Spotlight on Kodansha Comics: 10 Lesser-Known Manga Series We Love

Tokyo Tarareba Girls, by Akiko Higashimura
It’s smart, it’s funny, and it won the 2019 Eisner Award for best U.S. edition of an Asian graphic novel. Tokyo Tarareba Girls is Sex in the City for the rest of us: A trio of young women with so-so jobs get together to drink and complain about their lives. One of the trio, Rinko, drinks so much that the bar snacks start scolding her, and when a handsome stranger chimes in with some tart commentary of his own, she defiantly decides she will be married by the time the Olympics come to Tokyo in 2020. Higashimura is the creator of Princess Jellyfish, and she brings the same quirky wit and endearing characters to a slightly more mature story in this josei manga, now complete at nine volumes.

Witch Hat Atelier, by Kamome Shirahana
Coco is an ordinary girl who helps her widowed mother with her dry-goods shop, until one day she gets hold of a magic book and accidentally turns her mother and her home into stone. That’s the fairy-tale beginning to this magical-school story, which has an old-fashioned visual style reminiscent of Arts and Crafts, but a very manga sensibility to the story, complete with good friends, mean girls, and some shadowy doings by the grownups in the background. It’s an all-ages tale engaging enough for children and sophisticated enough for adults, which is no mean feat!

A Silent Voice, by Yoshitoki Oima
This shonen school romance presents a really different take on both bullying and disability. Shoya is the kind of kid who is addicted to excitement, and if there’s no trouble going on at the moment, he has to stir up some. When Shoko, a deaf girl, transfers to his school, he gets an irresistible urge to pick on her—but when he goes too far, the tables are turned and the bully becomes the bullied. Eventually, depressed and friendless, he decides to commit suicide, but before he does, he wants to apologize to Shoko. When he meets her again, though, things take an unexpected turn. Oima has real talent for depicting feelings and emotions, and the people in this manga talk and act like real people, not characters. It’s a moving story and well worth reading all seven volumes (also available in a box set).

Again!!, by Mitsurou Kubo
Kubo, one of the creators of the anime Yuri on Ice!!, brings her considerable talents to high school drama in this series and manages to come up with a couple of new twists on the time travel formula along the way. It starts with graduation day for Kinichiro, who has somehow managed to make it all the way through high school without making any friends, falling in love, or doing much of anything, really. A couple of chance occurrences at the beginning of school led everyone to believe he was some sort of delinquent and shun him. After falling down a flight of stairs, he gets a do-over—somehow he and one of the most popular girls in school are both transported back to the beginning of freshman year. Kinichiro acts on an impulse he ignored the first time around and joins the ouendan team, a sort of stylized cheerleading squad led, at this particular school, by an overly pushy girl. Temporal shenanigans, teen drama, and an unusual sport make for a compelling combination.

Vinland Saga, by Makoto Yukimura
Winter is coming, and Vinland Saga is a great binge read for the cold months. It really has something for everyone: Action-packed battles, painstakingly researched period detail, double-crossing and intrigue, hot guys and pretty girls, philosophical asides, and absolutely stunning art. I wrote here about my love of this series four years ago, and my ardor hasn’t dimmed since. It’s gory, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s beautiful—truly a series not to be missed.

Descending Stories, by Haruko Kumota
Descending Stories is set in the world of rakugo, or traditional Japanese storytelling. It starts when a young man is released from prison and shows up at the doorstep of the famed rakugo master Yakumo Yurakutei. Yakumo never takes students, but he gruffly makes an exception for the young man, whom he nicknames Yotaro (fool). His ward, Konatsu, is even less enthusiastic about Yotaro; as the daughter of Yakumo’s former partner and rival, she has plenty of issues of her own, and the last thing she needs is this guy barging in. The story winds through Yakumo’s history and follows him to performances, showcasing the art of rakugo while also presenting a tantalizing mystery about the death of Konatsu’s father.

Complex Age, by Yui Sakuma
Nagisa Kataura loves cosplay, but at 26, she’s embarrassed about her hobby, so she keeps it in the closet (literally)—except when she’s attending conventions or doing photo shoots with her best friend. Just because you’re a grownup doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of drama behind the scenes, though. This short (six volumes) series is a slice-of-life story about someone with an unusual life, with a sprinkling of fun facts about costume construction thrown in for good measure.

Ichi-F, by Kazuto Tatsuta
Tatsuta takes readers beyond the gates of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was damaged in the earthquake that hit Japan in 2011. The disaster caused not one but three meltdowns, and much of the power plant was still a hot zone when Tatsuta signed up to work there. As a cleanup worker, he spent almost as much time suiting up as actually doing his job, and he could only work for six months at a time before hitting the maximum radiation dose. This remarkable book, which combines the original two volumes into a thick omnibus, chronicles Tatsuta’s daily routine at the plant as well as his interactions with his employers, his co-workers, and the residents of the area. It’s a fascinating story about science, health, labor practices, and politics, all told through the eyes of an ordinary working stiff.

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, by Junji Ito
Junji Ito is the master of Japanese horror, with books such as Smashed and Uzumaki to his credit, and the joke in this book is that he brings his eyeball-melting, over-the-top style to the domestic tribulations of… house cats. When Ito’s fiancée A-ko moves in with him, she brings along her two cats, Yon and Mu, and suddenly nothing will ever be the same again: Ito is not at all sure about the cats, and they don’t have much time for him, but over a series of short chapters, they do achieve a sort of détente. Ito doesn’t work the joke too hard and comes up with different spins, so this short volume never seems too long.

No. 6, by Atsuko Asano and Hinoki Kino
This is one of Kodansha’s first series, but it still feels fresh. Shion is an elite student headed for a stellar career in a city where nothing bad ever happens—but then he helps a stranger and everything goes haywire. Said stranger, known as Rat, is unregistered and therefore an outlaw, and he brings Shion some hard truths about the world outside his carefully tended city. Eventually Shion winds up in the no-man’s land beyond the walls, and, helped by Rat’s technology and some new friends, he starts to unravel the mystery at the heart of the world he left behind. This story has smooth art, unforgettable characters, and some cool technological twists that make it a fun read through all nine volumes.

To Your Eternity, by Yoshitoki Oima
We also wanted to highlight a second work by one of the creators above, if only because she manages to do something completely different without sacrificing the qualities that made the first selection unmissable. In fact, we might go so far as to suggest Yoshitoki Oima is following up A Silent Voice with an even more amazing manga, one that is enigmatic and soulful and at times heartbreaking. It begins with some sort of being descending to earth and taking on various forms, learning from each form—a rock, a wolf—and then moving on to the next. As a wolf, it becomes the companion of a boy who has been abandoned in a remote village, then takes on the body of the boy when he dies and goes off to explore the world, dying and coming back again and always becoming more and more human. Oima’s art is beautiful and her story is gripping, so much so that this book is hard to put down.