Wear Your Clothes follows Machi Otori, a teen girl who loves fashion design, and Ouji Togo, a boy who secretly wants to wear women's clothing — and the friendship and creative partnership they build when his secret becomes shared.
by Hitomi Takano
My Boy follows Mashuu Hayami, a 32-year-old office worker adrift in her life after a painful breakup, who meets Satoru Kaga, a 12-year-old boy playing hockey alone in the park. Their unlikely friendship — and the questions it raises — unfolds across seven thoughtful volumes.
by Neco Kanai (art) / Kazuya Konomoto (story)
Odd Taxi is a mystery thriller set in a city of anthropomorphic animals, following Hiroshi Odokawa — a middle-aged walrus taxi driver with no social connections and a very good memory — as multiple dangerously intersecting storylines converge around his cab.
by Haruko Kumota
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu follows the world of rakugo — traditional Japanese comic storytelling — through two performers across two generations: the transcendent and self-destructive Yakumo, and the student Yotaro who inherits what Yakumo cannot save.
by Ryohei Saigan
Always Sunset on Third Street is a long-running anthology of stories set in a Tokyo shitamachi neighborhood during Japan's postwar economic recovery period, following the residents of Third Street through the daily texture of life in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
by Norifusa Mita
Dragon Zakura follows Ryuji Sakuragi, a ruthless lawyer who takes over a failing high school and declares that five of its delinquent students will pass the entrance exam for Tokyo University — the most prestigious university in Japan.
by Kenjiro Hata
Hayate the Combat Butler follows Hayate Ayasaki, a boy with extraordinarily bad luck who, after accumulating impossible debt on Christmas Eve, stumbles into a job as butler to Nagi Sanzenin — one of Japan's wealthiest and most sheltered heiresses.
by Hebi-zou / Tsuta Suzuki
Heaven's Design Team follows a team of angels who have been contracted by God to design Earth's animals. Each chapter presents a new design brief — God says 'I want a creature that does X' — and the team debates, engineers, and argues their way to something that actually exists in nature.
by Yohei Honma
Yu's review of Family Game — the Numata family hires a tutor named Yoshimoto Koya for their underperforming middle school son; Yoshimoto is strange, confrontational, and seems to understand exactly what each family member is hiding from the others; a psychological drama about the lies families tell themselves and what happens when someone refuses to participate in them.
by Shuho Sato
Say Hello to Black Jack follows Saitou Eiji, a new medical resident in Japan's hospital system, as he confronts the reality of what medicine actually is — the compromises, the economics, the people who fall through every gap.
by Fujiko Fujio
The Road to Manga is the autobiographical manga by Fujiko Fujio — the duo who created Doraemon — documenting their childhood friendship, their manga obsession, and their determined journey from provincial Toyama to becoming professional manga artists in postwar Tokyo.
by Noriyuki Konishi
Yu's review of the Yo-kai Watch manga — elementary schooler Nate Adams finds a capsule machine containing Whisper, a ghost butler who gives him the Yo-kai Watch; the device lets him see Yo-kai, Japanese spirits who cause everyday human problems; a comedy series for younger readers that draws on Japanese folklore while being consistently funny for adults too.
by Jo Araki (story) / Kenji Nagatomo (art)
Bartender follows Ryu Sasakura, a young bartender at a small bar in Ginza who creates the perfect cocktail for each customer — and in doing so, gives them exactly what they need at that moment in their lives.
by Yoshito Usui
A review of Crayon Shin-chan, the legendary comedy manga about a five-year-old terror who says and does what every adult is thinking but too polite to express.
by Juzo Yamasaki (story) / Kenichi Kitami (art)
Free and Easy follows Densuke Hamasaki — a completely ordinary salaryman who is also completely obsessed with fishing — and his improbable friendship with Soichiro Suzuki, his company's president, who they first meet while fishing.
by Etsumi Haruki
Jarinko Chie follows Chie Takagi, a remarkably capable ten-year-old girl in working-class Osaka who manages the family restaurant, handles her gambling-addicted father, and navigates neighborhood life with extraordinary competence and zero illusions.
by Ranpou Takahashi
Maicching Machiko-sensei is a classic ecchi school comedy following the young and beautiful teacher Miss Machiko, whose male students consistently attempt to see or touch her — and who responds with eternal patience and the series' catchphrase.
by Miko Yasu
Police in a Pod follows Seiko Kawai, a burned-out policewoman who is about to quit, and her new superior Fuji — a former elite officer with her own complicated reasons for being at a small police box — as they navigate the absurd and occasionally moving realities of police work.
by Tochi Ueyama
Cooking Papa follows Kazumi Araiwa, a salaryman at a trading company who is also an exceptional home cook — using his skills to feed his colleagues, his family, and anyone who happens to be hungry — across one of manga's longest-running series.
by Shinji Kubota (story) / Reiji Nakagawa (art)
Ramen Discovery Legend follows Fuuta Kajiwara, an ordinary salaryman with extraordinary ramen sensitivity, as he encounters and evaluates Japan's ramen culture — from regional styles to legendary shops — becoming an unexpected authority through pure palate.
by Daisuke Terasawa
Shota no Sushi follows Shota Kubo, the son of a small-town sushi chef, as he travels to Tokyo to train and compete on his way to becoming Japan's greatest sushi master — encountering rivals, mentors, and the full depth of what sushi as an art requires.
by Masayuki Kusumi (story) / Jiro Taniguchi (art)
The Solitary Gourmet follows Goro Inogashira, a self-employed import goods dealer, as he eats lunch alone in various restaurants across Tokyo — a simple premise that becomes a meditation on solitude, pleasure, and the small dignities of everyday life.
by Motoyuki Kaneko
The Tailor of the King follows Yamato Sawabe, a young Japanese tailor who goes to Naples to study the art of Neapolitan tailoring, and returns to Japan to make suits — and make the men who wear them feel who they are.
by Takashi Fujiki (story) / Eiji Nonaka (art)
Tokujou Kabachi!! follows Daisuke Kanie, a paralegal at an administrative scrivener's office, as he takes on bureaucratic injustice and legal gray areas armed only with his knowledge of Japanese administrative law — and a willingness to argue until someone listens.
by Akiko Yoshida
Umimachi Diary follows three adult sisters in Kamakura who invite their half-sister — whom they barely know — to live with them after their estranged father's death, and the slow process of becoming a family.
by Shohei Manabe
Ushijima the Loan Shark follows Kaoru Ushijima, an unlicensed money lender who charges 50% monthly interest — and the lives of the people who come to him, the desperate situations that brought them there, and what happens when they cannot pay.
by Norifusa Mita
Angel Bank follows Rika Machida, a teacher who decides to change careers, and her encounters with Kenichi Kosaka — a legendary job placement agent who forces everyone he meets to confront what they actually want from their working lives.
by Katsu Miyazaki (story) / Koji Yoshimoto (art)
Black Jack Sousaku Hiwa documents the creation of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack — told through the experiences of the young assistants and editors who worked with Tezuka, showing the human cost and the extraordinary craft behind one of manga's greatest series.
by Motoo Abiko
Dame Oyaji follows an utterly useless, endlessly tormented salaryman father whose wife and children treat him with contempt and physical abuse — a dark gag manga that made family dysfunction the subject of 1970s comedy and somehow worked.
by Shigyomaru
Dasei 67% follows a young couple — Jirou and Yoshika — who have been together long enough that passion has given way to habit, and neither is quite sure if what they have is love or just comfortable inertia.
by Rieko Saito
Mainichi Kaasan is a newspaper comic strip that ran in the Mainichi Shimbun for over a decade — autobiographical 4-koma strips about being a mother, a manga artist, a wife, and eventually a widow, drawn with humor and complete honesty.
by Kazuo Umezu
Makoto-chan follows an elementary school boy named Makoto whose irrepressible energy, endless mischief, and complete refusal to behave like a normal child make him a terror to everyone around him — depicted in the purest gag manga tradition by Kazuo Umezu.
by Machiko Hasegawa
Sazae-san is Japan's most enduring manga — a newspaper 4-koma that began in 1946 and ran for 28 years, following a cheerful, impulsive young woman named Sazae and her extended family through postwar Japan's transformation from devastation to prosperity.
by Kota Nozomi (story) / 029 (art)
When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace follows the literature club members of Senko High School who suddenly develop supernatural powers — and then find that having powers changes absolutely nothing about their ordinary club activities and romantic dramas.
by Shinya Suzuki
Tsurumoku Dokusin-ryo follows young workers living in their company's bachelor dormitory — a comedy of closeness, romantic complications, and the specific texture of young adult working life in Japan when everyone you know also lives where you work.
by Leiji Matsumoto
Otoko Oidon follows Saburo Oyama, a young man from Kyushu trying to make it in Tokyo — living in a tiny boarding house, perpetually broke, hopelessly unlucky in love, and stubbornly determined to become someone despite all evidence suggesting otherwise.
by Hiroshi Saito
Naniwa Kinyuudo follows new employee Ginji Mita at a small-loan finance company in Osaka — a manga that uses the world of moneylending and debt collection to create one of manga's most honest portraits of Japanese economic life.
by Shirow Shiratori (story) / Karasu (art)
A review of The Ryuo's Work Is Never Done! — the manga about a teenage shogi champion who ends up coaching a precocious elementary school girl, becoming entangled with a cast of passionate junior players.
