13 Addictive Ongoing Manga Series
Last week we shared some of our favorite “one-shot” single-volume manga from the past year—but manga that tell an entire story in a single book certainly aren’t the usual way of doing things. And that’s just fine: we love a compact story, well told, but there’s just something about following the same characters and storylines for years (and decades) that makes the format as addictive as a never-ending Netflix binge. Though some of our favorite series have ended recently (farewell, Naruto; adios, Fairy Tail; ’til we meet again, Tokyo Ghoul) we still buy stacks of continuing series, released at a rate of every month or two. While some manga sag or repeat themselves after a few years (often as popular demand and demanding editors keep the creators working on the same stories far too long) the series below avoid the slump, delivering the manga goods volume after volume.
One Piece, by Eiichiro Oda
The grandaddy of all currently publishing shonen manga, and the bestselling manga series of all time: what more accolades can one heap upon One Piece? How about this: an astonishing twenty years and 85 volumes in, the story of wannabe pirate king Monkey D. Luffy and his fellow misfits about the good ship Merry Go has lost none of its oddball charm, even as the plotting grows ever more complex and self-referential, rewarding those who have been following since the beginning or reread each volume multiple times. It’s hard to say what’s more appealing, the larger-than-life characters, or the sheer nuttiness of the anything-goes world they inhabit. There’s no telling when Oda will reach the end of this journey, but we’ll be with him every step of the way.
My Hero Academia, by Kohei Horikoshi
My Hero Academia is a superhero story with a twist—lots of twists, actually. Almost everyone in the manga has some sort of superpower, but most of the superpowers are really weird, and some don’t seem particularly useful. Into this world comes Izuki Midoriya, known as Deku to his classmates, who is sort of a superhero otaku: he has no superpowers himself, but he obsessively studies the world of superheroes and knows everything about them. Also, like all good shonen heroes, he has a lot of heart. When the greatest superhero in the world notices him and bestows his own superpower on him, Deku’s life changes, and he manages to get into UA, the elite superhero academy. After that, the manga becomes one big playground for the imagination of manga-ka Kohei Horikoshi, who is obviously having a lot of fun coming up with oddball superpowers for the students and ever-stranger villains for them to do battle against. It’s ridiculous, and ridiculously fun.
Tokyo Ghoul: re, by Sui Ishida
In just 14 volumes, Sui Ishida’s Tokyo Ghoul became an international sensation, regularly claiming multiple slots of the list of bestselling manga in the U.S. on the strength of a popular manga and super compelling storytelling. The series considers the plight of a race of flesh-eating Ghouls who live alongside humans in modern Japan, and focusing in particular on young Ken Kaneki, who is turned into a sort of half-ghoul via a botched organ transplant and must figure out how to live between two worlds and stay one step ahead of the ghoul investigators tasked with keeping humans from becoming dinner. Nd no sooner had that series ended, than Ishida launched this followup, which is a direct sequel that also works as a standalone. Set two years later, Tokyo Ghoul: re puts a new spin on the never-ending struggle of ghouls against the investigators. In this story, the Commission on Counter Ghoul is tinkering with a new weapon—they implant a ghoul organ, a kagune, into humans in order to give them ghoul powers. No spoilers here, but Ishida has carried over many of the things that made the original series such a success, including a large ensemble cast with varied personalities and a plot that explores the question of what it means to be human—or a ghoul.
Attack on Titan, by Hajime Isayama
Attack on Titanis insanely popular, a mainstay on the bestseller charts. Not only that, but the first volume keeps charting, meaning more people are getting drawn into the story all the time. The villains of this story are giant creatures who are the living embodiment of pointless destruction: All they do is eat people. (It should go without saying that this is a very gory manga.) They are super weird looking, which actually makes them pretty scary, but they are also clumsy and stupid (except for a handful of abnormal specimens with special powers). They don’t seem to feel pain, and they are almost impossible to kill. To escape the Titans, humans have taken refuge in city protected by three concentric walls. The walls have been there for 100 years, so long that no one knows where they came from. The Survey Corps that defends the walls acts as humanity’s last line of defense, and the story follows a few key members through their work for the Corps and their investigation into the Titans’ origins. And that’s just the setup; nearing two dozen volumes in, things have only gotten weirder.
Food Wars, by Yuto Tsukada and Shun Saeki
Somo Yukihura used to help out in his father’s restaurant, until the day his father disappeared, and Somo wound up in an elite school for would-be chefs. This series has a huge cast, and each student has a different background and set of talents. The school constantly pits them against one another in cooking competitions, and the range of variations that Tsukudo comes up with is truly amazing. Even more amazing is the visual effect that indicates a successful dish: when a taster really enjoys a particular food, their clothes fly off. This happens to lovely young girls and grizzly old men alike, and it’s a cute jab at the excesses of food writing. At the same time, the characters discuss cooking techniques and taste combinations with as the same earnestness as the professional foodies in Oishinbo. They just look a lot better doing it. Twenty volumes in, the series hasn’t even made it through Yukihara’s first year, so we’re expecting the creators to continue serving us up unique flavors for some time to come.
Barakamon, by Satsuki Yoshino
Satsuki Yoshino’s fish-out-of-water tale of a city-slicker calligrapher taking refuge on a rural island continues to be fresh, even 14 volumes in. What sounds like a one-joke premise actually has pretty good legs, as Yoshino is not afraid to mix things up a bit. In a recent volume, Handa, the calligrapher, returns to Tokyo for a visit, with the irrepressible little girl Naru in tow, and during his time away, he decides on a career change of sorts. He returns to the island with new purpose, and as usual, there are lots of misunderstandings. Running jokes, oversized personalities, and city mouse/country mouse humor make this series a great light read.
