Plus-sized Misadventures in Love! is a charming, original manga that rises above the usual formulas, and not just because the heroine looks different. At the beginning, the main character, Yumeko, is miserable. But after a serious bump to her head, everything changes. In real life, …Read more »
Kitaro mixes horror, weirdness and humor in a unique formula. The main character, Kitaro, is a strange little boy whose father lives in his eye socket . . . in fact, his father is an eye with a tiny body, arms and legs underneath. And …Read more »
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku is a manga series about otaku having relationships, but it’s also just a love letter to geekdom. The main character, Narumi, has lost each of her relationships after her boyfriends find out she’s an otaku. More specifically, she’s a …Read more »
Sweat and Soap started out as a digital-only one-shot and became so popular it’s now a print series — with a live-action adaptation in Japan. It starts with an unusual premise: Asako is a very timid, 26-year-old virgin who is mortified by how much she …Read more »
The Invisible Man and His Soon-To-Be-Wife is an unusual office romance story. Tounome is the head of a detective agency. He also happens to be invisible. You can see his suit and clothes, and if he gets cut he’ll drip blood, but you’ll never see …Read more »
The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices is an isekai manga about a young Japanese woman who dies and is reincarnated into her favorite BL light novel series. The series in question takes place in a European-style realm, and the main character has been reborn as …Read more »
Barbarities is a boys’ love manga taking place in a Renaissance-esque world. Joel Montague, the very serious nephew of an important lord, gets stuck being around Adam Canning, the blond-haired playboy who’s now working as a guard for Joel’s uncle. Adam is aptly described as …Read more »
Gap Papa: Daddy at Work and at Home is a sweet-natured, idealistic, slice-of-life manga about a father, mother and young daughter. Their names aren’t given. The father goes into work each day where he is serious—so serious, in fact, that the people there think he …Read more »
Honey Lemon Soda is an all-out shojo manga. The main character, a shy girl named Uka Ishimori, is new to high school and wants to make her dreams come true. She has no friends, and is painfully awkward around others. Her parents are helicopter parents …Read more »
The manga series Captain Corinth: The Galactic Navy Officer Becomes an Adventurer is based on web novels. This science fiction story takes place many years in the future, and the main character, Alan Corinth, is in deep space. When something goes awry, he ends up …Read more »
Komura is a fourteen-year-old boy who has a crush on Mie, the girl who sits next to him. But she has this issue of forgetting to bring her glasses, and then she’s as blind as a bat. For instance, she’ll think Komura’s shoes are hers, …Read more »
I Don’t Understand What My Sister’s Friend Is Thinking is a laid-back slice-of-life manga. The main character, a teenage boy, really doesn’t know what his sister’s friend is thinking. His sister, Chie, likes to bring her friend Tsuyu around. Tsuyu stares at the protagonist like …Read more »
My Stepsister Who Tells Me to Die Every Day Tries to Hypnotize Me So I would Fall for Her…! is a manga with a long title that tells you the basic setup. Ichigaya Aoto is a high schooler who moonlights as a light novelist, and …Read more »
The Shonen Jump Guide to Making Manga was put together by the editorial staff at Shonen Jump and has interviews with some of the most famous mangaka in the world. The book is a mixture of panels and prose. It opens with a short manga …Read more »
MoMo – the blood taker- opens with a grisly murder scene: a couple has been chopped up and then arranged on their dining table. And, yes, this is the genre of manga that shows you exactly that and doesn’t simply hint at it. Mikogami Keigo …Read more »
Danica Davidson