by Sensha Yoshida
Golden Lucky is an absurdist comedy about two men — one who believes he is extremely lucky and one who believes he is extremely unlucky — and the universe's apparent agreement with both assessments simultaneously.
by Iou Kuroda
Nasu collects Iou Kuroda's short manga stories — quiet, precise vignettes centered on food, travel, and the moments when ordinary life opens briefly into something larger, then closes again.
by Hiroshi Motomiya
Ore no Sora follows Ryu Domon, a young man who enters the corporate world with the same attitude he would bring to a street fight — confrontational, direct, and completely uninterested in playing by the rules the establishment considers non-negotiable.
by Motoei Niizawa
Kimen-Gumi follows the bizarre daily life of Class 3-F, a class so strange that the school gave up trying to manage it — and the five-member comedy group at the center of every disaster.
by Fujio Akatsuka
Tensai Bakabon is Fujio Akatsuka's landmark gag manga about the Bakabon family — a household where the father's complete detachment from logic is presented as wisdom, and the world's attempts to impose reason are the actual problem.
by Etou Asuka
Tondemo-kun follows a trio of delinquent students whose plans to cause trouble consistently backfire in ways that are so spectacularly wrong they accidentally create good outcomes — a comedy built entirely on the gap between intention and result.
by Kamogawa Tsugame
Macaroni Houren-sou follows three high school students living together in a boarding house — Toshio Shingami, the energetic straight man; Kinoshita, the eccentric wildcard; and Trapp, the cool foreigner — in a surreal comedy that uses the school-life setting as a launching pad for increasingly unhinged humor.
by Osamu Tezuka
Ningen Konchuki (The Book of Human Insects) follows Toshiko Tomura, a beautiful and ruthless woman who absorbs the talents of creative people around her — becoming a novelist, then a designer, then an architect — by living with them, learning from them, and discarding them when she's taken everything they have.
by Midori Youkoh
Shonen Ashibe follows Ashibe, an energetic young boy, and his pet baby seal Goma-chan — a white, round, extremely photogenic animal that causes chaos wherever it goes and is beloved by everyone who encounters it, to the exhausted amusement of Ashibe's father.
by Mineo Maya
Tonde Saitama is a satirical comedy where Saitama Prefecture residents are treated as second-class citizens by Tokyo residents — forced to produce their Saitama identity card at the prefecture border, denied fine dining, and generally persecuted for the crime of not being from Tokyo — a 1982 parody that became a 2019 box office hit through sheer absurdist commitment.
by Tatsuhiko Yamagami
Gaki Deka follows Kome, an elementary school student who declares himself a detective and proceeds to inflict his particular brand of chaos on his school, his neighborhood, and the reader — a 1970s comedy that pushed the limits of what shonen magazines would print and became one of the era's most popular manga anyway.
by Osamu Tezuka
Ningen-domo Atsumare! follows alien observers who come to Earth to study human behavior and find themselves increasingly baffled — a Tezuka comedy that uses the outsider perspective to expose how strange ordinary human life actually is.
by Fujio Akatsuka
Osomatsu-kun follows the Matsuno sextuplets — six identical brothers — and their neighborhood including the iconic Iyami, a French-pretending show-off whose SHEEH! pose became one of Japanese comedy's most enduring images.
by Yoshida Sensha
Utsuru n Desu. is a 4-page-per-story anthology of complete non-sequiturs — situations that begin without context, escalate without logic, and end without resolution — and which became one of the most influential comedy manga of the early 1990s for showing that humor doesn't require setup.
by Noriko Sasaki
Doubutsu no Oisha-san follows Hamu, a university student studying veterinary medicine, his giant and charismatic Siberian Husky Choko, and the warm chaos of veterinary school life — a beloved slice-of-life comedy that reportedly caused real enrollment spikes at Japanese veterinary programs.
by Akiko Higashimura
Gourmet Detective Akechi follows Akechi Goro, a brilliant and eccentric detective who solves crimes through his extraordinary sense of taste — Akiko Higashimura's food-mystery manga that combined culinary detail with detective structure.
by Kenji Ishikawa / Big Jo
Houchoumin Ajihei follows Ajihei, a young cook who enters cooking competitions and rises through the culinary world through skill, passion, and an instinctive understanding of flavor — the original cooking competition manga that established the template for every food manga that followed.
by Kenshi Hirokane
Kachou Shima Kosaku follows Kosaku Shima, a section chief at a major electronics company, through the realities of Japanese corporate life — office politics, professional competition, international business, and adult relationships — the first arc in a series that followed him from section chief to company chairman.
by Mineo Maya
Patalliro! follows the eccentric boy-king of the fictional island nation Marinera — a comedy that has been running in Hana to Yume since 1978, blending spy parody, historical lampoon, supernatural gags, and the relationship between the king and his bodyguard.
by Yaro Abe
Midnight Diner follows the nameless master of a small late-night diner in Tokyo's Shinjuku district — open from midnight to seven in the morning, one set menu, anything you want if he has the ingredients. Each chapter tells the story of a customer and the dish that connects them to something they've lost or found.
by Hikaru Yuzuki
Bimi Reisan is Hikaru Yuzuki's food manga that treats eating as a subject of philosophical attention — short, intelligent, and committed to the proposition that what we eat and how we eat are questions worth taking seriously.
by Yasumi Yoshizawa
Dokonjo Gaeru is Yasumi Yoshizawa's classic 1970s comedy about Hiroshi, a junior-high boy whose flattened-onto-his-shirt frog Pyonkichi becomes his constant companion — a Weekly Shonen Jump comedy that ran for over a decade and became a cultural touchstone.
by Shigeru Tsuchiyama
Kuishinbo is Shigeru Tsuchiyama's competitive-eating manga about Daimon Mantaro, who eats his way through Japan's competitive-eating circuit — a 24-volume tribute to the strange dignity of professional eating treated as serious sport.
by Fujio Akatsuka
Moretsu Ataro is Fujio Akatsuka's late-1960s gag manga following Ataro, a young boy who runs his late father's vegetable shop while surrounded by an outlandish cast of friends and neighbors — a foundational work of Japanese gag comedy from one of its greatest masters.
by Shigeru Tsuchiyama
Shokuking follows Hideyoshi Kitajima, a former chef who travels Japan rescuing failing restaurants by reforming their cooking — a Tsuchiyama food manga that approached cuisine with the seriousness most manga reserve for sword combat.
by Kenji Nishida
Tetsunabe no Jan R is the sequel to Kenji Nishida's competitive-cooking manga — Akiyama Jan returns, older but unreformed, still the chef who cares about winning rather than feeding. 9 volumes that confirmed Jan was never going to soften.
by Kenji Nishida
Tetsunabe no Jan is Kenji Nishida's comedic cooking manga about Akiyama Jan, a Chinese-cuisine prodigy whose only goal is winning — a deliberate inversion of the wholesome cooking-manga tradition where the chef who cared about diners was the secondary character.
by Shoji Tanaka (writer), Akiko Higashimura (art)
Kabachitare! follows a young administrative scrivener (gyoseishoshi) tackling everyday legal disputes for ordinary people — Shoji Tanaka and Akiko Higashimura's 20-volume Morning drama that turned paralegal work into engaging case-of-the-week storytelling.
by Osamu Tezuka
Nanairo Inko (Rainbow Parakeet) follows a master of theatrical impersonation who steals identities to perform stage roles others have abandoned — Osamu Tezuka's late-career meditation on performance, identity, and the moral economy of art.
by Jun Sakura
Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai (Yugami Has No Friends) follows Yugami Yuuichirou, a high schooler who has chosen — actively, deliberately — not to have friends, and Chihiro Otsuka, the transfer student determined to understand why. A 17-volume Sunday comedy about friendship's value examined through its absence.
by Fumiyo Kouno
Two short stories about the lingering aftermath of Hiroshima — quiet, devastating, and award-winning.
by Yasunobu Yamauchi
A review of Daily Lives of High School Boys — the short-chapter comedy manga about three high school boys doing absolutely nothing of consequence with perfect comedic timing.
by Kozue Amano
A review of AQUA, the two-volume prequel to ARIA that first introduces Akari and Neo-Venezia — the beginning of one of manga's most beloved stories.
by Suzue Miuchi
A review of Glass Mask, the legendary 1970s shoujo manga about a girl of miraculous acting talent competing for the greatest role in theater history.
by Komata Mikami
Yu's review of Yuyushiki — Yuzuko, Yukari, and Yui form the Data Processing Club, which processes no data; they use the club room's computer to look up random things and have conversations that go nowhere extremely well.
by Namori
Yu's review of Yuru Yuri — Akari Akaza, Kyoko Toshinou, Yui Funami, and Chinatsu Yoshida take over their school's former tea ceremony room after the Tea Club disbanded, form the Amusement Club, and spend their time doing very little of anything.
by Momoko Sakura
A review of Chibi Maruko-chan, one of Japan's most beloved manga — the semi-autobiographical comedy about a third-grade girl growing up in 1970s Shizuoka.
by Fujita
Yu's review of Wotakoi — Narumi hides her fujoshi hobby at every job she has ever had; at her new job she discovers her childhood friend Hirotaka is there, and he knows all her secrets; they start dating, and navigate being adult otaku in a relationship together.
