11 Must-Read Recommendations from Manga’s New Wave

The manga and anime community is experiencing a lull, with hit-maker shonen series like My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Undead Unluck reaching their conclusions. Many fans are now engaging in heated online debates over which series will enter the next shonen big three, with animated titles like Dan Da Dan and Sakamoto Days dominating much of the conversation; others crave new manga to slot into their weekly/monthly rotation that hit the same highs as their favorite series while bringing something new to the table.

To service folks in the latter demographic, here’s some manga we’ve been reading, what pop culture media they’re similar to, and a quick sales pitch on their unique premises.

Akane-banashi

If you liked: Act-Age

Sales pitch:  Rakugo is a form of expressive and fluid theatrical performance that one might assume would not translate well to the static medium of manga. However, Akane-banashi is built differently—like the plot of a big action hero shonen manga. Akane-banishi follows a girl named Akane Osaki who has made it her life’s mission to become a professional rakugo performer after her father was humiliated and banished from practicing the craft. Each chapter sees Akane rise in the ranks with performance art tournament arcs where she learns new rakugo stories and discovers different styles of retelling them. Each rakugo story finds a way to up the stakes of melding the artistry of manga to new heights while also having some of the best character writing in the modern line-up of shonen series. Of all the manga on this list, Akane-banashi is a sleeper hit personified.

Centuria

If you liked: Berserk, Vinland Saga, Chainsaw Man

Sales pitch: A Lovecraftian dark age fantasy series about a boy named Julian who all but had his spark for living snuffed out of him while living with other slaves set to voyage into the new world. That is until he forms an unbreakable bond with a woman, Mira, who is expecting a child. Right when life seems to have an upside, tragedy ensues, and Julian comes into an eldritch power that grants him the 100 lives of his fellow enslaved people while being charged with protecting Mira’s daughter from supernatural forces that mean to cut her life short as well. As soon as this series dropped, folks quickly drew parallels to Vinland Saga and Berserk, arguably two of the greatest seinen series of all time (alongside Vagabond). Like its predecessors, Centuria plays well with themes of revenge and redemption while also showing off what a former assistant of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto is capable of when penning their own epic.

Gokurakugai

If you liked: Dandadan, Tokyo Ghoul 

Sales pitch: If you like pretty people killing demons, we could simply show you an image of Gokurakugai‘s Ms. Tao and send you on your merry way. But for those who need more enticing, Gokurakugai is a yokai series that follows two demon-killers for hire named Alma and Ms. Tao. While much of the series is still setting itself up for major developments, Gokurakugai offers a solid villain of the week story that sees the duo take on odd jobs around town destroying demons (hilariously named MAGA) with gusto. Although the series is updated monthly, it’s arguably one of the best manga you can get your peepers on once a new chapter drops. The series takes notes from Rumiko Takahashi’s irreverent rom-com, Ranma 1/2, with its character designs, which is always a plus in our book. And did we mention Ms. Tao?

Ichi the Witch

If you liked: Witch Hat Atelier, Hunter x Hunter, Dragon Ball, Cardcaptor Sakura

Sales pitch: We waxed poetic about this series recently, but for your reminder, Ichi the Witch is a new fantasy series about an eponymous wild-child boy who becomes the first male witch ever. Like the series we name-dropped above, Ichi the Witch is firing on all cylinders with its snappy comedic timing, glittery imagery, and impressively novel magic system. The series also has a pretty demure and goofy mentor character in Desscaras, the most powerful witch ever (her words and everyone else’s), who makes reading new chapters an absolute delight.

Kagurabachi

If you liked: Demon Slayer, Vagabond, Jujutsu Kaisen

Sales pitch: If there were awards given out to manga series fans propped up as the next big thing—ironically, only to quickly start scratching their heads in unison at how unironically good the series is—Kagurabachi is alone under the heavens. The manga follows Chihiro, the son of a master wordsmith, Kunishige Rokuhira, who is credited for ending the Seitei war by crafting six magical blades. When Chihiro decides he wishes to follow in his father’s footsteps, he discovers he’s been killed by sorcerers who steal his swords. Now, Chihiro, wielding a secret seventh blade his father forged, is hellbent on revenge. On paper, the series might seem like a generic revenge plot, but as many a manga reader can attest, Kagurabachi is kinda cooking in the story and action department. Now’s as good a time as any to get in on the ground floor and say you liked Kagurabachi before it got popular.

