Nick's Definitive Manga You Should Read List: By Popular Demand

I will start with one that has gotten some attention lately, The Fable. A prodigy of assassination is tasked with laying low for a year and tries to lead a normal life. Obviously that does not happen. Extremely funny.

Shigurui, a samurai tale with gruesome violence and incredible depictions of human form. Obsession, revenge, depravity, mutilation, it has it all

Koukou no Hito, an adaptation of real life mountain climber's experiences. Later volumes feature some of the best art in comics. An introvert tries to balance his love (and obsession) with scaling dangerous peaks with a desire for a normal life

REAL, by Vagabond and Slam Dunk's Takehiko Inoue. What began as a basketball (especially wheelchair) basketball manga became something more, a criticism of Japanese society and an exploration of physical rehab and the power of sports

If you're reading REAL you gotta read Slam Dunk, probably one of my top 5 favorites of all time. Classic shonen sports manga. Red-haired Sakuragi Hanamichi joins the basketball club to impress a girl but finds a lot more: that his freakish athleticism can win games

another top 5, Yugami-kun wa Tomodachi ga Inai (Yugami Doesn't Have Any Friends). Ace of the baseball team marches to the beat of his own drum and has very particular ideas on how society should work. Pure joy on every page. Essentially rakugo in manga form

Hinamatsuri. Top 5. Psychokinetic girl from the future lands in pottery-obsessed yakuza's apartment and takes control of his entire life. Manages to learn how to be a normal human. One of the funniest things i've ever read

Yamikin Ushijima-kun. Not for the faint of heart. Ushijima is a loan shark, and this series follows the people who borrow money as their lives spiral downward. Lots of social criticism here. Ushijima has his own sense of morality but this is a brutal but powerful read.

Koroshiya Ichi, or Ichi the Killer. You've seen the movie (maybe) but now read the manga it's based on. It's gory. It's disgusting. The worst of humanity. Watch as the ultimate sadist and the ultimate masochist clash. Do not read if sexual assault or gore are an issue.

Angel Densetsu. Nicest guy in the world has a terrifying face and deals with the various misunderstandings it causes. Very funny. Art can be a little rough but it grows on you. By the creator of Claymore, Yagi Norihiro

One Piece. Needs no introduction. If you haven't already read it you're probably stupid. You can change that by reading it right now.

Bakuon Rettou. Tale of a bosozoku motorcycle gang set in the 1980s. Youthful rebellion, brawls, joy and tragedy. I revisit this series once a year or so.

Wa ga Na wa Umishi. A special interest style manga about a salvage ship and her crew. I learned a lot about the rules and techniques of open sea ship salvage so it's really interesting.

Hikaru no Go. A very special series for me. Kid finds his grandpa's Go board in the attic and discovers it is haunted by the ghost of a famous murdered Go master. Learns to love the game as the ghost plays through him, and then on his own terms.

Noramimi. You know Doraemon? Imagine a world where there's thousands of "mascots" who need help finding jobs in the homes of kids across Japan. Some are more desired than others. Nobody really cares for Noramimi's gimmick so he helps others find homes or resolve problems. Sweet.

Survival. By Golgo 13 creator Saigo Takao. Japan experiences an insane natural disaster and a boy has to learn how to survive on his own. A much older series so it has a lot of the tropes endemic to that time period but I love it anyway.

Boku to Issho. Three idiots do stupid shit and face the consequences. Hysterical. Just total fucking idiots.

Sumire 16-sai!! OK bear with me. Stereotypical high school girl Sumire is an elaborate puppet controlled by a silent middle aged man. All the other kids notice but the adults are blind to it. Chaos ensues. However, "her" earnestness grows on them over time.

Sakamoto desu ga? Another entry in the school life genre, the coolest teenager in the entire world navigates the problems experienced by his decidedly less cool classmates and the adults in their lives. Very funny and weird.

Ressentiment. This series is not for everyone. By the creator of popular zombie manga I Am a Hero, Kengo Hanazawa, a fat pathetic loser buys a VR girlfriend kit and finds she's not quite the compliant partner he thought she would be. Going to explain this one more for context

Black Jack ni Yoroshiku. Medical drama. Powerful. Heartbreaking and heart fixing. Huge indictment on Japan's medical system. One of my all time favorites. Might have cried once or twice.