by Hitoshi Ashinano
Yu's review of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou — an android named Alpha runs a small café in a Japan that is slowly, gently flooding, and finds meaning in the conversations she has and the world she can still observe.
by Fumi Yoshinaga
Yu's review of What Did You Eat Yesterday? — Shiro and Kenji are a gay couple in Tokyo; Shiro is a lawyer who cooks dinner every night; the manga follows their domestic life through the meals Shiro prepares, with complete recipes; a quiet, adult slice of life about partnership and food.
by Mochinchi / Yasuhiro Miyama
Yu's review of A Witch's Printing Office — Mika is a modern Japanese woman who worked at Comiket (the giant doujinshi convention) and wakes up in a fantasy world where magical festivals share printed pamphlets; using her knowledge of convention organization and printing logistics, she builds a business that transforms how the fantasy world shares information.
by Kiyohiko Azuma
A review of Yotsuba&!, the manga about a green-haired five-year-old experiencing ordinary things for the first time — and the most purely joyful manga I have ever read.
by Kousuke Oono
Yu's review of The Way of the Househusband — Tatsu, once the most feared yakuza boss in Japan, has retired to become a stay-at-home husband for his career-focused wife Miku; he applies the intensity, dedication, and specific vocabulary of organized crime to grocery shopping, cooking, and housework.
by Inio Asano
Yu's review of What a Wonderful World! — Inio Asano's short story collection, loosely connected stories about ordinary people in contemporary Japan finding their way through ordinary circumstances; Asano in his most accessible register, before the extended darkness of Goodnight Punpun.
by Nico Tanigawa
Yu's review of WataMote — Tomoko Kuroki is convinced she will be popular in high school because she has extensive experience with otome games; she is not popular; every attempt to change this makes it worse; the manga is simultaneously the funniest and most painful depiction of teenage social isolation in manga.
by Hiroaki Samura
Yu's review of Wave, Listen to Me! — Minare Koda is a restaurant worker in Sapporo who rants to a radio producer at a bar about her ex-boyfriend; the producer records it and airs it; instead of suing, she agrees to do a radio show; a fast-talking adult comedy about a woman who is genuinely funny and genuinely a mess.
by Tsumuji Yoshioka (story) / Yuki Ikeda (art)
A review of Fragile, the medical manga about a pathologist who reads the truth in tissue samples and sees what other doctors miss.
by Chie Shimizu
Yu's review of Wakakozake — Murasaki Wakako, a young office worker, spends her evenings alone at izakayas, carefully selecting food and sake pairings; each short chapter follows one evening, one food, one drink, and her quiet appreciation; the series is a celebration of eating alone as a specific pleasure.
by Takako Shimura
Yu's review of Wandering Son — Shuichi Nitori is a boy who wants to be a girl; his new friend Yoshino Takatsuki is a girl who wants to be a boy; the manga follows both of them from elementary school through adolescence as they navigate gender identity, friendship, and growing up; a gentle, serious work about transgender experience.
by Karino Takatsu
Yu's review of WWW.Working!! — a parallel web manga to Working!!, set in a different Wagnaria family restaurant with a new cast of eccentric employees; Daisuke Higashida takes a part-time job to pay off his father's debt and discovers his coworkers are even more unusual than the situation suggests.
by Yui Hara
Yu's review of Wakaba*Girl — Wakaba Kohashi is from a wealthy family and has attended elite schools her whole life; entering a regular high school, she wants desperately to experience the normal gyaru life she's seen in magazines; Yui Hara's gentle four-panel comedy about friendship and what 'normal' means.
by Take
Yu's review of Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! — Hana Uzaki decides that her college senpai Shinichi Sakurai is too much of a loner and takes it upon herself to insert herself into his life constantly; Sakurai wants to be left alone; the series follows their evolving relationship from workplace annoyance through something neither of them initially wanted to admit.
by Karino Takatsu
Yu's review of Wagnaria!! — Souta Takanashi starts working at a family restaurant because a tiny girl asked him to; his coworkers include a woman with androphobia, a katana-carrying floor chief, an invisible manager, and a girl who thinks she might be in love with him; chaos is the default state.
by Toshiya Wakabayashi
Yu's review of Tsurezure Children — a romantic anthology following multiple high school couples in short-form episodes; each chapter follows a different couple in a different stage of confession or early relationship; a warm comedy anthology about the specific awkwardness of telling someone you love them.
by Yumi Unita
Yu's review of Usagi Drop — Daikichi Kawachi is 30 and unmarried when his grandfather dies, revealing a 6-year-old illegitimate daughter named Rin; when no family member will claim her, Daikichi takes her in; the first 4 volumes depict their daily life as an unconventional family.
by Marimo Ragawa
Yu's review of Those Snow White Notes — Setsu Sawamura is a shamisen prodigy whose grandfather, the legendary Matsugorou Sawamura, has just died; unable to play since losing his teacher, Setsu leaves his rural home and arrives in Tokyo, where he must find his own sound separate from his grandfather's influence.
by Sugaru Miaki / Takaki Tsukiji
Yu's review of Three Days of Happiness — in a world where you can sell your remaining lifespan for money, Kusunoki sells most of his and discovers he has only three months left; manga adaptation of Sugaru Miaki's novel about what matters when time is finite.
by Soichiro Yamamoto
Yu's review of Teasing Master Takagi-san — Takagi teases her desk neighbor Nishikata every single day; he keeps making plans to get back at her; she always wins; the series is about two middle school students who are clearly in love with each other before either of them knows how to say it.
by Jiro Taniguchi
Yu's review of The Walking Man — a man takes walks through his neighborhood and surrounding areas; Jiro Taniguchi's single-volume manga about the specific quality of attention paid to ordinary things, rendered with exceptional visual detail; perhaps the most peaceful manga in existence.
by Nozomi Uda
Yu's review of Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless — Tanaka is a high school boy whose entire being is devoted to doing as little as possible; his best friend Ohta carries him when necessary; the series follows Tanaka's profound listlessness encountering the energetic, enthusiastic people around him without disturbing his fundamental peace.
by Kintetsu Yamada
Yu's review of Sweat and Soap — Asako Yaeshima sweats profusely and has always been ashamed of it; Kotaro Natori works in product development for a hygiene company and has an extremely sensitive nose; he encounters Asako and finds her natural scent extraordinary; what follows is an adult romance about two people whose specific qualities fit together in an unexpected way.
by Gido Amagakure
Yu's review of Sweetness and Lightning — Kouhei Inuzuka is a teacher and single father whose wife recently died; he cannot cook and his daughter Tsumugi eats convenience store food; a student named Kotori invites them to her family's empty restaurant and teaches him to cook for his daughter.
by Millitarko
Yu's review of Stella Women's Academy — Yura Yamamoto transfers to Stella Women's Academy and joins the C³ Club, a survival game (airsoft) club; Millitarko's manga about a shy girl finding her place through competitive gaming, with character development that turns darker before finding resolution.
by Taiyo Matsumoto
Yu's review of Sunny — at a group home for children whose families cannot take care of them, a broken-down old car called Sunny becomes a private space where the children go to be alone; Taiyo Matsumoto's meditation on childhood longing, on what it means to be left, and on how children find ways to survive what adults do to them.
by Masahiro Anbe
Yu's review of Squid Girl — Ika Musume (Squid Girl) emerges from the sea to conquer humanity as revenge for ocean pollution; she is immediately defeated by the Aizawa sisters who run a beach house and ends up working there to pay for property damage; world conquest is repeatedly delayed.
by Takashi Murakami
Yu's review of Stargazing Dog — Daddy adopts a puppy named Happie; the manga follows Happie's life with Daddy through family happiness, family collapse, and the road journey that is their final chapter together; narrated from Happie's perspective, the story is exactly as emotionally devastating as its premise suggests.
by Norie Yamada / Kumichi Yoshizuki
Yu's review of Someday's Dreamers — Yume Kikuchi comes to Tokyo from her small hometown to become a licensed mage under the guidance of Masami Oyamada; the series follows her apprenticeship and her growing understanding that granting wishes is not simple, that magic cannot solve everything, and that some things people want cannot be given.
by Tatsuya Endo
Yu's review of Spy x Family — a manga about a spy, an assassin, and a telepath pretending to be a family, who accidentally become one. Genuinely funny, genuinely warm, and one of the most joyful ongoing series in manga right now.
by Tokumi Yuiko
Yu's review of Slow Start — Hana Ichinose started high school a year late due to illness, making her a year older than her classmates; the series follows her trying to fit in with her new friends while carrying the secret that she is different, in Tokumi Yuiko's characteristic warm and gentle 4-koma style.
by Kotoba Inoya
Yu's review of Smile Down the Runway — Chiyuki Fujito dreams of being a Paris Collection runway model but is told she's too short at 158cm; Ikuto Tsumura dreams of being a fashion designer but can't afford design school; they push each other toward impossible goals; Kotoba Inoya's fashion manga about the gap between dreams and physical reality.
by Hiromu Arakawa
Yu's review of Silver Spoon — a city kid escapes to an agricultural high school to avoid his family, and discovers that farming, animal husbandry, and the people who feed the country have lessons no classroom ever taught him.
