Top 10 Must-Read Manga
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There are incredible manga that leave a lasting impression thanks to their narrative depth, graphic power, or human impact. In this article, I share ten works that moved me deeply and that I believe everyone should read at least once in a lifetime. Too often, we miss out on real gems simply because no one pointed us toward them.
Enjoy this top 10 selection!
10. March Comes in Like a Lion – Chica Umino
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Author: Chica Umino
Published: 2007 – ongoing (Young Animal) / Kana
Volumes: 17+ (ongoing)
This manga tells the story of Rei Kiriyama, a quiet and withdrawn teenager who became a professional shōgi (Japanese chess) player at a young age. Beneath his calm exterior, Rei is deeply broken by grief, isolation, and pressure. After losing his parents, he’s taken in by a foster family where intellectual competition turns into a cold war. Running away from that home, he drifts into a dull and silent life, caught between meaningless shōgi matches and everyday loneliness.
One day, he meets three sisters — Akari, Hinata, and Momo Kawamoto — who live modestly with their grandfather. Their spontaneous kindness, shared meals, and visible wounds slowly bring Rei back to life. The series never seeks cheap emotion: it observes, it follows, it takes its time. Every side character is treated with rare care, whether it’s a shōgi rival, a teacher, or a neighbor.
Visually, Chica Umino blends expressive delicacy with powerful metaphoric scenes (water, mental storms, heavy silences) and airy layouts that convey both suffocation and relief. Far from grand epic narratives, March Comes in Like a Lion is a manga about inner healing, step by step, at the pace of a human life.
9. Ashita no Joe – Ikki Kajiwara & Tetsuya Chiba
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Authors: Ikki Kajiwara (story), Tetsuya Chiba (art)
Published: 1968–1973 (Weekly Shōnen Magazine) / Glénat
Volumes: 20 (completed)
Published between 1968 and 1973, Ashita no Joe is much more than a boxing manga: it's a social phenomenon and a foundational work of dramatic manga. Joe Yabuki, a drifting youth with no direction or future, survives in Tokyo’s slums. Violent, impulsive, but with raw instinct, he crosses paths with Danpei, a washed-up former boxer who sees exceptional potential in him. Thus begins a slow transformation — that of an angry boy into a dignified fighter.
But the heart of the manga isn’t victory. Ashita no Joe portrays a marginalized, enraged, often sacrificed youth. Joe is no idealized hero — he’s a battered body, a burning soul, whose every fight is an existential battle against abandonment, fate, and social erasure. His matches against Rikiishi and Carlos Rivera are dramatic peaks where technique matters less than what’s at stake: honor, self-worth, the meaning of life.
Tetsuya Chiba’s expressive, flexible art perfectly mirrors Joe’s evolution — from hard features to emaciated form. The story by Ikki Kajiwara is saturated with tension between ideals and downfall, in a Japan still haunted by postwar scars and social inequality.
8. The Book of Human Insects – Osamu Tezuka
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Author: Osamu Tezuka
Published: 1970 (Play Comic) / Kana
Volumes: 1 (one-shot)
Often called the “God of Manga,” Osamu Tezuka is best known for his humanist stories and radiant heroes. Yet The Book of Human Insects reveals a darker side of his genius — a cynical, disturbing work. Published in 1970, this one-shot follows Toshiko Tomura, an elusive woman who amasses talents, careers, and accolades… by leeching off those around her. She’s a novelist, actress, designer, speaker — and behind every success lies a forgotten victim.
The manga dissects the machinery of social ambition in a rapidly changing Japan, where modernity hides invisible brutality. Toshiko isn’t just a manipulator — she is a symbol of perfect mimicry and cultural parasitism. Tezuka probes questions of identity as performance, of image as destructive power. His sharp, vivid art heightens the contrast between refined appearances and moral violence.
Through her, an entire world unravels: media, cultural elites, gender dynamics, strategic sexuality. Nothing escapes critique. Far from moralizing, Tezuka leaves us facing a dark mirror — that of a society willing to consume anything, even the human soul.