Kingdom. Peasant orphan who is little more than a slave has a chance encounter with the Emperor of Qin and rises through the ranks to become a General in Ancient China. Truly fantastic.

Golden Kamuy. A Russo-Japanese war veteran and Ainu girl, among other fucking weirdos, attempt to find a hidden treasure mapped out on the skins of convicts. Has a little bit of everything. You learn a lot about animal poop. I love it so much.

Hanaotoko, by the author of Ping Pong Matsumoto Taiyou. A studious and very serious young boy goes to live with his baseball obsessed Homer Simpson-esque dad over the summer and might just find some respect for his generally ridiculous old man. Has one of the best endings around.

Skip to Loafer. A bumpkin from the country with big dreams heads to the city for her high school life. Very wholesome and heartwarming, one of my favorites to come out in the past few years

Just gonna call this one Kaguya-sama for brevity. Two model students who have crushes on each other aren't willing to lose face by being the first to confess, so they try to trick the other into doing it first. All the awkwardness of youth with a ton of comedy.

Pyuu to Fuku! Jaguar. Bizarre man named Jaguar who really likes to play the recorder enters young Piyohiko's life and generally ruins it. Gag manga. Bizarre and hysterical. I have a t-shirt of Jaguar if that's any kind of endorsement

Hyougemono. Historical manga about an aesthete's rise to head tea master in the time of Nobunaga. He gets boners from really ugly (by our standards) pottery and tea sets. Incredibly expressive faces which I post on here a lot.

Berserk. Dark Western style fantasy. Might be my number one of all time. What else is there to say? No Souls games without it. Hard to understate the influence it has had over the years. Will it ever end? Who knows. Doesn't matter. I read multiple times a year.

Sekitou Elegy. Romance/slice of life. Sort of pathetic boy meets aggressive and difficult girl. Like all youthful romance it goes through fits and starts.

Ookiku Furikabutte. Baseball manga. Ace pitcher is a wuss and a pushover. His catcher is aggressive and demanding. Japanese women like to imagine them fucking. But what you're getting is the most detailed baseball manga out there as almost every pitch and play gets broken down.

Blue Period. This series has taken the manga world by storm and won some prestigious awards lately. Guy joins the art club at high school and decides he wants to try to pass the entrance exam to the most elite art school in the country. Really good look into the fine art world.

Uchuu Kyoudai, or Space Brothers. Engineer Mutta gets fired from his auto design job for headbutting a superior while his younger brother is an astronaut for JASA. At his urging he belatedly follows his own dream of going to space. Tons of fun.

Oyasumi Punpun. By the great Asano Inio. A boy, depicted as a crude bird, tries to grow up in a pretty cruel world. Just read it. You'll thank me later. Asano pushes the limits of the medium and is among one of its brightest stars.

Pluto. Naoki Urasawa's take on a classic Astro Boy story. Someone is murdering the strongest robots in the world and a detective has to find out why. Much like the rest of his work, it's incredible.

20th Century Boys, also by Urasawa. When Kenji starts to see a symbol he and his friends created when they were kids around town, and learns it's associated with a burgeoning cult, they're thrown into a world-changing series of events. Hugely formative for teenage me.

Monster. An all time thriller classic. Japanese Doctor Tenma prioritizes saving the life of a German child over the life of an elite, a decision which has disastrous consequences years later.

Hajime no Ippo. Boxing. At over 129 volumes and counting, this longtime staple doesn't break any new ground, but it's a really fun read. Ippo's gym mate and friend Takamura is one of the greatest characters in all manga.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. You've probably heard of it. It has like nine iterations in a generally shared universe, and what most have in common are clever battles of wits and strength fought with Stands, essentially psychokinetic projections of a person's willpower.

Witch Hat Atelier. BRANSON DO NOT READ THIS. A young girl's mother is frozen by magic and she is taken in by a witch (a dude but they're all witches) to learn how to use magic and hopefully save her mom. Incredible art. Becoming very popular.