by Misaki Takamatsu
A comprehensive review of Skip and Loafer — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Aloha Higa
Yu's review of Shirokuma Cafe — a polar bear named Shirokuma runs a café near the zoo; Panda works part-time there (poorly), Penguin is a regular customer, and the humor comes from animal characters behaving with human social conventions while remaining animals.
by Tsukumizu
Yu's review of Shimeji Simulation — by the creator of Girls' Last Tour; a girl named Shijima emerges from the ground and goes to high school; her friend Majime is eating a mushroom on her head; the world is subtly wrong in ways that accumulate; quiet surreal slice of life with existential undertone.
by Kaoru Mori
Yu's review of Shirley — a young girl named Shirley becomes maid to a young independent woman in Victorian England; Kaoru Mori's earlier work, smaller in scope than Emma or A Bride's Story but carrying her characteristic attention to period detail and domestic life.
by Karino Takatsu
Yu's review of Servant x Service — Lucy, Yutaka, and Saya are new civil servants at a municipal welfare office; Lucy joined the civil service specifically to find and punish the bureaucrat who approved her absurdly long birth name; what follows is workplace comedy about government office life and the people who work there.
by Hari Tokeino
A comprehensive review of School Babysitters — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Tozen Ujiie
Yu's review of Seitokai Yakuindomo — Takatoshi Tsuda joins his recently co-ed high school's student council, which is entirely female; the comedy is built on the gap between Tsuda's straight-man responses and his three female council-mates' constant adult-humor commentary.
by Yupechika
Yu's review of Satoko and Nada — Satoko is a Japanese student at an American university; Nada is her Saudi Arabian roommate; neither knows much about the other's culture; Yupechika's slice-of-life manga about two women sharing an apartment, sharing their lives, and learning that the gap between their worlds is smaller than they assumed.
by Koji Kumeta
Yu's review of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei — Nozomu Itoshiki is a Japanese teacher whose name, written horizontally, reads 'despair'; his approach to life matches; he is constantly in despair about modern society; his student Kafuka Fuura is pathologically optimistic and refuses to accept any negative interpretation of anything.
by Nami Sano
Yu's review of Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto — Sakamoto is the coolest student at his high school; every situation, challenge, or attempt to embarrass him resolves in the coolest possible way; the manga is a pure comedic statement about the concept of cool.
by Cherry Arai
Yu's review of Sansha Sanyou — Youko Nishikawa (formerly wealthy), Futaba Odagiri (enthusiastic eater), and Teru Hayama (smiling sadist) are three incompatible high school girls who end up eating lunch together and become friends; Cherry Arai's gentle comedy about the friendships that form despite personality differences.
by Natsume Ono
Yu's review of Ristorante Paradiso — Nicoletta travels from her hometown to Rome to confront her mother, who left her as a child; her mother's husband doesn't know she exists; the restaurant Casetta dell'Orso, staffed entirely by older bespectacled gentlemen, becomes the setting for Nicoletta's unexpected new life.
by Hidekichi Matsumoto
Yu's review of Sabagebu! — Momoka Sonokawa joins the Survival Game Club at her new school after being rescued by its president Miou; she discovers she has immediate talent for mock combat and a personality that is significantly less heroic than her appearance suggests; the series follows the club's survival game activities with absurdist comedy.
by Jiro Taniguchi
Yu's review of Quest for the Missing Girl — a professional mountain guide is hired to find a teenage girl who disappeared in the Japan Alps; Jiro Taniguchi's mountain-search story, combining his exceptional landscape rendering with a character study of someone who understands mountains better than people.
by Junpei Inuzuka (story) / Katsumi Enami (art)
Yu's review of Restaurant to Another World — Western Restaurant Nekoya is a small Tokyo restaurant that, every Saturday, has a door that opens from various locations in a fantasy world; fantasy world inhabitants enter and encounter Japanese Western food for the first time; each chapter follows a different customer and the dish that changes them.
by Kokone Nata
A comprehensive review of Play It Cool, Guys — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Akiko Higashimura
Yu's review of Princess Jellyfish — Tsukimi Kurashita is a jellyfish-obsessed otaku girl living in an all-female apartment building full of passionate nerds; when she meets Kuranosuke, a cross-dressing son of a politician who barges into her world, her quiet otaku life starts to change.
by Makoto Isshiki
Yu's review of Piano Forest — Kai Ichinose grows up poor in a forest community and has been playing an abandoned piano in the woods since childhood; when the talented but pressured Shuhei Amamiya moves to his town, their friendship and their different relationships with music begin a story about what playing truly means.
by Koge-Donbo
Yu's review of Pita-Ten — Kotaro Higuchi, a quiet boy trying to live simply after his mother's death, finds Misha next door — an angel-in-training of incandescent cheerfulness who has decided to make him happy; also involved is Shia, a polite demon who cannot quite bring herself to be evil.
by Akiho Ieda
Yu's review of Penguin & House — Pen-chan is a penguin who arrives at a young salaryman's apartment and decides to stay; the series follows their daily cohabitation, the small adjustments both make, and the warmth that accumulates in an otherwise solitary life.
by Hijiki Isarbi
Yu's review of Phantom of the Idol — Yuuya Niyodo is an idol who hates performing and tries to be fired; Asahi Mogami is the ghost of an idol who died before she could reach her dreams; when she possesses Yuuya during a performance, they strike a deal — she performs through his body, he reaps the rewards.
by Yuhki Kamatani
Yu's review of Our Dreams at Dusk — Tasuku Kaname is outed to his classmates; he goes to a building to jump; a woman in white tells him to come to a drop-in center; the center is a community of people across the LGBTQ spectrum who have found a way to be in the world; Tasuku begins to find his own way through them.
by Ichiro Sakaki / Yui Haga
Yu's review of Outbreak Company — Shinichi Kanou, an extreme otaku who failed to leave his room for years, is hired by the Japanese government to spread otaku culture in an alternate fantasy world accessed through a portal; the manga adaptation of Ichiro Sakaki's light novel comedy about cultural exchange through manga and anime.
by Shigeru Mizuki
Yu's review of Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths — Shigeru Mizuki's autobiographical war manga, depicting the Japanese Imperial Army unit that survived a suicidal charge order through the Pacific Theater; the survivors were punished for failing to die; Mizuki survived; most of his unit did not.
by Mari Okada / Nao Emoto
Yu's review of O Maidens in Your Savage Season — five high school girls in a literature club encounter adult themes through their reading and must suddenly reckon with their own desires, confusion, and the specific terror of not knowing what you want or whether what you feel is acceptable.
by Nekomaki
Yu's review of An Old Man and His Cat — a widower named Fuku-san adopts Mofu-chan, a large flat-faced cat that nobody wanted; the series follows their daily life together; Nekomaki's manga about loneliness, companionship, and what a cat can give to someone who needs them.
by Fumi Yoshinaga
Yu's review of Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! — the protagonist is a manga artist who won't date but will eat anything; she navigates Tokyo restaurants with friends, colleagues, and editors; Fumi Yoshinaga's semi-autobiographical restaurant guide manga that doubles as character comedy about a woman who prioritizes food over romance.
by Natsume Ono
Yu's review of not simple — Ian is an English young man whose life has been defined by loss, abuse, neglect, and a desperate search for his sister; the manga tells his story in non-linear fragments, assembled by a journalist writing a novel about Ian's life, asking what it means to witness someone's suffering and what fiction can do with it.
by Tomoko Ninomiya
A comprehensive review of Nodame Cantabile — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Atto
Yu's review of Non Non Biyori — five students in a tiny rural school (total enrollment: five) experience the small, seasonal rhythms of countryside life in a mountain village far from anything.
by Shotaro Tokuno
Yu's review of New Game! — Aoba Suzukaze joins Eagle Jump, the game company that made her favorite childhood game, as a character designer; the series follows her first year in professional game development alongside an all-female team; a workplace slice-of-life that treats game development with genuine procedural interest.
by Keiichi Arawi
Yu's review of Nichijou — a high school slice-of-life where ordinary situations escalate to catastrophic absurdity, a robot girl tries to hide what she is, and the Professor is an eight-year-old genius who made her.
by Minatsuki
Yu's review of My Roommate Is a Cat — Subaru Mikazuki is a mystery writer who barely leaves his house and barely interacts with people; he finds a stray cat and takes her home; the manga alternates between his perspective and the cat's perspective on the same events.
by Shiromanta
Yu's review of My Senpai Is Annoying — Futaba Igarashi is a small and serious office worker; her senpai Harumi Takeda is loud, cheerful, and treats her like a little sister in ways she finds aggravating; she is slowly falling in love with him and is annoyed about this; office romance slice of life with workplace context.
by Takuma Morishige
Yu's review of My Neighbor Seki — Rumi Yokoi sits next to Seki in class; Seki never pays attention to lessons and instead constructs elaborate in-desk activities of increasing complexity; Rumi, who is trying to pay attention, keeps getting distracted; a one-joke manga that executes its joke perfectly.
by Yutaka Kondo
Yu's review of My New Boss Is Goofy — Momose Shinya carries severe anxiety from years under a genuinely terrible boss; at his new job he is placed under Aoyama Keita, a boss whose enthusiasm, sincerity, and accidental wholesomeness begin to undo years of workplace damage.