7. The Climber (Kokou no Hito) – Shinichi Sakamoto
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Authors: Shinichi Sakamoto (art), Yoshio Nabeta (story)
Published: 2007–2012 (Weekly Young Jump) / Delcourt-Tonkam
Volumes: 17 (completed)
The Climber is loosely based on the life of Buntarō Katō, a famous Japanese mountaineer known for his solo climbs in extreme conditions. The manga follows Mori Buntarō, a quiet and withdrawn teenager who stumbles upon climbing by chance. He quickly turns away from school competitions and embraces pure alpinism: icy cliffs, suspended bivouacs, silence, and cold. It is here, in the vertical void, that he truly confronts both the world — and himself.
Far from the typical sports manga, The Climber is a work of rare existential intensity. Every ascent becomes an inner dialogue, every cliff face a test of absolute solitude. The physical void reflects the emotional one. Shinichi Sakamoto's art is breathtaking: dizzying angles, mineral textures, faces ravaged by effort or doubt. Some silent chapters convey what words never could.
The manga never romanticizes the mountain. It is dangerous, indifferent, sometimes fatal. But that’s precisely where its beauty lies: in this quest for purity away from the world, closer to the self, far from the gaze of others.
6. Children of the Sea – Daisuke Igarashi
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Author: Daisuke Igarashi
Published: 2006–2011 (Ikki) / Sarbacane
Volumes: 5 (complete)
In Children of the Sea, Daisuke Igarashi weaves a poetic, enigmatic, and deeply sensory tale. The story begins with Ruka, a rebellious and angry middle school girl who is suspended from her handball club. She spends her summer days at the aquarium where her father works, until she meets Umi and Sora, two mysterious boys who seem to come straight from the sea. Their bodies emit a strange glow. They swim with sea creatures as if they were one of them. And above all, they perceive things humans have long forgotten.
As the chapters progress, the boundary between science (astrophysics, biology, oceanography) and the spiritual blurs. Ocean currents, whale songs, meteorites, and primitive life forms intertwine in a narrative that transcends the characters themselves. Ruka, searching for meaning, becomes the witness to a cosmic event where the sea appears as the origin and destiny of all life.
Visually, the manga is astonishingly rich. Every page seems to breathe, to vibrate with the motion of water, the light of the abyss, the textures of living beings. Igarashi alternates realistic scenes and cosmogonic visions with total freedom. The narrative flows through associations, streams, and ellipses, like a dream or a bottomless dive.
5. Nijigahara Holograph – Inio Asano
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Author: Inio Asano
Published: 2003–2005 (QuickJapan) / Kana
Volumes: 1 (one-shot)
Nijigahara Holograph is perhaps one of Inio Asano’s most mysterious and disturbing works. On the surface, it starts with a disturbing event: a girl pushed into a well by her classmates in a small Japanese town. But quickly, this starting point transforms into a narrative labyrinth. Time fractures, memories conflict, identities blur. The story jumps forward, back, and sideways. The reader becomes disoriented — and that’s intentional.
The world of the manga is haunted by an ancient legend — that of a giant butterfly that foretells the end of the world. This figure, both mythological and symbolic, lingers in the minds of children-turned-adults, all scarred by the original trauma. The story sheds light on the invisible consequences of school violence, adult silence, and the evil that keeps spreading long after the facts.
Graphically, Asano deploys stunning realism in the backgrounds, facial expressions, empty stares, or tense glances. Each page feels weighted, each panel loaded with silent intensity. Nothing is gratuitous, yet nothing is obvious. This is not a manga you simply understand — it’s one you endure, feel, and carry with you.
4. Akira – Katsuhiro Otomo
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Author: Katsuhiro Otomo
Published: 1982–1990 (Weekly Young Magazine) / Glénat
Volumes: 6 (bound edition) / 120 chapters
Published between 1982 and 1990, Akira is Katsuhiro Otomo’s monumental work that redefined sci-fi manga far beyond Japan. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo rebuilt after a nuclear explosion. The city is plagued by crime, cults, and social tension. Amid the chaos, two teenagers — Kaneda and Tetsuo, members of a biker gang — get caught up in top-secret military experiments.