Vinland Saga. History. VIKINGS. BATTLES. A DRUNKEN PRIEST WHO IS WISER THAN HE FIRST APPEARS. Great action series. Western historical mangas have been knocking it out of the park for a few years in a way American comics haven't.

Piano no Mori. By-the-books son of an accomplished pianist moves to a new town where he encounters a poor and chaotic boy who only knows of music through a broken piano he found in the woods. Both of them grow up and follow the path of the piano.

Kids on the Slope. Another by-the-books pianist moves to a seaside town and discovers both a talent and love for jazz thanks to a free spirited drummer, set in 70s Japan amid the student protests.

Ao Ashi. A selfish and raw big fish in a little pond striker gets scouted by the manager of a J League youth team and finds his way to Tokyo. Incredibly informative about soccer tactics and strategy, I'd never really thought about the game on a technical level until reading this.

Giant Killing. A former star player for a J League club comes back to manage their struggling squad and whip them into a champion. Very solid soccer manga.

Capeta. Poor son of a single dad falls in love with kart racing and dreams of driving an F1 car. If you love motorsports, especially F1, this is the series for you.

Houkago Teibou Nisshi. Happy girl learns to fish. Girl makes friends. Friends enjoy calmly catching fish and learning how to clean and cook them. There's a lot about fish. Wholesome, fun, relaxing. What a nice group of girls.

Nicola no Oyururi Makai Kikou. A human girl wanders around a world of monsters and demons (a place where humans are not welcome and usually eaten) but it turns out you can't really judge books by their covers. Very sweet and great art.

Silver Spoon, from the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist. City slicker Yugo enrolls in agricultural school in Hokkaido for reasons even he doesn't entirely understand. Very informative about farming and everything that goes into putting food on the table.

Kenrantaru Grande Scene, a ballet manga. A young girl is inspired to take up ballet after seeing a performance that moved her heart, but, unsurprisingly, it's not that easy to make it in the world of ballet.

Ad Astra. Scipio. Hannibal. Rome. Carthage. I wasn't kidding before when I said manga is really doing some awesome stuff with Western history.

Haikyuu!! Short in stature but big on passion Hinata desperately wants to play competitive volleyball but has never had a serious team around him, until now. But he'll have to jive with the ultra serious and talented Kageyama, whose rough personality doesn't do much for teamwork.

Kuutei Dragons. Welcome to a fantastical world where dragons are sort of like whales, and the story follows a "whaling" ship that hunts dragons (which happen to taste very good.) Bit of a cooking manga like Dungeon Meshi with swashbuckling adventure included

Zetman. Orphan Jin lives a happy life, but one on the edge, and his mysterious past eventually catches up with him. Absolutely incredible art, briskly paced, something of an homage to Devilman, but grounded in a more sci-fi setting. Just re-read recently and it still holds up.

Kannou-sensei. Bridgerton? Get outta here. This series follows a literary writer who, after falling for a quiet waitress at a cafe, finds himself inspired to write erotica. Steamy historical romance. Beautiful art. Don't let your friends see you reading it over your shoulder.

Don't Mess with Eizouken! Ah man, one of the most welcome hits in recent years. Three girls, bound together by a love of anime, try to make their wildest dreams a reality through the power of animation. Quirky and fun. Read it.

Detroit Metal City. Happy-go-lucky musician Negishi just wants to make happy-go-lucky music but when he gets roped into becoming the lead of a metal band, it turns out that's where his real talents lie. Don't get mad at me for problematic content. It's still funny. Not my problem

BECK. Quiet, normal guy Koyuki learns how to play guitar and joins a band. Turns out he can sing real good too. It's a bit more complicated than that. Favorite of teenage me and @charlesraustin. I based my early college fashion sense on a character from this series (sigh)

Drifting Classroom. Seminal horror manga. Basically a school gets transported to a time that might be the future and it's filled with danger and monsters. Great series if you like watching children die.

Me and the Devil Blues. You know Prison School, the horny manga? Well the author of this did that to pay the bills so he could make this series. Follows Robert Johnson and his deal with the devil as he crosses paths with Clyde Barrow and a town filled with serial killer racists.