by Nagata Kabi
Yu's review of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness — Nagata Kabi's autobiographical manga about her experiences with depression, an eating disorder, her difficult relationship with her parents, and her gradual understanding of her own sexuality and loneliness; one of the most honest mental health memoirs in manga form.
by Aruko / Wataru Hinekure
A comprehensive review of My Love Mix-Up! — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Naru Narumi
Yu's review of Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles — Koizumi is beautiful, cold, and unapproachable; she also has a complete and total dedication to ramen; she knows every shop, every regional style, every topping combination; Naru Narumi's food manga about a woman whose single passion is executed with absolute seriousness.
by Yuki Urushibara
Yu's review of Mushishi — Ginko travels through a Japan that exists before modernity, investigating and treating afflictions caused by Mushi — ancient lifeforms that exist at the edge of perception and disturb the boundary between the living and something else.
by Masayuki Ishikawa
Yu's review of Moyashimon — Tadayasu Sawaki can see microbes, which appear to him as small cute creatures with distinct personalities; enrolled at an agricultural college, he navigates college life, fermentation science, and friends who find his ability alternately useful and overwhelming; Masayuki Ishikawa's educational comedy.
by Coolkyousinnjya
Yu's review of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid — Kobayashi is an ordinary programmer who drunkenly invited a dragon named Tohru to stay; Tohru takes the form of a human woman in a maid uniform and lives with Kobayashi and eventually a young dragon named Kanna; the comedy is Tohru's dragon nature meeting everyday Japanese life.
by Izumi Tsubaki
Yu's review of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun — Chiyo Sakura confesses to her crush Umetaro Nozaki and he hands her his autograph; she discovers he is the author of a popular shojo manga and accidentally becomes his assistant; the series is a comedy about manga creation that uses the genre conventions of shojo manga as its comedic material.
by Shigeru Mizuki
Mizuki tells the story of 20th century Japan — and of his own life, including his time as a soldier — across four English volumes.
by Coharu Sakuraba
Yu's review of Minami-ke — three sisters at different schools (eldest Haruka in high school, middle Kana in middle school, youngest Chiaki in elementary) share an apartment and their daily life generates endless comedy from their completely different personalities and the rotating cast of friends, admirers, and chaos that follows them home.
by Tamifull
Yu's review of It's Not Meguro-san's First Time — Seiya Furutachi confesses to Ryo Meguro, an unusual woman at his workplace who doesn't fit the typical romance heroine template; both of them are adults who have had previous relationships, which makes their developing relationship proceed differently than the typical manga romance.
by Itokichi
Yu's review of Merman in My Tub — Tatsumi finds a merman named Wakasa collapsed in the river and moves him into his apartment's bathtub to recover; Wakasa refuses to leave, other sea creatures begin visiting, and Tatsumi's apartment becomes a surprisingly crowded supernatural domestic comedy.
by Hiroyuki
Yu's review of Mangaka-san to Assistant-san — manga artist Aito Yuuki draws romance manga but has never had a girlfriend; his assistant Ashisu Sahoto helps him understand women so he can write them authentically, which leads to increasingly absurd 'research' situations.
by Oyuki Konno / Satoru Nagasawa
Yu's review of Maria Watches Over Us — Yumi is a first-year student at the Lillian Girls' Academy, a Catholic school with a tradition of 'soeur' relationships between older and younger students; she is noticed by the beautiful third-year Sachiko; Nagasawa's adaptation of Konno's beloved light novel about ritual, belonging, and the specific intensity of all-girls school friendships.
by Rumiko Takahashi
Yu's review of Maison Ikkoku — Yusaku Godai is a ronin student living in a boarding house called Maison Ikkoku; when the new building manager Kyoko Otonashi arrives, a young widow, he falls in love; the series follows their relationship across years of misunderstandings, interference from neighbors, competing love interests, and the specific difficulty of two people who both want the same thing failing to communicate it.
by Aiko Koyama
Yu's review of The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House — Kiyo comes to Kyoto with her best friend Sumire to train as maiko, but lacks the aptitude; instead of giving up, she becomes the house's makanai — the cook who feeds the maiko — and finds that her real gift was always in the kitchen.
by Izumo Ito
Yu's review of The Demon Girl Next Door — Yuko Yoshida wakes up one day with horns and a tail, awakened as a descendant of a demon clan; her clan's curse can only be lifted by defeating a magical girl; she confronts her school's magical girl, Momo Chiyoda; the magical girl turns out to be friendly, competent, and far stronger; Izumo Ito's comedy manga about the most gentle rivalry.
by Azu
Yu's review of Magical Sempai — the assistant joins the magic club to fill a club requirement and meets his sempai: a girl who loves magic with genuine passion but suffers from stage fright severe enough that every public performance goes catastrophically wrong.
by Afro
Yu's review of Laid-Back Camp — a girl who loves solo camping at the foot of Mount Fuji meets enthusiastic beginners who want to start a camping club, and both kinds of camping turn out to be good.
by Kagami Yoshimizu
Yu's review of Lucky Star — Konata Izumi, an avid anime and manga fan, and her friends Kagami, Tsukasa, and Miyuki navigate high school life while talking extensively about anime, gaming, food, and nothing in particular; the manga is pure comedy about otaku culture and daily school life.
by Amano Sakuya
Yu's review of Konohana Kitan — Yuzu is a young fox girl who begins working at Konohanatei, a supernatural hot spring inn at the boundary between the human world and the divine; staffed entirely by fox girls and catering to guests both human and supernatural, the inn becomes the setting for gentle stories about connection, loss, and the pleasure of caring for others.
by Nene Yukimori
A comprehensive review of Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Natsumi Eguchi
Hozuki is the chief aide to King Enma of Hell — methodical, brutally efficient, and at peace with his work in a way that is deeply unsettling to everyone around him. This is his workplace comedy.
by Yui Hara
Yu's review of Kiniro Mosaic — Shinobu's childhood homestay in England creates a pen-pal relationship with Alice, who later transfers to Japan; the series follows their reunion and the daily school life of a Japanese-British friend group, with cross-cultural misunderstanding as its primary comedy source.
by Tomohito Oda
Yu's review of Komi Can't Communicate — Shouko Komi is mistaken for the coolest, most intimidating girl in school; she actually has severe communication disorder and can barely speak; her classmate Tadano discovers the truth and commits to helping her make 100 friends.
by Yuki Kodama
Yu's review of Kids on the Slope — 1966, Kyushu; Kaoru Nishimi is a classical piano student who moves frequently and has never made a real friend; he discovers Sentaro Kawabuchi, a drummer who plays jazz in the basement of a record shop; their friendship built around jazz becomes the central relationship of both their lives.
by Kaduho
Yu's review of Kill Me Baby — Sonya is a trained assassin attending high school; her best friend Yasuna is an extremely normal girl who keeps accidentally triggering Sonya's reflexive combat responses; the manga is a series of short sketches about this fundamental incompatibility, played for comedy.
by Nobuyuki Fukumoto
Yu's review of Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji — Kaiji Itou is deep in debt with no prospects; a loan shark representative offers him a chance: board a ship with other debtors and play a card game; if he wins, his debt is cleared; if he loses, he works on a forced labor ship; this is the beginning of Kaiji's series of increasingly extreme gambling situations.
by Koji Kumeta
Yu's review of Kakushigoto — Goto Kakushi draws lewd manga for a living and is desperate to keep his daughter Hime from finding out; his single-father life is structured around this secret; Koji Kumeta's comedy-drama about a father's embarrassment and love for his daughter.
by Kakifly
Yu's review of K-On! — four high school girls start a light music club, spend most of their time eating cake and talking, rarely practice, and somehow become a band that matters to them deeply.
by Kumiko Saiki
Yu's review of Kageki Shojo!! — Sarasa Watanabe is a tall, unconventional girl who enters the Kouka School of Musical and Theatrical Arts with the dream of playing the male lead; her roommate is Ai Narata, a former idol group member who has her own reasons for joining and a deep mistrust of men; the series follows both through the world's most demanding performing arts school.
by Yukiya Sakuragi
Yu's review of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs — Suguri Miyauchi has an uncanny ability to communicate with dogs; she moves to Tokyo and ends up working at a pet shop; the series follows her developing expertise, the dogs in her care, and her relationships with the people who come to the shop.
by Koi
Yu's review of Is the Order a Rabbit? (Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu Ka?) — Cocoa Hoto moves to a new town and stays at the Rabbit House café while attending school; the café is run by the Kafuu family and home to Chino, a quiet girl whose grandfather appears to have become the café's rabbit; a CGDCT (cute girls doing cute things) manga about coffee, rabbits, and girls who become each other's family.
by Daisuke Terasawa
A schoolboy with a magic palate takes on Japan's culinary establishment — the manga that defined cooking competition tropes.
by Shuzo Oshimi
Yu's review of Inside Mari — Isao Komori is a hikikomori who has been watching a high school girl named Mari from a distance; one day he wakes up inside her body; he must navigate her life while searching for what happened to his own body, to the real Mari, and to himself.
by Petos
Yu's review of Interviews With Monster Girls — Tetsuo Takahashi is a biology teacher fascinated by demihumans; his school happens to have four demihuman students (a vampire, a dullahan, a snow woman, and a succubus teacher); he interviews them about their lives and the series is about understanding difference through conversation.
