In October, alt-comics publisher Fantagraphics announced a new imprint, Takumigraphics, devoted to graphic novels from East Asia. Takumigraphics launches in spring 2026 with two titles: Wandering Cat’s Cage by Akane Torikai (translated by Jocelyne Allen), a dystopian science fiction manga about social collapse triggered by a fertility crisis, and Lovers of the Empire by Korean creator Yudori (Raging Clouds), who writes her own English dialogue—a star-crossed romance set amid the political turmoil of 1920s Korea.

“We’ve been doing more and more manga over the last 10 years, and there’s more on the horizon,” says Fantagraphics VP and associate publisher Eric Reynolds. These days, it’s common for the publisher to announce at least one manga or manhwa title each season. Why? “The crass answer is that it does well,” Reynolds says, “but the sincere answer is that all of us have become increasingly aware of all the good stuff that’s out there.”

Though tweens and teens remain the core manga demographic, more adults are reading manga, and Fantagraphics isn’t the only publisher to discover that mature manga is selling better than before.

Growing together

“People don’t seem to be aging out of manga at the rate that they used to,” says Ben Applegate, director of the Kodansha USA editorial team. “So there’s much more of a hunger for stories
featuring 20-somethings and even older characters.”

Shannon Fay, editor at Seven Seas, has noted a similar trend. “A lot of the generation that grew up with manga and anime is having kids,” she says, and manga provides an intergenerational bond—parents discover new titles as they pass down old favorites.

These comments reflect the data reported by the latest ICv2 white paper: manga sales spiked during Covid lockdowns and have since leveled off but remain strong. “That was a sugar high that’s gone away, but we’ve settled into a very healthy new normal,” Applegate says.

Tom Devlin, creative director at Drawn & Quarterly, finds there’s a big overlap between the readership of the publisher’s Western graphic novels and its manga offerings. “It feels like we’re opening up the market and digging deeper,” he says, “flipping through old alternative manga magazines Garo and COM and thinking, this looks cool.” That’s how Drawn & Quarterly found forthcoming titles like the fall release Sassy Cats by Yamada Murasaki (translated by Ryan Holmberg), a wry look at contemporary life as seen by housecats, which originally ran in Garo from 1979 to 1980.

“I don’t think people buy titles because they’re manga,” says Carl Gustav Horn, manga editor at Dark Horse. “They buy titles that interest them. I’m intrigued by the idea of how many more people we can get into manga, and part of the way to do that is to release diverse titles that go in different directions.”

One of Dark Horse Manga’s most anticipated titles is John Tarachine’s The Credits Roll Into the Sea (translated by Jocelyne Allen), due out in June. Nominated twice for the manga grand prize category of the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in Japan, it tells the story of a retired widow and grandmother who discovers a new passion by enrolling in film school. “Almost 30% of Japan’s population is the age of the main character, Umiko, or older,” Horn notes. “If you’re not releasing manga with people of Umiko’s age, you’re getting a limited portrait of what Japanese society is like.”

At Titan Manga, one new title aimed at adult readers is Ryoichiro Kezuka’s Record Journey (translated by Jan Mitsuko Cash), due in May, set at a record store where the clerk helps find the perfect album for each customer. “It’s not for younger readers, since they might not be into vinyl at that point,” says Titan editor Louis Yamani, “but if you like vinyl or music in general, it might even prompt you to buy a record player.”

Viz continues to focus on younger readers, but it’s been slowly growing its prestige Signature line. “It’s not a deliberate expansion, but we’ve found that manga for more sophisticated readers are generally pulling their own weight,” says editor Hope Donovan. She is especially excited about Cocoon by Machiko Kyo (translated by Cash), a historical manga pubbing in June, based on accounts of student nurses enlisted in the Japanese army during WWII. “It’s women’s war history,” she adds. “Stories like this don’t come along very often.”

The same world as us

Both of the Takumigraphics launch titles speak to a trend many publishers mention: older audiences want manga that deal with real-life social concerns.

“A lot of the manga we’re working on is communicating messages that are applicable to the world right now,” Yamani says. One example is the 2025 Titan release Do Women Need Sex Entertainment? by Yachinatsu and Sono Yoshioka (translated by Andria McKnight); volume two is slated for April. It’s based on Yachinatsu’s experiences working behind the scenes at an escort service for women, and, as Yamani notes, “it’s very sex-positive and quite liberal, which might not be what people expect from manga.”

Kodansha hopes to spark conversation with That’s Not Love by Peko Watanabe (translated by Sawa Matsueda Savage), due in May, in which a woman realizes that her childhood friend was sexually abused by their art teacher, who has since gone on to become a successful sculptor. Watanabe was inspired by the #MeToo movement and “wanted to write about violence and the ways violence gets disguised as something else,” Applegate says.

On the lighter side, Kodansha is seeking out relatable workplace-set manga after the surprise success of 2020’s Kintetsu Yamada’s Sweat and Soap (translated by Matt Treyvaud), a steamy romance set at a soap company. In May, it will debut Cat-Life Balance by Akari Otokawa (translated by Sarah Lindholm), in which a gregarious office worker discovers that his standoffish coworker has a weakness for cats.

Older manga readers are especially interested in titles that deal with LGBTQ+ characters and issues, publishers say. “The manga audience has been broader than the general reading audience in the U.S. for quite some time in terms of sexual identities and ethnic background,” Applegate notes. “You see boys’ love manga now that’s more relatable to actual LGBTQ+ readers and is pulling in graphic novel readers from that audience.”

Yuri, or girls’ love, continues to be a hot category. In 2025, Seven Seas released The Beauty’s Blade by Feng Ren Zuo Shu (translated by Yu), its first Chinese girls’-love novel. Its forthcoming yuri manga include Koharu and Minato: Happy Life with My Girlfriend, Vol. 1 by Hyaluron&Daruma, out in April, launching a series based on the creators’ own relationship. Fay, who’s editing the English edition, calls the manga “very fluffy” and contrasts it with Nagata Kabi’s 2017 indie hit My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. “They’re both autobiographical manga featuring queer women, just at tonally opposite ends,” Fay says. “I like that it’s such a big genre that we have both these books in English.”

Despite its light tone, Happy Life with My Girlfriend deals with real-life issues like coming out to family and coping with the fact that gay marriage is still not legally recognized in Japan. “It can be comforting to have a manga about people living in the same world as us,” Fay says, “who are, despite the obstacles thrown in their way, thriving.”

Takumigraphics plans to release erotic titles from acclaimed creator Gengoroh Tagame, who draws family-friendly LGBTQ+ titles like the Eisner-winning My Brother’s Husband (translated by Anne Ishii) but also gei komi, sex comics for gay male readers. Takumigraphics will tackle Tagame’s most famous (and infamous) gei komi: the dark BDSM-themed Do You Remember South Island Prison Camp? (translated by Ishii). “We’re going to do the entire 700-page manga as one book, and Chip Kidd’s on board to design it,” Reynolds says.

As long as adults keep reading manga, publishers are confident they can find offbeat and challenging titles. At Drawn & Quarterly, Devlin reports, editors are currently excited by vintage titles from the 1960s and ’70s. “There’s a bottomless well of amazing comics from Japan that we’ve never seen,” he says. “We’re not going to see the bottom of great manga in our lifetimes.”

Shaenon K. Garrity is a PW comics reviewer and a writer, editor, and cartoonist. Her latest graphic novel is Steam (S&S/McElderry).

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