A Beginner's Guide to Manga (6/19/21 - 8/24/2023)

 I love manga. Some of the best stories I've ever read have been from manga, and I highly recommend at least reading some manga series to anyone who hasn't read manga before. This post is to hopefully serve as a guide to anyone who wants to get into manga, and also provide a lot of recommendations.

Before I start, I want to first also list off some pros that manga has over other mediums, such as film or novels, which also serve to explain why I love this medium so much.

First off, its a lot easier to enter the flow state while reading manga. In my experience, it always takes a few pages before I can become fully absorbed into a manga, and with manga you can also stop at any time, unlike something like a movie where you have to pay attention for around two hours straight. Manga as an industry is also not afraid of new ideas, and this results in both a lot of creative premises/storytelling and a very wide range of genres within manga. There will be a manga out there for anyone to enjoy, due to just the sheer amount of manga and variation within manga. Similar to animation, having pictures along with words also allows for certain messages or stories to exist that are exclusive to manga. Attack on Titan, for example, probably wouldn't work as well as a novel (the portrayal of titans wouldn't be as impactful), but it probably also wouldn't work as well as a live action (because how would you portray the insane things that happen within the manga in live action?).


Also, manga is usually also paced in an engaging manner. This is because most manga runs either weekly or monthly, and the creators of the manga need to make every single chapter engaging. This means that often times there are mini-cliffhangers or moments of tension at the ends of every chapter that make it really hard to put the manga down.


This is both a blessing and a curse however. Novels don't need to keep you actively engaged at every moment, so it is more possible for novels to actually take their time and introduce things that although may seem boring at the moment actually pay off later. (an example of a novel taking their time is a certain chapter in the Witcher book saga that is completely dedicated to the history of one nation. It was kind of boring to read at the time, but ultimately I was glad the author spent so much time on just this one thing because it added a lot to the worldbuilding, and when the story began to take place in this certain setting I was already familiar with all the things within the setting).


Of course, like any other medium, manga has its own problems. Manga is written on a weekly schedule, which means that authors don't always get to follow through on their intentions. It's a complete grind for the author and that can be evident in certain works, especially towards the end.


Before going onto the list, I'd like to first introduce a few terms, which you can just skip over if you'd like. If you see some word online that you don't know, you could refer back to here to see what it means

Shounen: manga classified for young boys. Usually this manga is more light and more fun

Seinen: manga for older males, usually adults. These types of manga can be darker and more gritty (if shounen is like pg-13, seinen is R)

Shoujo: manga for young girls, which really just means romance manga for the most part

Josei: manga for older females, usually adults. Still a lot of just romance manga here

BL/Yaoi: BL stands for boys love. Manga with two gay males.

Yuri: Manga with two gay females.

Manhwa: comics from Korea

Manhua: comics from China

Doujinshi: basically just fanfiction with manga, which means there is a lot of porn. "Doujins" usually just means manga porn nowadays

Ecchi: sexual stuff that isn't just sex

Manga: Japanese comics

Mangaka: a manga author/artist

Filler: oftentimes, when an anime is being adapted from a manga, it can run out of manga to adapt, as usually manga is still being published even as the anime is being adapted. This means that the anime might need to make their own (non-canon) content, which is called filler. Usually it isn't very high quality


In all my recommendations, a star (*) means that this is one of my personal favorites, and a must read in my opinion. Also, I'll put a short description of every manga on the very bottom. There may also be some manga that I might recommend in here that I haven't actually read, and in those cases I'll add a hashtag (#)

When starting to read manga, its always recommended to read something good that will actually hook someone onto reading manga. So, a lot of these first starting manga are universally loved manga that most people will agree are really good. Also, these manga probably will be easy to digest, which means I wouldn't recommend starting out with a series that might heavily parody other series as part of its comedy, for example. Usually people will just start out with the most popular shonen series at the time, as popular shonen series are usually universally agreed to be good (hence popular), and also very digestible.


Popular Beginning Mangas:

Attack on Titan *

Fullmetal Alchemist *

Death Note *

My Hero Academia

Jujutsu Kaisen #

Naruto

Bleach


If you really liked some of those manga, perhaps you might want to start trying out some of the most popular manga that are out there. A lot of these overlap with the starter manga, because I think that you should stick with popular manga for your first few reads before actually getting into more niche stuff.

Attack on Titan

Berserk

One Piece

Tokyo Ghoul

Naruto

One Punch Man

My Hero Academia

Death Note

Bleach

Fullmetal Alchemist

Demon Slayer


Alternatively, if you start reading manga and you think that you would like to experience some of the more highly rated, "artistic" stuff, you could try just reading some of the more highly rated stuff. Some of these still overlap with the first two lists, but there should be a lot more seinen on this list now.

Berserk #

One piece #

Vagabond

Monster

Fullmetal Alchemist *

Vinland Saga #

Haikyuu

A Silent Voice


At this point, you might consider yourself enough of a manga fan to want to start on something that is really long. All manga on this list have at least 500 chapters, which is a lot (with the exception of Hunter x Hunter, which only has 300 chapters, although it feels like it has 1000).

Hajime no Ippo #

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

One Piece #

Gintama

Bleach

Naruto *

Fairy Tail #

Kingdom #

Usogui #

Dragon Ball

Hunter x Hunter



Bildungsroman (stories about growing up): These will probably hit you in the feels. They aren't mostly all sad, but you will probably feel a lot of emotions reading these.

A Silent Voice

Forget Me Not

The Golden Sheep

The Gods Lie *

Onanie Master Kurosawa *

Goodnight Punpun #


Emotional Manga: These manga will just hit you in the feels. You might cry.

Goodnight Punpun #

Eden: its an endless world!

The Gods Lie *

3 days of happiness

A Silent Voice

Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan


Thriller series: usually these start off with an interesting premise, build up a lot of suspense, and usually has mystery as to what the fuck is actually going on. These types of series are my personal favorite

Monster

Pluto *

Banana Fish *

Attack on Titan *

Dorohedoro *

Erased *

Summer Time Rendering * 

Pandora Hearts

The Promised Neverland *


Slice of Life, which usually overlaps with comedy. These stories are just about people living out their lives, which may sound boring but can be very comforting.

Yotsuba *

Genshiken *

Hinamatsuri *

ReLife

Horimiya

Silver Spoon

Bakuman

Nichijou


Mystery: where you want to find out what the fuck is actually going on. Usually lots of plot twists

Monster

Pluto

Attack on Titan

Dorohedoro

Erased


Introspective Manga: manga that is philisophical, usually exploring the human condition

Planetes

Vagabond


World Building: manga with a huge world for you to explore. The setting is it's own character, and an important one at that.

Hunter x Hunter

One Piece #

Trigun

Tower of God

Berserk #

Dorohedoro *

Beastars


Pure Degeneracy: has sex in it, or at the very least is very ecchi. Many of these can have surprisingly good stories though.

Onanie Master Kurosawa*

Domestic Girlfriend*

Velvet Kiss


Fighting: manga that is just about fights.

Holyland

The Breaker*

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