by Chirolu / Truffle
Yu's review of If It's for My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord — Dale, a young elite adventurer, finds an abandoned demon girl named Latina in the forest and decides to take care of her; the series follows their daily life as a found-family fantasy slice-of-life, with Dale discovering that fatherhood suits him better than he expected.
by Ayuko Hatta
A comprehensive review of Ima Koi: Now I'm in Love — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Miyuki Tonogaya
Yu's review of The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague — Himuro-kun is a descendant of a snow spirit who involuntarily manifests snow, ice, and blizzards when he experiences strong emotions; when he falls in love with his seemingly cool and expressionless colleague Fuyutsuki-san, his supernatural reactions are an involuntary emotional thermometer.
by Barasui
Yu's review of Ichigo Mashimaro — Nobue Itou, her younger sister Chika, and their friends Ana, Miu, and Matsuri navigate elementary school life in suburban Hamamatsu; Barasui's long-running four-panel-adjacent comedy manga, known for Miu's relentless chaos and the gentle warmth of the group dynamic.
by Okura
A comprehensive review of I Think Our Son Is Gay — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Yoru Sumino / Makoto Sugaru
Yu's review of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas — a high school boy accidentally discovers his classmate Sakura is dying of pancreatic disease; she decides she wants him, precisely because he doesn't react with pity, to share her remaining time; the title comes from a folk belief that eating a sick organ will heal it; an adaptation of the novel by Yoru Sumino.
by Honobu Yonezawa / Taskohna
Yu's review of Hyouka — Houtarou Oreki lives by the motto 'if I don't have to do it, I won't; if I do have to do it, make it quick'; joining the Classic Literature Club reluctantly, he meets Eru Chitanda, who is compulsively curious about everything; her 'I'm curious!' draws him into solving the small mysteries of school life despite his energy-conservation philosophy.
by Coolkyousinnjya
Yu's review of I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying — Kaoru is a normal woman who drinks too much and has a job; she is married to Hajime, who is a dedicated otaku who communicates primarily through anime and manga references; their marriage is functional and happy despite the communication gap.
by Katsuwo
A comprehensive review of Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Natsume Ono
Yu's review of House of Five Leaves — Masanosuke Akitsu is a skilled swordsman who can't hold a job because of his timid personality; he ends up as the bodyguard of Yaichi, a charismatic and mysterious man who runs the Five Leaves, a group that kidnaps wealthy people for ransom.
by Masao Ohtake
Yu's review of Hinamatsuri — a girl with psychic powers falls from the sky into a yakuza man's apartment; he reluctantly takes her in; she destroys things when she is not allowed to use her powers; together they navigate life in a way that makes no sense and is somehow very funny.
by Chorisuke Natsumi
A comprehensive review of Hitomi-chan Is Shy With Strangers — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Shinzou Sentinel
Yu's review of Hinako Note — Hinako Sakuragi freezes in social situations and literally stands still like a scarecrow, which attracts birds; she moves to Tokyo to join a theater club and find a way to overcome her shyness; Shinzou Sentinel's school club slice-of-life comedy.
by Ryo Nakama
Yu's review of High School Family — the entire Kokosei family has returned to high school simultaneously: the father Takashi, the mother Saya, and their first-year son Ichiro; the series follows their attempt to navigate high school as a unit while the school responds to this situation as if it is completely normal.
by Sankaku Head
Yu's review of Himouto! Umaru-chan — Umaru Doma is the school's perfect student: beautiful, athletic, graceful, and socially ideal; at home, she collapses into a chibi version of herself who eats chips, plays games, watches anime, and makes unreasonable demands of her older brother Taihei; the comedy of the gap between her two selves drives 12 volumes of warm sibling comedy.
by Rensuke Oshikiri
Yu's review of Hi Score Girl — set in the early 1990s, Haruo Yaguchi's world is the arcade; he is the best at fighting games in his school; Akira Oono, a rich and academically accomplished girl who never speaks, is better than him at all of them; the romance that develops from this competitive frustration is one of manga's most charming.
by Ume Aoki
Yu's review of Hidamari Sketch — Yuno moves into Hidamari Apartments near her art high school; the residents — Miyako, Hiro, Sae, and later Nazuna and Nori — form the kind of found family that art students build when they live and study and make things together.
by Miho Obana
A review of Kodocha — the 1990s classic about child actress Sana Kurata, whose turbulent energy is the only thing that can reach her troubled, closed-off classmate.
by Hidekaz Himaruya
Yu's review of Hetalia: Axis Powers — countries are personified as young men with national stereotypes as personality traits; Italy forgets to fight, Germany is exasperated, Japan is polite at all times; Hidekaz Himaruya's webcomic-turned-manga about world history as extended interpersonal comedy.
by Manta Aisora / Koin
Yu's review of Nyaruko: Crawling With Love — Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos of Lovecraftian mythology, has manifested as a cheerful silver-haired girl to protect high school student Mahiro from alien threats; Aisora and Koin's parody comedy that turns cosmic horror into harem slice-of-life.
by Satsuki Yoshino
Yu's review of Handa-kun — Sei Handa is a high school calligraphy genius who is adored by everyone at school; he is completely convinced everyone hates him; this prequel to Barakamon follows his high school years as a chain of massive misunderstandings about his social position.
by Jiro Taniguchi
Yu's review of Guardians of the Louvre — a Japanese painter visiting Paris falls ill and, trapped in a hotel near the Louvre, is visited by the museum's ghosts — historical artists and the people they painted; Jiro Taniguchi's commissioned work for the Louvre, his most visually European manga and a meditation on what art preserves.
by Ai Yazawa
Yu's review of Gokinjo Monogatari — Mikako Kouda and Tsutomu Yamaguchi grew up in the same apartment building and are now fashion school students; she's designing clothes; he's in a band; Ai Yazawa's early manga about fashion, creativity, and the complicated feelings between two people who have known each other too long to see clearly.
by Kenji Inoue / Kimitake Yoshioka
Yu's review of Grand Blue Dreaming — Iori Kitahara moves to a coastal town to attend college and takes a room above his uncle's dive shop; what he expected was diving; what he found was a college diving club that spends more time drinking naked than in the ocean; the funniest college comedy manga in the genre with genuine diving content alongside the chaos.
by Rumiko Takahashi
Takahashi's early short stories collected — from comedy to horror to domestic drama.
by Shimoku Kio
Yu's review of Genshiken — the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture is a university club for manga and anime fans; the series follows its members across years as they graduate, enter the workforce, and figure out what being an otaku means when you have to also be an adult.
by Sayori Ochiai
Yu's review of Gingitsune — Makoto Saeki can see the fox spirit Gintaro, who serves as the herald of the shrine her family maintains; most people cannot see heralds; the series follows Makoto's life at the shrine, her relationships with Gintaro and the other spirits she encounters, and how Shinto practice shapes her daily life.
by Seo Kouji
A comprehensive review of GE: Good Ending — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Shimoku Kio
Yu's review of Genshiken: Second Season — the university otaku club Genshiken has a new membership mostly consisting of female fujoshi and one crossdressing male member who may be more than just crossdressing; the sequel explores how the club changes when its demographics shift and how it grapples with questions the original series didn't have to face.
by Marii Taiyou
A comprehensive review of Gal Gohan — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Satoko Kiyuduki
Yu's review of GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class — the daily life of students in the art design department of a high school, where discussions of color theory, perspective, and artistic technique are the subject of comedy.
by UKAMI
Yu's review of Gabriel DropOut — Gabriel White Tenma is the top student at angel school, sent to earth to learn to help humanity and become a full angel; she immediately discovers online gaming, becomes completely addicted, drops out of all responsibilities, and spends her days as a slovenly shut-in; her demon classmates are more responsible than she is.
by Shiro Amano
Yu's review of Encouragement of Climb — Aoi is a shy high school girl who is afraid of heights; her childhood friend Hinata reappears and suggests they climb mountains together; Aoi gradually develops both her physical ability and her confidence through hiking and mountaineering; a gentle sports-adjacent slice of life that doubles as a hiking guide.
by Chihiro Ishizuka
Yu's review of Flying Witch — a teenage witch moves to rural Aomori to complete her training, lives with her cousins, and spends most of her time tending her garden, harvesting magical plants, and introducing her neighbors to the world of magic.
by Tadashi Agi / Shu Okimoto
Yu's review of Drops of God — Shizuku Kanzaki's wine critic father dies and leaves his entire collection to whoever can correctly identify the twelve wines described in his will; his adopted rival Issei Tomine already knows wine; Shizuku knows almost nothing; the manga teaches wine through competition.
by Akihiko Higashide
Yu's review of Otaku Elf — an elf was enshrined at a Tokyo shrine as a goddess centuries ago; she became obsessed with video games, manga, and junk food; she hasn't left the shrine in years; Koito Tiara is the young miko responsible for tending to her; Akihiko Higashide's comedy about a supernatural being who never leaves her room.
by Fujiko F. Fujio
Yu's review of Doraemon — a robotic cat named Doraemon travels from the 22nd century to help an underachieving boy named Nobita; from his four-dimensional pocket, he produces amazing gadgets that Nobita invariably uses incorrectly; Japan's most beloved children's manga and one of the foundational works of Japanese popular culture.
