Top Ten Tuesday | Favorite Manga of All Time

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted and created by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a bookish topic for which one can create a list of 10 (or more or less) items that fit said theme! This week’s amazing topic is:

September 13: Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Books Of X Genre (I know, I know. Picking all time faves. I’m MEAN. But I like knowing people’s definitive faves). Can also break it down into sub-genre if that helps?

I’ve been wanting to do a list like this for a long time now. Although I love books with a deep passion, I have been reading a lot of manga (which I also somewhat consider to be books) for the last few years. At first I wanted to do my favorite classics of all time, but this seems way more fun and a little different! If you have never read any manga, but are interested in it, let these be my recommendations for you on where to start!

If you want to know all of the manga that I’ve read so far and that I still want to read, you can check out my Manga List on MyAnimeList here. In this post, the overall series are considered, not single volumes. For some, I have not yet finished all of the volumes, but I love them passionately already. Additionally, here you can see my Manga Stats from my profile on MyAnimeList.

1 Oyasumi Punpun

Asano, Inio (Story & Art) | MAL

13 Volumes | Published 2007 – 2013 | Drama, Slice of Life, Psychological, Seinen

My favorite manga of all time. The best thing I have ever read. I have yet to find a manga I love as much. Forever and ever, Punpun will always hold a special place in my heart.

Punpun Onodera is a normal 11-year-old boy living in Japan. Hopelessly idealistic and romantic, Punpun begins to see his life take a subtle—though nonetheless startling—turn to the adult when he meets the new girl in his class, Aiko Tanaka. It is then that the quiet boy learns just how fickle maintaining a relationship can be, and the surmounting difficulties of transitioning from a naïve boyhood to a convoluted adulthood. When his father assaults his mother one night, Punpun realizes another thing: those whom he looked up to were not as impressive as he once thought.

As his problems increase, Punpun’s once shy demeanor turns into voluntary reclusiveness. Rather than curing him of his problems and conflicting emotions, this merely intensifies them, sending him down the dark path of maturity in this grim coming-of-age saga.

2 Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction

Asano, Inio (Story & Art) | MAL

Still Publishing | Comedy, Drama, School, Sci-Fi, Slice of Life, Seinen

Large mysterious alien ships have been looming above Japanese towns for three years, filling the sky. Everything changed three years ago. And yet, nothing has changed.

No weapon used against the invaders’ ships had any success, beyond destroying part of japan and leaving its economy in shambles. JSDF is fighting a guerrilla battle against the aliens all over Japan. America is joining the “war” effort with more aggressive tactics, dividing Japan over the pacifist principle laid out in Art9. of their constitution.

But this may just be the mundane story of young middle schoolers.

3 Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!

Tanigawa, Nico (Story & Art) | MAL

Still Publishing | Comedy, School

Kuroki Tomoko is a super popular, high school girl, who has had 50 years of dating experience, and 100 boys… in the Otome game world. In the real world, she is a 15-year-old shut in, who has all of the qualities of a “mojo” (喪女, a gloomy or unpopular woman).

However, when school isn’t going as she expected, and she isn’t as popular as she had thought she was, she takes a look at herself in the mirror for the first time in a few years, and has some shocking revelations…

4 Elfen Lied

Okamoto, Lynn (Story & Art) | MAL

12 Volumes | Published 2002 – 2005 | Action, Drama, Horror, Romance, Supernatural, Psychological, Seinen

Lucy is a special breed of human referred to as “Diclonius,” born with a short pair of horns and invisible telekinetic hands that lands her as a victim of inhumane scientific experimentation by the government. However, once circumstances present her an opportunity to escape, Lucy, corrupted by the confinement and torture, unleashes a torrent of bloodshed as she escapes her captors.

5 Mirai Nikki

Esuno, Sakae (Story & Art) | MAL

12 Volumes | Published 2006 – 2010 | Action, Mystery, Shounen, Supernatural, Psychological, Thriller

Middle school 2nd year, Amano Yukiteru, is a boy who has problem making friends. He thinks of himself as a bystander and will always write down everything he sees in a cell phone diary.

