Curated playlist

Seinen manga

NOiSEA young police officer investigates missing children in the manga NOiSE. Susono Musubi patrols a busy underground city.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone ComplexGhost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is set in the year 2030, in a Japan where many people have replaced their bodies with prosthetics and become cyborgs. It is an anime television series about an elite law enforcement unit that…
Akira (manga)Akira was the first comic in the world to be colored digitally. Steve Oliff colored the American edition of the manga.
JoJo's Bizarre AdventureJoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a manga by Hirohiko Araki that fills 139 collected volumes as of March 2026. By August 2023, more than 120 million copies were in circulation, which places it among the best-selling manga ever printed. Yet the…
Oh My Goddess!A wrong number connects a college student to a goddess who offers him one wish. He wishes she will stay forever.
DevilmanDevilman was a dark manga born from a TV studio's request for something softer.
Vinland Saga (manga)Vinland Saga began as a story about slavery, not Vikings. The manga's editor pushed for a Viking warrior hero first.
Jinki: ExtendIn the manga Jinki: Extend, a robot unit commander ordered her own daughter kidnapped.
Kurau Phantom MemoryA lab accident scattered twelve-year-old Kurau into light. When she reformed, another being came back with her.
Berserk (manga)Kentaro Miura's manga Berserk kept going after he died in 2021. His friend Kouji Mori now supervises the story.
Battle Angel AlitaA doctor digging through a garbage dump finds a living cyborg head and torso. He names her Alita, after his dead cat.
Persona 3Persona 3 asks its player to press a gun-shaped device against their own head and fire. The device is called an Evoker, and the shot summons a Persona, a physical form of the shooter's psyche. Atlus developed this role-playing game, which…
Captain Harlock (manga)Captain Harlock is a space pirate who refuses to accept his civilization's slow collapse.
Puella Magi Madoka MagicaPuella Magi Madoka Magica hid its dark story behind cute, pastel marketing on purpose.
RWBYRWBY's title is not a word but a color code. It stands for red, white, black and yellow, the four leads' colors.
Seinen mangaSeinen manga began when baby boomers outgrew the comics they loved as children.
Vagabond (manga)The manga Vagabond opens with two bleeding teenagers on a battlefield in 1600. One will become a famed swordsman.
Re:ZeroSubaru Natsuki is walking home from a convenience store when he is suddenly transported to another world. That moment opens Re:Zero, a Japanese light novel series written by Tappei Nagatsuki. It is also known, less commonly, as Re: Life in…
FLCLFLCL begins with a Vespa, a twelve-year-old boy, and a blue vintage Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar. The boy is Naota Nandaba. The woman swinging a left-handed bass at his head is Haruko Haruhara, an alien who has just run him over. She…
Initial DInitial D is a Japanese street racing manga written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno, and its hero starts each day delivering tofu. Takumi Fujiwara is a high school student. For years he has made those early morning runs in his father…
HellsingHellsing is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kouta Hirano. Its central vampire is Alucard, the original and most powerful of his kind. He serves the family of the man who defeated him one hundred years before the story…
XxxHolicThe manga series xxxHolic begins with Kimihiro Watanuki, a high school student who sees ayakashi spirits that nobody around him can see. The spirits torment him, and all he wants is for them to stop. By what looks like pure chance, he…
Crayon Shin-chanWhen Crayon Shin-chan creator Yoshito Usui died in 2009, the manga did not end. His team began a new manga.
Fate/stay nightFate/stay night began as an unfinished college story. Kinoko Nasu finished only one of its three routes in 1999.
K-On!In a Japanese school-band anime, guitarist Yui Hirasawa had only ever played the castanets.
Monster (manga)A surgeon disobeys an order and saves a boy instead of the mayor. That boy grows into the killer in Monster.
Sakigake!! OtokojukuThe manga Otokojuku has sold over 26 million copies, yet few outside Japan know it.