by Inio Asano
A comprehensive review of Downfall — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Hideo Azuma
Yu's review of Disappearance Diary — Hideo Azuma is a professional manga artist who voluntarily disappeared into homelessness twice and then developed severe alcoholism requiring hospitalization; he drew it as a comedy; the most unusual and honest autobiography in manga form, winner of the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize.
by Nik Haruto & Daiju Haruno
Yu's review of Dog & Scissors — Kazuhito Harumi dies shielding a stranger and reincarnates as a dachshund; the stranger turns out to be his favorite mystery novelist Kirihime Natsuno; she can hear his thoughts; she also uses scissors on him constantly.
by Rin Mikimoto
Yu's review of Deaimon — Nagomu Irino left his family's traditional wagashi sweet shop in Kyoto to become a musician; when he finally comes home after years away, he finds a young girl named Itsuka living with his parents, left by a father who hasn't returned; he begins helping in the shop and taking care of Itsuka.
by Kiminori Wakasugi
Yu's review of Detroit Metal City — Soichi Negishi came to Tokyo to write sweet acoustic pop music about love in the countryside; he ends up as Krauser II, the masked death metal demon of the fictional Detroit Metal City band, whose concerts are legendary events of chaos — and he is, inexplicably, extremely good at it.
by Kotoyama
Yu's review of Dagashi Kashi — Shikada Kokonotsu wants to become a manga artist; his father runs a rural dagashi shop (cheap Japanese candy and snack store) and wants Kokonotsu to inherit it; Hotaru Shidare, daughter of a major candy company executive, appears to recruit his father and becomes obsessed with converting Kokonotsu to the dagashi way through sheer enthusiasm and encyclopedic candy knowledge.
by Kaduho
Yu's review of Comic Girls — Kaoruko Moeta (Chaos) is a struggling manga artist who moves into a dormitory for female manga artists; her companions are a successful gag manga artist (Koyume), a wildly popular romance manga artist (Ruki), and a veteran four-panel manga artist (Tsubasa); the series follows their creative work and daily life.
by Tomoya Haruno
Yu's review of D-Frag! — Kazama Kenji is a delinquent who gets coerced into joining the Game Creation Club by its four very strange members; the club does not actually create games; what it does is generate comedy from the gap between Kazama's attempt to be threatening and the club members' complete indifference to this.
by Tadataka Kawasaki
Yu's review of Chio's School Road — Chio Miyamo oversleeps regularly and has to get to school by any means necessary; her experience playing stealth games has given her a specific skill set that is completely useless in normal life and occasionally useful in the absurd situations she creates for herself.
by Minoru Furuya
Yu's review of Ciguatera — Furuya is a teenage boy with no particular direction who falls intensely in love with a girl named Yuki; his feelings are real but his life is a mess; Minoru Furuya's slice-of-life manga about a young man whose emotional world is larger and more genuine than the chaotic life surrounding it.
by Akane Shimizu
Yu's review of Cells at Work! — the cells of the human body are personified as workers in a city; a red blood cell delivers oxygen while a white blood cell eliminates pathogens; the manga teaches human biology through cheerful action-comedy while making you care about your own circulatory system.
by Konami Kanata
Yu's review of Chi's Sweet Home — a small kitten gets separated from her mother and adopted by a young family who live in a no-pets apartment, and the manga follows her exploration of her world through her earnest cat-brain perspective.
by Taiyo Matsumoto
Yu's review of The Cats of the Louvre — the cats who live in the Louvre at night can walk into the paintings; Taiyo Matsumoto's gentle fantasy about the secret life of a famous museum, a girl who can see the cats, and what happens inside the art when nobody human is looking.
by Shigemitsu Harada / Issei Hatsuyoshi
Yu's review of Cells at Work! CODE BLACK — a parallel story using the same cellular biology concept as Cells at Work!, but set in a body that is severely unhealthy; the red blood cells work in crisis conditions where the body barely supports them, and the series is a darker, more adult allegory for overwork culture.
by Yumi Unita
Yu's review of Bunny Drop — Daikichi discovers his late grandfather had an illegitimate young daughter, Rin; he adopts her on impulse and learns to parent while working full time; Yumi Unita's josei manga about the specific adjustments of unexpected parenthood, with a controversial time skip in later volumes.
by Wataru Nadatani
Yu's review of Cat and Gamer — Riko is an office worker who spends all her free time playing video games; she adopts a stray cat named Musubi; the cat's behavior is observed through both realistic cat logic and gaming metaphor; a gentle comedy about introversion, companionship, and cats.
by Keito Gaku
Yu's review of Boys Run the Riot — Ryuu is a trans boy in high school who presents as a girl at school; he meets Jin, a transfer student interested in streetwear fashion; together they start a clothing brand as a way of expressing who Ryuu is before he can express it directly; a manga about fashion, identity, and finding a language for who you are.
by Osamu Tezuka
Yu's review of Buddha — Osamu Tezuka's dramatization of the life of Siddhartha Gautama, who will become the Buddha; the series invents a cast of original characters who intersect with the historical narrative and uses the Buddha's life to examine war, caste, suffering, love, and what enlightenment actually means.
by Tsubasa Yamaguchi
Yu's review of Blue Period — Yatora Yaguchi is a capable but empty high school student who sees a painting and decides to try art; the series follows his attempt to get into Tokyo University of the Arts, one of the most competitive art schools in Japan, with no prior training.
by Aki Hamaji
Yu's review of Bocchi the Rock! — Hitori Gotoh is so socially anxious she has been a friendless loner throughout middle school; she taught herself guitar to eventually join a band and make friends; when a girl recruits her to an actual band, she has to perform live music while barely being able to speak.
by Shinichi Ishizuka
Yu's review of Blue Giant Supreme — Dai Miyamoto leaves Japan to take his saxophone to Europe; in Germany, he encounters musicians from across the continent and begins building toward performing in the world's top jazz venues, continuing the story from Blue Giant.
by Shinichi Ishizuka
Yu's review of Blue Giant — Dai Miyamoto grows up in Sendai, encounters jazz, and decides with complete conviction that he will become the greatest jazz saxophonist in the world; he does not know how to play; the manga follows his dedication from zero to professional level through physical and emotional commitment that most manga about artistic aspiration do not achieve.
by Miyuki Nakayama
Yu's review of Blend S — Maika Sakuranomiya gets a job at Café Stile, where each waitress plays a distinct character type for the customers; Maika is assigned the sadistic type because her natural face scares people, though she is actually sweet-natured; the gap between character and reality is the series' central comedy.
by Shinichi Ishizuka
Yu's review of Blue Giant Explorer — Dai Miyamoto arrives in the United States, the country where jazz was born, and faces the specific challenge of playing American jazz as a Japanese musician in the city where the music lives; the third series in the Blue Giant trilogy.
by Osamu Tezuka
Yu's review of Black Jack — Black Jack is an unlicensed surgeon of extraordinary skill who charges enormous fees for miraculous operations; each chapter is a standalone case that tests the limits of medicine, ethics, and what it means to save a life; Tezuka's most sustained examination of the cost and meaning of human survival.
by Akiko Higashimura
Yu's review of Blank Canvas — Akiko Higashimura's autobiographical manga about studying under the notoriously strict art teacher Kametaro Takeuchi in her hometown of Miyazaki; the teacher's methods are harsh, the training is grueling, and the manga is a portrait of how an artist is actually made.
by Keiji Nakazawa
Yu's review of Barefoot Gen — Keiji Nakazawa's autobiographical manga about surviving the Hiroshima atomic bombing as a child; Gen Nakaoka survives the blast but must immediately try to save his family; the series follows his survival in the months and years after the bomb, rendered with the graphic honesty of someone who was actually there.
by Bisco Hatori
Yu's review of Behind the Scenes!! — Ranmaru Kurisu has always felt like he gets in everyone's way; at university, he accidentally falls into the Art Squad — the group that builds props, sets, and effects for the drama and film clubs — and discovers that being good at invisible work is exactly the right kind of contribution for someone who thought he had nothing to contribute.
by Kiyohiko Azuma
Yu's review of Azumanga Daioh — the manga that created the 4-koma school comedy genre, following six high school girls and two teachers across three years of school life.
by Satsuki Yoshino
Yu's review of Barakamon — a young calligrapher exiled to a rural island after punching a critic discovers that the village children, the sea air, and the ordinary chaos of island life might be what his art has been missing.
by Normalko
Yu's review of Asobi Asobase — Hanako Honda and Olivia (raised in Japan, speaks no English despite looking foreign) convince Kasumi Nomura to join their Pastimers Club; the club's purpose is to play old-fashioned games; the series follows the three girls playing games and having exaggerated reactions to everything while a cast of increasingly strange side characters accumulates around them.
by Quro
Yu's review of Asteroid in Love — Mira Konohata and Ao Manaka made a promise as children to find an asteroid together; they reunite in high school when they join the Astronomy and Geology Club; Quro's Kirara manga about childhood promises, scientific passion, and growing friendship.
by Kozue Amano
Yu's review of ARIA — on a terraformed Mars now called Aqua, where rising seas have recreated Venice, Akari Mizunashi trains to become an undine — a gondolier guide — in Neo-Venezia, learning to see the beauty in the slow life she has chosen.