Tormented by solitude, Yukiteru began to imagine things like a friend called Deus Ex Machina who is apparently the Lord of Time & Space. Seeing Yukiteru’s miserable state, Deus gives him a new ability. His diary will now record events that will happen in the near future. Yukiteru is then forced to participate in a game whose winner will become Deus’ successor.

6 Subarashii Sekai

Asano, Inio (Story & Art) | MAL

2 Volumes | Published 2002 – 2004 | Drama, Slice of Life, Seinen

Life is never ordinary. What begins with a college dropout bored of her mediocre routine soon becomes a fantastic series of vignettes about the unexpected ways that lives intersect. Filled with magical realism in the face of the cold reality of modern life, at their core these stories are about discovering something precious in the chaos of existence. A dream recaptured. A life on a new track. The absurdity of death. Laughter in the face of reality. With this series of intersecting vignettes, Inio Asano explores the ways in which modern life can be ridiculous and sublime, terrible and precious, wasted and celebrated.

7 Aku no Hana

Oshimi, Shuuzou (Story & Art) | MAL

11 Volumes | Published 2009 – 2014 | Drama, Romance, School, Shounen, Psychological

Kasuga Takao is a boy who loves reading books, particularly Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. A girl at his school, Saeki Nanako, is his muse and his Venus, and he admires her from a distance. One day, he forgets his copy of Les Fleurs du Mal in the classroom and runs back alone to pick it up. In the classroom, he finds not only his book, but Saeki’s gym uniform. On a mad impulse, he steals it.

Now everyone knows “some pervert” stole Saeki’s uniform, and Kasuga is dying with shame and guilt. Furthermore, the weird, creepy, and friendless girl of the class, Nakamura, saw him take the uniform. Instead of revealing it was him, she recognizes his kindred deviant spirit and uses her knowledge to take control of his life. Will it be possible for Kasuga to get closer to Saeki, despite Nakamura’s meddling and his dark secret? What exactly does Nakamura intend to do with him?

8 Girls of the Wild’s

Kim, Hye-Jin (Art), Hun (Story) | MAL

Still Publishing | Action, Comedy, Drama, Martial Arts, Romance, School, Harem

Basically a manwha, but I will still count it in this list, because it is amazing!

Wild’s High has a 42 year history as an all-girls private high school, meant solely for the elite. The girls of this school are trained daily in some of the deadliest forms of fighting around, from boxing, to sword-fighting, to taekwondo! This specialty school is the place where the most popular sporting event in the country is held, The Wild’s League—the only place in the world where teenage girls partake in brutal fights… often to the death.

This year, Wild’s has changed to a mixed-gender school. Despite opening their doors to males, the only one to apply is Song Jae Gu. He has been granted a full 3-year scholarship regardless of grades, which he snaps up without second thought. For the past two years, every moment of his life has been spent taking care of his younger twin siblings.

But after meeting Queen, the bloody champion of Wild’s League, drenching her in coffee and calling her a “monster”… things are about to get messy—especially when he gets tied up with all the other unusual girls at this school!

9 Ao no Exorcist

Katou, Kazue (Story & Art) | MAL

Still Publishing | Action, Adventure, Demons, Drama, Fantasy, School, Shounen, Supernatural

This world consists of two dimensions joined as one, like a mirror. The first is the world in which the humans live, Assiah. The other is the world of demons, Gehenna. Ordinarily, travel between the two, and indeed any kind of contact between the two, is impossible. However the demons can pass over into this world by possessing anything that exist within it. Satan the god of demons, but there’s one thing that he doesn’t have, and that’s a substance in the human world that is powerful enough to contain him!! For that purpose he created Rin, his son from a human woman, but will is son agree to his plans? Or will he become something else…? An exorcist?

10 Shouri no Akuma

Maki, Youko (Story & Art) | MAL

3 Volumes | Published 2009 – 2010 | Comedy, Romance, School, Shoujo, Gender Bender

Today is Asami Tanakamori’s first day at her new school… but it isn’t exactly what she expected. In fact, it seems really strange right from the beginning!! Asami is finding it incredibly difficult to adjust to this party school, but luckily she has her new friend, a pretty “girl” named Akira Kinoshita. Akira seems to have the entire school at “her” command…but there’s a bit more to Akira than Asami would have ever imagined!