MAD

If you liked: The good Alien movies (1 & 2), Chainsaw Man

Sales pitch: In post-apocalyptic earth, the last vestiges of humanity are on the run from an invasive (and legally distinct) humanoid alien species with no real rhyme or reason for being besides causing pandemonium. While some, like protagonist John, fight to survive the invasive aliens, others, like a dude-bro militia, concoct new ways of life that are arguably worse than dying at the hands of the aliens. Each page is framed in the gritty style of vintage graphic novels and manga Akira while maintaining the same flair for minimalistic-yet-impactful page-turn reveals as Chainsaw Man. Its first couple of chapters might seem like a derivative premise, but its subsequent chapters break out with new reveals that make its title fit with every update.

Magilumiere Co. LTD.

If you liked: My Hero Academia, Sailor Moon

Sales pitch: Imagine if the whimsical fantasy of a magical girl shojo did a fusion dance with the corporate workplace culture of the real world, and you’d have Magilumiere Co. LTD. Its story follows a college student named Kana Sakuragi who is deep in the trenches of finding a job and hasn’t had any luck with it. That is until disaster strikes her on-a-whim job interview, leading her to get picked up by a start-up company to work as a magical girl.

Magilumiere riffs off the tropes of the magical girl series while packaging the dynamics of its world-building similarly to My Hero Academia‘s hero rankings. Only this time, it’s a female-led series, which is refreshing given how male-centric the shonen genre is. Plus, it has an anime on Prime Video if you want to dive into it.

Marriage Toxin

If you liked: Naruto, Sakamoto Days

Sales pitch: Shonen series often emphasize action while skimping on romance, but Marriage Toxin marries (pun intended) the two with gusto. The series follows a hitman named Gero whose clan specializes in poisons. While killing comes easy to him, romance does not. That is until his clan gives him the ultimatum of continuing the family line himself or forcing his sister (who is gay, btw) to continue the lineage instead. With the help of a newfound ally turned matchmaker (and potential love interest), Kinosaki, Gero engages in a series of hitman missions, meets a bunch of sweet, eligible bachelorettes, and learns about what he values in a relationship.

While the series could’ve easily veered into rote harem territory, Marriage Toxin is in equal parts a hilarious and mature read on relationships that doesn’t rush into things for the sake of it. Moreover, the series is as great with its action and character designs as with its gender representation. For example, Kinosaki is a cross-dresser whose whole existence isn’t goggled at or put down in the way series of old often did with queer characters. What’s more, the creators of the series said Naruto inspired them. More specifically: what it would be like for the Aburame clan to play matchmaker, given their whole thing is that they work with bugs?

Ruri Dragon

If you liked: Machikado Mazoku

Sales pitch: While most shonen jump manga wastes no time in projecting where the series will go, Ruri Dragon pumps the brakes and gives readers a pleasant coming-of-age story about a high schooler named Ruri Aoki, whose mother nonchalantly reveals she is part-human, part-dragon. Rather than gearing Ruri up for death-defying battles to save humanity, the series treats Ruri’s situation as any other story would puberty as she struggles to form new relationships with her classmates while getting acquainted with all that comes with being a fire-breathing child. That’s right, Shonen Jump remembered slice of life is a genre as well, and Ruri Dragon is arguably one of the coziest new manga out right now.

Shinobi Undercover

If you liked: Spy x Family, Sakamoto Days

Sales pitch: Being a ninja comes with the assumption that you’re anime James Bond, with how suave and charismatic you must be to pull off nifty stunts in the dead of night. Shinobi Undercover subverts this trope hard. The series follows Yodaka, a nervous wreck of a boy who is as socially awkward as he is deadly on covert missions. His task is to infiltrate a high school and protect a girl named Aoi from other assassins who wish to do her harm. Somewhere along the way, Yodaka forms a budding will-they-won’t-they romance with Aoi, completely fudging his organization plans for having him shadow her as a wallflower of the school, leading to a bunch of hijinks and hilarity in its wake. Shinobi Undercover is arguably the funniest manga on our shortlist, and it also goes pretty hard whenever action kicks in.

Steel of the Celestial Shadows

If you liked: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Sales pitch: Steel of Celestial Shadows is a fantasy samurai story where the way of the sword is subverted to the utmost degree. It follows a hapless samurai named Ryudo Konosuke, who has a crippling fear of blades. While his aversion isn’t helpful in him seeking work, it also manifests supernaturally with a curse that makes metal bend away from him whenever he gets close to it. While Ryudo sees his affliction as a curse preventing him from becoming the warrior his departed mother wished him to be, he falls in love with a mysterious woman. He is tasked with saving her from the supernatural world that’s hellbent on keeping them apart. The manga is equal parts a beautiful and endearing read that handles the interpersonal and fantastical elements of its storytelling in ways only seinen series can. If you’re tired of shonen, we highly recommend you pick up some seinen.

If there is any other new manga we didn’t mention that you want to take full credit for putting people on, be sure to sound off in the comments with a sales pitch of your own for a new manga you think folks should get into.

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