Must-Read Manga of 2025

The Legend of Kamui

Shirato’s politically aware ninja manga, which ran from 1964 to 1971, makes its English-language debut in this glorious collection, the first of 10 volumes. In 17th-century Japan, the ninja Kamui is born an “outcast,” the lowest caste in the feudal system. He rabble rouses tirelessly against the peasantry’s lot (“The more you tremble the more they’ll exploit you!”), and war between the castes soon breaks out. Other key players in the sprawling drama include Ryūnoshin, a promising young samurai; Shōsuke, another frustrated teenage peasant; and Shōsuke’s girlfriend, Omine, who is sold against her will to the local lord. But the real central character is the setting, which Shirato explores layer by layer, capturing the beauty and brutality of medieval life. He spends pages patiently following a boar hunt, a children’s wrestling match, or the annual rice harvest on which the farmers’ lives depend—though they can’t afford to eat rice themselves. Every scene simmers with outrage at inequality and injustice, which Shirato links to the politics of the 1960s: “If everyone’s legitimate demands were crushed and ignored,” he writes in one of many side essays, “how sad and indignant we would be!” In the early sections, simply drawn characters pop against carefully researched and rendered backgrounds. Then, as the plot thickens, thick, slashing brush lines highlight the violent action. Part adventure epic, part historical fiction, part political call to arms, this manga defies easy categorization. But as Shirato says, “The fish who swims against the current is more vibrant and beautiful than any other.” Readers will want to dive in. (Jan.)

Kylooe

Hong Kong artist Little Thunder’s enchanting debut comprises three stories linked by the uncannily cute character Kylooe, a furry white monster who inhabits people’s dreams. In “Downhearted Dragonfly,” an awkward teenage girl living in the shadow of her popular sister meets a boy who lives in a rainbow-hued dreamland, but travel between their realities proves precarious. In “Green Tunnel,” a young man recalls his fraught high school relationship with an eccentric, artistically gifted classmate. “Never Been Happy” visits a reeducation camp in a world where expressing emotion has been outlawed. “Once you get a taste,” a repeat offender warns a boy arrested for crying over his father’s death, “you’ll never be able to resist the temptation.” Kylooe pops up throughout, within dreams, or in one story as a character in a children’s television show. Little Thunder’s vibrant, elegant drawings, drenched in color, give life to fantastic creatures and phantasmagorical dreamscapes as well as lovingly observed details of Hong Kong neighborhoods, shops, and apartments. The characters’ subtle, humanistic expressions help the stories maintain their delicate balance of whimsy and melancholy. Diving into this lush escapade is like sliding down a rainbow, rain showers and all. (Mar.)

Mansect

This viscerally horrifying vintage manga by the late Koga, best known for the Japanese manga and film series Eko Eko Azarak, marks his long-awaited English-language debut. Hideo is a lonely young man who only keeps company with his insect menagerie. One day, he finds himself going through a metamorphosis similar to his beloved caterpillars. A cottonlike substance emerges from a cut on his leg, then from his pores, to imprison him in a cocoon. After his home catches on fire, he emerges from the ashes in a wraithlike shape and begins to attack and turn other townspeople into insect-human hybrids. A young boy who picks up Hideo’s gnarled hand, which resembles a tree root, starts aging at an impossibly fast rate; another boy, Goichi, realizes that his father, who was presumed dead, has also been turned into a monster. Koga’s stark black and white artwork walks a fine line between overwrought and perfectly gruesome as he pushes the conceit to glorious, gory extremes, combining the ick factor of insects with body horror and social critique. “Human society is so stupid and cruel. I see that clearly now that I’m an insect,” opines Goichi’s father. Admirers of Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezz will revel in this. (Mar.)

