Curated playlist

Shōnen manga

Macross gave the world a pop star who never existed, and her song still became a real hit. The rest of this shelf of Japanese comics has strange beginnings too. Attack on Titan's giants came from a drunk customer at an internet cafe, and Bleach began with a drawing of a kimono. Some open darker. In Dororo, a daimyo trades his newborn son's body to 48 demons. In Black Butler, a demon skips a cult and answers a twelve-year-old boy. Demon Slayer is the quiet one, about a charcoal seller.

Daemons of the Shadow RealmDaemons of the Shadow Realm is a Japanese manga by Hiromu Arakawa, and it opens with a pair of twins described as "born between day and night." Their names are Yuru and Asa. They come from a premodern village called Higashi, and a prophecy…
The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can EnterIn The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter, Noir's new power can kill him if his Life Points reach zero.
Super Dimension Fortress MacrossA pop star who never existed had a real hit song in the anime Macross.
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…
InuyashaIn the manga Inuyasha, a dying priestess orders her own body burned along with a sacred jewel.
NarutoOn the night Naruto was born, his father sealed a nine-tailed fox inside him. He grew up scorned by the village.
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.
One PieceOda sealed the truth about One Piece's treasure in a box and sent it to the ocean floor.
Ranma ½Ranma ½ is a Japanese manga by Rumiko Takahashi about a teenage martial artist whose body changes with the temperature of the water that touches him. Ranma Saotome has trained in fighting since early childhood. He spends the series hunting…
Yu-Gi-Oh!This manga's hero wins battles without ever hitting anyone. Kazuki Takahashi wanted something original.
Fist of the North StarAn editor's used-bookshop find led to the manga Fist of the North Star.
Mobile Suit GundamMobile Suit Gundam, a Japanese anime series created by Yoshiyuki Tomino, once drew a crowd of 15,000 people to a single film premiere on the 22nd of February 1981. Police and the media feared that the gathering could turn into a riot. The…
Case ClosedCase Closed, a Japanese manga series by Gosho Aoyama, had more than 270 million copies in circulation worldwide by January 2023. That makes it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. It runs in Weekly Shōnen Sunday, a magazine…
BorutoBoruto: Naruto Next Generations is a manga sequel that greets its readers with an older Boruto Uzumaki and a glimpse of a dark future. The story that follows is lighter in tone than the Naruto saga it continues. Masashi Kishimoto, the…
Astro BoyAstro Boy, a robot boy, was built to replace a dead son and then sold to a circus. His creator rejected him.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no YaibaDemon Slayer began as a quiet manga about a boy who sold charcoal. By July 2025 it had over 220 million copies out.
Jujutsu KaisenA rotten finger sets off the manga Jujutsu Kaisen. A student swallows it and hosts a thousand-year-old sorcerer.
RWBYRWBY's title is not a word but a color code. It stands for red, white, black and yellow, the four leads' colors.
Rurouni KenshinThe hero of Rurouni Kenshin carries a sword with its blade turned backward.
Black ButlerIn Black Butler, a demon ignores a cult's summoning and answers a twelve-year-old boy's call instead.
Attack on TitanAttack on Titan's giants began with a drunk customer at an internet cafe.
Fullmetal AlchemistTwo brothers try to bring their mother back in Fullmetal Alchemist, and lose a leg and a whole body.
Bleach (manga)The manga Bleach began with a drawing of a kimono. Its artist had just had his previous series canceled.
DororoA daimyo in the manga Dororo trades his newborn son's body to 48 demons. The boy's mother sets him adrift on a river.
Spy × FamilySpy × Family, a Japanese web manga written and illustrated by Tatsuya Endo, had more than 42 million copies in circulation by April 2026. That puts it among the best-selling manga series of all time. Its hero is an agent known as Twilight,…
Samurai ChamplooSamurai Champloo opens with a coin toss that decides whether two swordsmen keep trying to kill each other. Heads, and their duel goes on. Tails, and they must first help a young woman search for a samurai who smells of sunflowers. This…