Assassination Classroom, by Yusei Matsui
Like Barakamon, Assassination Classroom has managed to avoid that mid-series sag. The reason: It’s only 21 volumes long, so manga-ka Yusei Matsui has to keep things moving. Thus we’ve had some big reveals in this year’s volumes, including the backstories of the school principal, one of the students, and the unkillable teacher Koro Sensei himself. For those who are just coming in, Assassination Classroom is a story about a class of losers who are assigned to kill their teacher—before he destroys the world. It’s good fun, filled with action and sly humor that often spoofs shonen manga tropes. The series ends in English in April, so you’ve got no excuse but to jump onboard now.
Princess Jellyfish, by Akiko Higashimura
Princess Jellyfish is a story about a group of super-nerdy women, each with her own little obsession (jellyfish, traditional Japanese culture, trains, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and a fearful disdain of all anyone or anything “stylish.” They all live together in Amamizukan, an apartment building set aside for women like them, until the brash, cross-dressing Kuranosuke Koibuchi, a.k.a. Kurako, comes crashing into their lives. Only the lead character, Tsukimi, knows he is male, but it soon becomes clear that he’s also wealthy and politically connected, and when the apartment building is threatened, he helps Tsukimi and her friends step out in public to save it. There’s action, romance, and plenty of humor as the sheltered women of the Amamizukan apartment building stretch out of their comfort zones and face up to the stylish people of the world in order to preserve their nerdy enclave.
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, by Akira Himekawa
The two-woman team known as Akira Himekawa are old Zelda hands, having written and drawn all the previous Zelda manga (now being collected by Viz as Legend of Zelda: Legendary Edition), and this new series gives them a chance to not only return to the world of Link but move into a darker realm. They briefly introduce the reader to the world of the story before sending Link off on his latest adventure, in which he turns into a wolf in order to follow his newest quest. As with the other Zelda manga, Himekawa add some elements of their own, fleshing out the story, rearranging the narration, and adding a few new characters. The result is something that is more than the game, and indeed, it’s a great read for those who have never played it or even read the earlier series.
A Bride’s Story, by Kaoru Mori
At this point, we’re seeing only one volume a year of Kaoru Mori’s tale of everyday life in Central Asia in the mid-19th century, but that’s understandable when you look at the art—she fills the panels with exquisitely detailed costumes and objects. The ornate embroidery is actually a focus of this year’s volume, as the strong-willed, nonconformist Pariya cannot marry her beloved until she finishes embroidering her trousseau, which is large and varied. What’s so impressive about Mori’s art is not its detail but its grace: Even a simple drawing of a kitten is filled with life and movement, and her deft draftsmanship keeps the detail from bogging down the action. The story itself really is little more than a slice-of-life tale—but oh what a life!
Kitaro, by Shigeru Mizuki
Drawn and Quarterly is bringing back Shigeru Mizuki’s classic yokai tales in small, stand-alone volumes. Yokai are the mischievous spirits of Japanese folklore, and Mizuki’s tales of the yokai boy Kitaro are filled with strange and imaginative twists. The stories were originally written for children, and they are still kid-friendly if a bit scarier than more recent kids’ comics, but their surrealistic quality will be best appreciated by adults. The most recent volume, Kitaro and The Great Tanuki War, is taken up almost entirely by the title story, in which the tanuki (“raccoon dogs” in English) try to take over Japan, with a plan to force all the women to work as maids and turn the men into sausage. In the ensuing struggle, American planes and battleships are defeated by a giant catfish, Kitaro is reduced to liquid but manages to invade the brain of the catfish, driving it out to the Arctic ocean where it freezes, and the tanuki are eventually turned to stone, with the help of a hydrogen bomb strike, and sealed underground. It’s all done with Mizuki’s signature combination of detailed backgrounds and battle scenes and cartoony characters, which makes it an unusual period piece.
Haikyu!!, by Haruichi Furudate
Sports manga isn’t for everyone, but this sagaof the ups and downs of an upstart small town high school volleyball team is hard to resist, and even if the only volleyball match you can remember watching is that one infamous scene in Top Gun, don’t let that stop you: this ebullient series has it where it counts. It ostenaibly follows Shoyo Hinata, an enthusiastic but unskilled player who joins the team of his dreams only to find that his bitterest rival, the talented but prickly Tobio Kageyama, has joined the same team. Despite their mutual distaste for each other, the boys quickly find they have a strange sort of chemistry that makes them much stronger together than they ever were apart. Hinata and Kageyama’s chemistry aside, Haikyu!! is the kind of manga where every single character gives you a reason to fall in love with them, and its sincere optimism, goofy sense of humor, and terrific energy bursts from every page. Plus, it will really teach you everything there is to know about volleyball, in the most engaging way possible.
One-Punch Man, by ONE and Yusuke Murata
The draw of One-Punch Man has always been that it both parodies and epitomizes the superhero manga genre; it delivers solid superhero action with totally ridiculous heroes and villains. It’s easy to imagine that the creative process consists of the writer ONE looking around his studio for everyday objects—a can of pineapple, say, or the dangling string from a light bulb—and handing the idea to Murata, who turns them into superheroes and villains. This year’s manga includes a totally new arena for the two to stretch their creative powers, when the lead character, Saitama, enrolls in a martial arts tournament and a whole new list of characters is introduced. There’s plenty of punching and plenty of laughs in this series, along with a peculiarly sardonic energy that never seems to flag.
What manga are on your must-list?