Miss Ruki

This fizzy series of short comics by alt-manga artist Takano first ran in a Japanese women’s lifestyle magazine in the 1980s and ’90s and remain a delight. Ruki, a cheerful, childlike Tokyo woman, skips through her days oblivious to the hyper-capitalist Japanese bubble economy around her. She works from home and spends most of her time enjoying small, simple pleasures: reading children’s books at the library, napping on the train, cooking on an old-fashioned hibachi grill. “I don’t mind if people see me having fun!” she asserts. Her friend, Ecchan, who blows her paychecks on fashion and gets flustered around good-looking men, tries to introduce Ruki to high living, without success; when Ecchan dresses Ruki up for a classy soirée, Ruki complains, “I look just like my dead grandmother.” Takano captures her charming characters in impeccably posed body language, and a style suggestive of European clear-line cartooning. She takes full advantage of the opportunity to work in color, giving each two-page installment its own palette. Ruki’s gently funny adventures have the appeal of iyashikei (“healing”) manga, but Takano’s exceptional cartooning skills and attention to human detail elevate them to a category all their own. Like the café drinks that Ruki and Ecchan commiserate over, it’s a small, perfect treat. (Sept.)

My Life in 24 Frames Per Second

Metropolis director Rintaro goes behind the scenes of the golden age of anime in his expansive and impassioned debut manga. Born in 1941, Rintaro is captivated by movies from an early age, particularly the first animated “manga film” he sees in a temple converted to a theater: “How is that possible? Drawings that move?” Despite discouragement from adults who warn him against chasing his dreams in Japan’s struggling postwar economy, he finds work as a teenager at some of the country’s earliest animation studios: first Toei, “founded to become the Walt Disney of the East,” then Osamu Tezuka’s Mushi Productions. Later, he works on anime adaptations with manga artists Leiji Matsumoto and Katsuhiro Otomo and launches his own studio, Argos. Rintaro’s crisp, lively art evokes period detail and clearly unpacks the ins and outs of animation. He excels at capturing human movement, including movement through time—with an amusing flourish, he draws himself aging and adopting the fashions of the decades. Some aspects of his personal life remain discreet (he manages to get married and divorced mostly off-panel), but a through line is his fraught relationship with his father, a barber who once dreamed of going into the movies himself. This meticulous portrait of a life in animation glows with love of the art form. (Oct.)

Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love!

Positivity conquers all in mamakari’s feather-light comedy manga debut about a heavyset heroine who’s given the gift of indefatigable confidence. Yumeko Koda, a plump young woman suffering from depression, wakes up from an apparent suicide attempt with amnesia and a new optimistic attitude. “I’m super cute!!” she gasps upon seeing herself in the mirror. She’s baffled by evidence that the old Koda had low self-esteem; even when people insult her to her face, she interprets it as jealousy and assures them, “My stunning body and face are simply gifts from God.” The plot focuses less on love than on workplace dramedy, as Koda resumes her job at a snack food company and takes it by storm. But there’s romance, too, as she gets close to a handsome, troubled man her old self admired (and semi-stalked) from a distance. Meanwhile, the police find evidence that her suicide attempt might really have been attempted murder, leaving Koda to wonder who could possibly have such a grudge against her. Mamakari’s simple shojo-style artwork is cute and funny, though Koda is inconsistently drawn throughout the volume. The potentially fatphobic premise develops into a cheeky paean to self-acceptance, with Koda encouraging and uplifting those around her as much as she talks herself up. Readers looking for a plus-size serotonin boost will find it here. (June)

Farewell, My Odin

This brutal battle manga, Yoshioka’s English-language debut, plunges readers into the icy waters of Norse adventure. In the year 1002, Viking raids terrorize an English village and flush out a feral “wolf child” from the forest, who is adopted by the village priest and given the name Luke. After Luke’s peaceful new life is torn apart by another Viking attack, he seeks revenge against the leader of the raid, the handsome and ruthless “White-Haired” Einarr. Fighting ferociously with two wolf companions by his side, Luke spark rumors that he may be an incarnation of the god Odin. Meanwhile, Einarr pursues his own secret agenda as he carries out the unhinged orders of the Danish king Sweyn Fork-Beard. “Only amongst the flames of vengeance can we beasts live,” he warns as Luke closes in on him. The action is hewn in rough linework reminiscent of samurai manga like Blade of the Immortal, with blood and tears flying across the page. Yoshioka conjures the 11th-century setting with evocative drawings of European wilderness, medieval architecture, and Norse design, then fills it with sex, drugs (King Sven likes to get high on henbane), and violence. It’s a worthy voyage for devotees of gritty historical fantasy. (Feb.)