Mob Psycho 100Mob Psycho 100 follows a middle school boy named Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed Mob, who carries immense psychic power and works constantly to keep his feelings down. The two facts are linked. His power threatens to break past its limits as…
Fairy TailFairy Tail, a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima, had 72 million copies in print by February 2020. That figure places it among the best-selling manga series of all time. Its hero is Natsu Dragneel, a wizard who roams a…
GintamaGintama opens with a joke about its own page count. In the very first chapter, a character finishes a short fight and complains that it lasted only one page. The hero, Gintoki, snaps back: "Shut up! One page is a long time for a manga…
YuYu HakushoYuYu Hakusho begins with a 14-year-old street brawler named Yusuke Urameshi shoving a young boy out of the path of a car. The boy lives. Yusuke does not. It is an uncharacteristic act of kindness from a teenage delinquent, and it kills him…
Slam Dunk (manga)Slam Dunk, the Japanese sports manga by Takehiko Inoue, had over 185 million copies in circulation by 2024. That figure places it among the best-selling manga series in history. Its hero is neither a prodigy nor a champion. He is a…
Soul EaterAtsushi Ohkubo's manga Soul Eater runs on a strict counting rule. A living weapon must absorb the souls of 99 evil humans, followed by one witch, in exactly that order. Break the sequence and the tally starts over from zero. A rule like…
Dragon Ball (manga)519 chapters of Dragon Ball, a Japanese manga by Akira Toriyama, filled 42 tankōbon volumes. By 2022, those volumes had sold 260 million copies worldwide. Toriyama, though, never planned for such a run. He first guessed that 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…
Mobile Suit Gundam WingMobile Suit Gundam Wing, a Japanese mecha anime series from 1995, gives its lead pilot a borrowed name. The boy called Heero Yuy shares that name with a pacifist leader of the colonies, yet his own name is only an alias. In Japan the…
Fate/stay nightFate/stay night began as an unfinished college story. Kinoko Nasu finished only one of its three routes in 1999.
Speed RacerSpeed Racer began as a Japanese comic inspired by Elvis and James Bond. Tatsuo Yoshida merged two films into one hero.
Ashita no JoeDid boxer Joe Yabuki survive his final fight in the manga Ashita no Joe?
Dragon HalfDragon Half's heroine Mink loves a dragon slayer, yet her own mother was a dragon.
KonoSubaSnow kept the KonoSuba author from a Tokyo meeting about his own anime. He heard the news by phone in January 2015.
Tetsujin 28-goIn the manga Tetsujin 28-go, a ten-year-old boy inherits his dead father's giant war robot.
Tokyo RevengersIn Tokyo Revengers, a part-timer shoved from a subway platform lands twelve years in the past.
Haruhi SuzumiyaHaruhi Suzumiya is a Japanese light novel series by Nagaru Tanigawa, illustrated by Noizi Ito, and it helped solve a math problem that had stayed open since 1993. In 2011, a crowd on 4chan set out to answer a puzzle inspired by the anime's…
FrierenFrieren is an elven mage who makes a promise to her friends that, for her, is almost no promise at all. Under a meteor shower called the Era Meteors, which appears once every fifty years, she agrees to gather with her old companions again…
Sakigake!! OtokojukuThe manga Otokojuku has sold over 26 million copies, yet few outside Japan know it.
Claymore (manga)The magazine that launched Claymore shut down exactly six years to the day after the manga began.
The Seven Deadly Sins (manga)The Seven Deadly Sins, the Japanese manga by Nakaba Suzuki, began with a pilot chapter that its author drew more than twenty times. One discarded manuscript, titled Chapter X, reached English readers in 2015 on the website of Kodansha USA.…
Death NoteA plain black notebook sits at the center of Death Note, a Japanese manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. Anyone who writes a person's name in its pages ends that person's life within seconds. In Tokyo, a…
Hajime no IppoHajime no Ippo opens its hero's boxing life with a test involving falling leaves. A professional boxer named Mamoru Takamura sets a bruised high school boy a task. Catch ten leaves from a tree at the same moment, with a single week to…