Tetsuo, used as an unwilling test subject, develops devastating psychic powers that lead him into megalomania and destruction. Kaneda tries to stop him, in a fraternal clash that is both personal and epic. But Akira is more than a duel: it is a political fresco about power, fear, surveillance, social collapse, and youthful revolt. Mysticism merges with technocracy, transcendence with concrete.
Otomo’s artwork is stunningly precise. Every urban plan is hypnotically detailed. The environments, machines, and explosions pulse with violent, controlled energy — where clean lines meet punk fury. Not a single panel is wasted. His mastery of movement, sound, silence, and framing is cinematic.
3. Monster – Naoki Urasawa
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Author: Naoki Urasawa
Published: 1994–2001 (Big Comic Original) / Kana
Volumes: 18 (complete)
With Monster, Naoki Urasawa delivers one of the most ambitious psychological thrillers in modern manga. In post–Cold War Germany, Japanese neurosurgeon Dr. Kenzo Tenma makes a moral decision that will alter his life: he saves a young boy shot in the head — Johan Liebert — instead of the city’s mayor. What he doesn't know is that this seemingly calm and innocent child will grow up to be a murderer of rare intelligence — a “monster” with no face or clear motive.
From then on, Tenma finds himself hunted by the police — and by his own guilt. He sets out on a long journey across Germany and the Czech Republic to stop the boy he once saved and now feels responsible for. What begins as a crime story soon becomes a deep exploration of morality, guilt, psychological manipulation, and radical evil.
Urasawa crafts his story with surgical precision. Influenced by 20th-century European literature, the series weaves together a rich cast of secondary characters, complex subplots, and meaningful silences. The pacing is slow, precise, and tense — never flashy, always gripping. His realistic and expressive art, combined with masterful paneling, builds a palpable world where every glance and word matters.
2. A Drifting Life – Yoshihiro Tatsumi
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Author: Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Published: 2008 (Seirin Kogeisha) / Cornélius
Volumes: 1 (autobiographical one-shot, 840 pages)
A Drifting Life (Gekiga Hyōryū) is a deeply moving autobiographical work that spans over fifteen years of the life of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, a foundational figure of *gekiga* — the branch of manga that broke away from humor and innocence to explore more adult, serious, and realistic tones. The story begins in 1945, at the end of World War II, in an exhausted Japan, and follows the artistic awakening of young Hiroshi (Tatsumi’s alter ego), his doubts, solitude, and decisive encounters — especially with Osamu Tezuka.
Through Hiroshi’s early struggles as a manga artist, the entire evolution of manga is told from the inside: children’s magazines, the rise of adult magazines, financial instability for creators, cinematic influences, and the fight to exist within a ruthless publishing world. But A Drifting Life is more than historical account — it’s also a meditation on time, vocation, and identity. The passion for drawing is portrayed as both refuge and burden.
The graphic style is intentionally simple and linear, matching the unembellished honesty of the storytelling. Everything rests on the accuracy of observation and sincerity. The manga alternates between intimate moments and reflections on the art form’s development, offering a rich testimony for anyone interested in the history of Japanese comics.
1. Pluto – Naoki Urasawa & Osamu Tezuka
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Authors: Naoki Urasawa & Osamu Tezuka (original concept)
Published: 2003–2009 (Big Comic Original) / Kana
Volumes: 8 (complete)
With Pluto, Naoki Urasawa pays homage to Osamu Tezuka while reinterpreting his work with unprecedented gravity. The story is based on the “The Greatest Robot on Earth” arc from the original Astro Boy manga, but where Tezuka offered a classic sci-fi tale, Urasawa transforms it into a dark, introspective tragedy.
The plot follows Gesicht, a high-ranking robot detective tasked with investigating a series of murders targeting the world's most powerful robots and their human creators. What could be a straightforward thriller soon becomes a profound reflection on consciousness, memory, war trauma, grief, and hatred. The robots in Pluto cry, doubt, love — and sometimes kill — and it is in their troubling humanity that the story’s strength lies.
True to his style, Urasawa builds a slow, meticulous narrative where every chapter raises a new moral dilemma. His realistic, expressive artwork perfectly conveys the story’s quiet tension. The reader is drawn into a world where artificial intelligence is not just a narrative tool but a mirror reflecting our own human contradictions.
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