Raging Clouds

Korean artist Yudori unfolds an erotic, feminist-infused tale of yearning in her fiery debut. In Renaissance-era Holland, Amélie, the young wife of a merchant, feels constricted by social mores, exasperated by her marriage, and fascinated by the mechanics of flight. She’s happiest when her husband, Hans, is away on business, freeing her to pursue her interests. (“All she knows how to do is stare at books and eat!” the household servants sniff.) Then Hans brings home a purchase from his latest trip abroad: an enslaved Asian woman, called Sahara (though this is not her real name). Amélie resents the newcomer, who soon replaces her in Hans’s bed, but as time passes the two women recognize that they are trapped together. “Hans has the face of a man who deserves everything,” Amélie despairs as her husband blithely robs her of all that matters—her scientific discoveries, her freedom, and her budding feelings for Sahara. Yudori brings 16th-century Europe to life with a crisp line that turns elegant and sinuous, and she lavishes detail on art, jewelry, clothing, and clockwork. The characters’ expressive faces and body language add humanizing moments and touches of humor to the historical drama. This artsy manhwa soars. (May)

Sanda

Itagaki (Beastars) delivers a gleeful and outlandish fantasy in which Christmas spirit translates into fighting power. In a near-future Japan where low birthrates have made children a precious resource and climate change means the younger generation has never seen snow, cherub-faced Sanda seems like an ordinary teenager. But his classmate Shiori, a feral-looking girl with a violent streak, susses out his secret: Sanda is descended from Santa Claus, and under the right circumstances he transforms into an elderly but muscle-bound Saint Nick. Shiori believes the legendary guardian of children can help her find her missing friend Ono, but first she and Sanda must learn the extent of his powers, which range from flame-retardant skin (“I guess that’s a chimney thing”) to sleigh runners that pop out of his feet. Itaragi is fully aware of the absurdity of her premise and pushes it to ever greater extremes, dropping in bizarre details along the way (the kids’ boarding school is located in an abandoned department store, and their principal stays artificially young by “injecting near-fatal doses of hyaluronic acid and collagen”). The characters’ lanky figures and intense, deeply shadowed eyes give the book a gothic Nightmare Before Christmas vibe. Readers who love shonen action manga but tire of predictable formulas will be thrilled to find this in their stockings. (Sept.)

Temperature of Orange (Veil #1)

A romance unfolds in steamy snapshots in this lush and dreamy full-color manga, the English-language debut of Kotteri!. In a nameless European city, a tall, redheaded police officer meets an aristocratic blind woman—or maybe she just always keeps her eyes closed—and offers her a job at the station. Soon they are inseparable. The story is less a narrative than a series of tantalizingly brief scenes, some only two or three pages long, allowing the reader glimpses of the attractive duo at cafés, parties, and an art museum, or sprawled together on a couch. These moments are cryptic, elegant, and erotically charged, with a cool, sexy style reminiscent of French New Wave films. The art pauses fetishistically on sensual details like pastries, coffee, cigarettes, and above all fashion, including militaristic boots and kepi caps. Short text sections offer hints at the characters’ inner thoughts (“The voice was at my feet, but then in the next instant, I heard it from the sky”), but for the most part Kotteri! admires them from a distance. This manga is all vibes, but the vibes are impeccable. Fans of classic European cinema and Parisian chic will want to check it out. (Apr.)