Witch Hat AtelierWitch Hat Atelier is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kamome Shirahama, and its story begins with a mistake born of longing. A girl named Coco has dreamed for years of becoming a witch. One day she casts a spell by…
Persona 4Persona 4 is a 2008 role-playing game from the Japanese developer Atlus, and it opens on a puzzle that sounds like a ghost story. In a small rural town, bodies are found dangling from television antennas, and no one can say what killed…
Umamusume: Pretty DerbyOn the 26th of March 2016, a panel at the AnimeJapan event revealed concept art for a cast of racing girls with horse ears and tails. An animated trailer from the studio P.A. Works came with it. This was the first public look at Umamusume:…
Captain TsubasaCaptain Tsubasa, a Japanese football manga by Yōichi Takahashi, once reached children in Iraq by way of a sticker. In 2004, Japan's Self-Defense Forces were providing humanitarian assistance in Samawah. Pictures of the manga's characters…
Tokyo GhoulTokyo Ghoul is a Japanese dark fantasy manga by Sui Ishida, and by January 2021 more than 47 million copies of it were in circulation worldwide. That makes it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Its premise is a hard one to…
All You Need Is KillAll You Need Is Kill, a Japanese light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, begins with a young recruit named Keiji Kiriya dying on his very first sortie. Moments before, he had killed a Mimic that looked different from the rest. Mimics are the…
Kingdom (manga)Kingdom is a Japanese manga by Yasuhisa Hara, and by January 2026 more than 120 million copies of it were in circulation. That places it among the best-selling manga series of all time. Its hero is Xin, a war orphan from a poor village,…
Oshi no KoIn Oshi no Ko, a doctor is murdered and reborn as his idol patient's son. He remembers his old life.
Panty & Stocking with GarterbeltPanty & Stocking with Garterbelt is a Japanese anime series that began with a director's blunt promise. Hiroyuki Imaishi said the theme of the show would be vulgar and indecent jokes. He added, "If we are going to do this, we will try it…
Baccano!In 1711, alchemists aboard the ship Advenna Avis summon a demon and walk away with eternal life.
Cobra (manga)The manga Cobra opens with a bored office worker who asks for a dream and remembers a hidden life.
Violence JackThe final chapter of manga Violence Jack reveals its ruined world was re-created by God.
Delicious in DungeonDelicious in Dungeon, a manga by Ryoko Kui, opens with a red dragon swallowing a spellcaster named Falin Touden. Her surviving companions are cut off from most of their supplies, deep underground, with a rescue to attempt. Their answer is…
Lone Wolf and CubA one-year-old crawls toward a sword instead of a ball in Lone Wolf and Cub.
Guin SagaGuin Saga starts with a warrior whose leopard mask is fused to his skull. He has no name or memory.
Bastard!!Kazushi Hagiwara's manga about a dark wizard names its characters, spells and places after rock and metal bands.
DorohedoroDorohedoro, a Japanese manga series by Q Hayashida, begins with a man whose head is that of a reptile and who cannot remember who he used to be. His name is Caiman. His only clue to the sorcerer who cursed him is a full-size man living…
Mushoku TenseiMushoku Tensei opens with a 34-year-old man being thrown out of his home. He is a NEET, meaning someone not in education, employment, or training, and he drifts through the streets lamenting his life and wishing for a do-over. Then he…
DanganronpaDanganronpa is a Japanese video game franchise in which a robotic teddy bear named Monokuma forces apparent high-school students to kill one another. Kazutaka Kodaka created the series. Spike Chunsoft, formerly known as Spike, develops and…
One-Punch ManOne-Punch Man is a Japanese manga series about a hero who can end any fight with a single punch. Saitama has trained so thoroughly that no opponent can test him, and the reward is boredom rather than glory. His creator, who goes by the…
Higurashi When They CryHigurashi When They Cry is a Japanese murder mystery, released as a dōjin soft visual novel by the circle 07th Expansion. It opens in June 1983, when a boy named Keiichi Maebara moves to the village of Hinamizawa and befriends five girls.…
Sword Art OnlineSword Art Online opens with 10,000 players logging into a virtual reality game for the first time on the 6th of November, only to discover that they cannot log out. The year is 2022, and each player wears a helmet called the NerveGear,…
Code GeassCode Geass is a Japanese anime television series produced by the studio Sunrise, and its premise rests on a single dangerous gift. The gift is called Geass, and it is the power of absolute obedience. Whoever receives it can issue a command…