by Kei Ohkubo
Yu's review of Arte — Arte is a Florentine noblewoman who, after her father's death, refuses to marry and instead pursues apprenticeship as an artist despite the era's absolute prohibition on women in craftsmen's workshops; set in Renaissance Florence with historical accuracy about the art world of the period.
by Mari Okada / Mitsu Izumi
Yu's review of AnoHana — Jinta Yadomi sees the ghost of his childhood friend Meiko Honma, who died years ago; she wants her wish granted; the manga adaptation of the anime, following the original Super Peace Busters group as they process the grief they never resolved; Mitsu Izumi's adaptation of the Mari Okada script.
by Shigeru Mizuki
Shigeru Mizuki tells the life of Adolf Hitler in a single restrained volume.
by Hiroyuki
Yu's review of Aho-Girl — Yoshiko Hanabatake is so spectacularly stupid that she represents a category of person rather than a character; her childhood friend A-kun is a serious student who has spent his entire life trying to maintain distance from her chaos; she is incapable of taking any hint and follows him everywhere; slapstick comedy manga.
by Hiro
Yu's review of Akebi's Sailor Uniform — Komichi Akebi has dreamed of attending Roubai Academy specifically to wear the sailor uniform her mother wore there; when she arrives, she discovers the school has switched to blazers; the headmaster makes an exception for her, and she is the only student in a sailor uniform, which becomes both a barrier and a bridge to her classmates.
by Atsushi Nakamura
A comprehensive review of Agravity Boys — plot, characters, art style, and whether it's worth reading.
by Asato Mizu
Yu's review of Aharen-san wa Hakarenai — Reina Aharen is tiny, quiet, and has no sense of personal distance — she either sits too far away or too close, and nothing in between; her classmate Raidou Matsuboshi cannot tell what she means by anything; their comedy is the gap between intent and interpretation.
by Ishiki
Yu's review of Acchi Kocchi — Tsumiki has feelings for Io that are obvious to every one of their friends; Io is warm, caring, and completely dense about the implications of his own behavior; their school comedy is one of the most affectionate and consistently sweet manga available.
by Eiko Eifuku
Yu's review of Aggretsuko — Retsuko is a 25-year-old red panda office worker who endures workplace misery all day; at karaoke, she screams death metal about her frustrations; Sanrio/Eiko Eifuku's office comedy about the gap between performed professionalism and internal reality.
by Umi Sakurai
Yu's review of A Man and His Cat — an ugly, perpetually unsold cat at the pet store is finally adopted by a retired music teacher who recently lost his wife; the series is about the happiness of second chances and the specific way a pet fills a kind of loneliness nothing else touches.
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Yu's review of Abandon the Old in Tokyo — Yoshihiro Tatsumi's short story collection depicting working-class lives in postwar Tokyo; the gekiga pioneer's dark view of urban life, rendered with moral ambiguity and without sentimentality; essential to understanding the mature manga tradition.
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Yu's review of A Drifting Life — Yoshihiro Tatsumi's autobiography covering his formative years from childhood through his 20s in postwar Japan, the development of his artistic voice, and the creation of gekiga — a darker, more realistic form of manga that would influence everything that came after.
by Gido Amagakure
Yu's review of A Galaxy Next Door — Ichirou Kuga is a young manga artist struggling to support his two younger siblings after his parents' death; when the highly skilled Shiori Goshiki arrives as his assistant, a stinger on her back accidentally creates a spiritual bond between them; he discovers she may be a supernatural being from another world.
by bb Kuroda
Yu's review of A-Channel — four high school girls with distinct personalities share daily school life; Run is cheerful and easygoing, Tooru is fiercely protective of her, Yuuko is anxious and easily flustered, and Nagi is calm and reliable; the 4-koma format captures small moments of friendship in gentle comedic form.
by Jiro Taniguchi
Yu's review of A Distant Neighborhood — Hiroshi Nakahara, a middle-aged salaryman, falls asleep at his father's grave and wakes up as himself at fourteen; with adult memories in a teenage body, he must relive his past, including the period before his father disappeared; Jiro Taniguchi's gentle meditation on regret and what we'd change.
by Kei Murayama
Yu's review of A Centaur's Life (Centaur no Nayami) — Himeno is a centaur girl attending high school in a world where centaurs, merfolk, satyrs, angels, and other mythological beings coexist as the various races of humanity; the series explores ordinary school life with the specific complications of being a four-legged person in a society built mostly around bipeds.
by Kazuma Kamachi / Motoi Fuyukawa
Yu's review of A Certain Scientific Railgun — Misaka Mikoto is a Level 5 electromaster in Academy City, a city of students with supernatural abilities; she navigates school life with her friends while confronting the darker experiments and conspiracies that run beneath the city's surface.
by Sou Hamayumiba
A review of Hanayamata, the slice-of-life manga about five very different girls who form a yosakoi dance club and discover what it means to perform together.
by Hikaru Nakamura
A review of Arakawa Under the Bridge, the absurdist comedy about an elite young man who falls in love with a woman who lives under the Arakawa River bridge and believes she is from Venus.
by Osamu Tezuka
Three men named Adolf — including Hitler — whose lives entangle across decades from 1936 Tokyo to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
by Kozue Amano
A review of Amanchu!, the ARIA creator's diving manga set in a seaside town where a shy girl learns to breathe underwater and come alive.
by Shuho Sato
A young man trains to become a Japan Coast Guard rescue diver in Sato's painstakingly researched workplace drama.
by Kana Akatsuki (story) / Akiko Takase (art)
A review of Violet Evergarden — the manga adaptation of the Kyoto Animation light novel about a former child soldier who becomes an Auto Memoir Doll, writing letters that help others express what they cannot say.
by Naoki Urasawa
Pre-Monster Urasawa writing a quiet salaryman comedy — a fascinating glimpse into his early style.
by Etsushi Ogawa
A teenage chef in 19th century China takes on the legendary Underground Cooking Society in tournament after tournament.
by Yumiko Oshima
Yumiko Oshima writes a story about gender, marriage, and the people who feel like they don't fit either.
by Tone Koken (story) / Hiro Ogai (art)
A review of Super Cub, the manga about a girl with nothing in her life who discovers a Honda Super Cub motorcycle and, through it, discovers connection.
by Minami Mutsuki
A review of Long Riders!, the cycling manga about a college girl who falls in love with folding bikes and discovers the world that opens up when you start riding.
by Tatsuya Egawa
A review of Golden Boy, the classic comedy manga about Kintaro Oe — Tokyo University dropout who travels Japan mastering every trade through menial labor.
by Fumi Yoshinaga
A review of Flower of Life, Fumi Yoshinaga's warm and funny slice-of-life manga about a boy who returns to high school after illness and the class he falls into.
by Kozue Amano
A review of ARIA, Kozue Amano's masterpiece slice-of-life manga set on a terraformed Mars where a girl trains to become a gondolier in Neo-Venezia.
by Tetsu Kariya (story), Akira Hanasaki (art)
A review of Oishinbo: A la Carte, the legendary food manga that has documented Japanese culinary culture since 1983 through the story of creating the Ultimate Menu.
by Shigeru Mizuki
Mizuki's autobiographical novel about his unit's suicide charge in New Guinea — a brutal, funny, devastating war story.
by Taizan 5
A review of Takopi's Original Sin, the devastating two-volume manga about a cheerful alien who wants to make a bullied girl happy — and keeps failing.
by Konari Misato
Nagisa Ono quits her job, leaves her apartment, cuts off everyone she knows, and starts over completely. This is the story of what she finds when she stops performing the version of herself that everyone wanted.
by Kaori Tsurutani
A 75-year-old widow discovers Boys' Love manga for the first time. A 17-year-old bookstore clerk who loves BL has never had a friend who shares her passion. This is the story of their friendship.
by Gengoroh Tagame
A single father in Japan welcomes his late twin brother's Canadian husband — and confronts everything he didn't know about his own family.
by Rumiko Takahashi
Takahashi's serialized adult dramas, mostly about women navigating marriage, infidelity, and ordinary life.
by Masaoki Shindo
A review of Ruri Dragon — the Shonen Jump slice-of-life about a high school girl who wakes up with dragon horns and has to navigate normal teenage life with increasingly un-normal biology.
by Chica Umino
A review of March Comes in Like a Lion — Chica Umino's manga about a teenage professional shogi player navigating depression, isolation, and the unexpected warmth of a family who takes him in.
by Osamu Tezuka
Tezuka condenses Dostoevsky's novel into a single volume of breakneck moral urgency.
by Osamu Tezuka
A girl uses magic candy to age forward and back — Tezuka's strangely tender attempt at biology education for children.
by Tetsuji Sekiya
A college student takes a job as an apprentice in Tokyo's most demanding Italian restaurant — and discovers what real kitchen work is.
by Shigeru Mizuki
Mizuki's autobiographical memoir of his childhood and the old woman who taught him about yokai.
by Hidekichi Matsumoto
A review of With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day Is Fun — the four-panel manga about an artist living with a gentle, perfect dog and a psychopathic cat who wants to destroy everything.
by Keiko Tobe
A review of With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child, Keiko Tobe's landmark manga about a mother raising an autistic son — honest, educational, and deeply human.