Curated playlist
Shōnen manga
- The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can EnterThe Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter begins in a world where hidden dungeons are the stuff of legend. Few people ever find one. Noir Stardia found one. What he discovered inside was more surprising than any treasure: Olivia Servant, a…
- Super Dimension Fortress MacrossSuper Dimension Fortress Macross began its life in Japan in October 1982 with only three episodes completed. The show's creators at Studio Nue had spent years fighting for it, surviving a collapsed sponsor, a budget war with an advertising…
- InuyashaInuyasha is a Japanese manga series created by Rumiko Takahashi, and it begins with a betrayal. In 1496 Japan, a priestess named Kikyo and a half-demon she loves are tricked into turning against each other. He steals the sacred Shikon…
- NarutoNaruto Uzumaki was born into a lie. On the night of his birth, his father, the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze, sealed a monstrous nine-tailed fox called Kurama inside him to save their village. Then Minato died. Naruto grew up scorned by…
- DevilmanDevilman is the manga series by Go Nagai that sent a 16-year-old reader named Nanase Ohkawa into a state of shock she never forgot, and eventually led her to write her own apocalyptic manga, X, decades later. That kind of reach is rare.…
- Vinland Saga (manga)Vinland Saga is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Makoto Yukimura, and it begins with a boy who wants nothing more than to kill a man. That man raised him. That man also murdered his father. The boy's name is Thorfinn, and…
- One PieceThe surface of the Blue Planet consists mainly of the Blue Sea, divided by a massive continental mountain range called the Red Line. Two vast oceans stretch out on either side of this barrier, creating a world where travel is restricted by…
- Yu-Gi-Oh!Yu-Gi-Oh! began as a single question: what if a bullied teenager could become an invincible hero, not through strength, but through games? Kazuki Takahashi posed that question in September 1996, when the first chapter appeared in Weekly…
- Fist of the North StarFist of the North Star opens with a single phrase that would eventually conquer the internet decades after anyone first read it: "You are already dead." Kenshiro, the series' stoic warrior hero, delivers that line to enemies just before…
- Astro BoyAstro Boy is a small android with jet engines in his feet, a machine gun hidden in his hips, and the ability to feel. Osamu Tezuka created him in 1952 for a Japanese boys' magazine, and what began as a supporting character in a comic…
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no YaibaDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba began its life in Weekly Shonen Jump on the 15th of February 2016 as a quiet manga about a charcoal-selling boy whose family was slaughtered by a demon. Nobody predicted what would happen next. By July 2025,…
- Jujutsu KaisenJujutsu Kaisen is a manga series written and illustrated by Gege Akutami that debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump on the 5th of March 2018, and went on to become one of the best-selling manga series of all time. By December 2025, it had over 150…
- RWBYRWBY, pronounced "Ruby," launched on the 18th of July 2013, on the Rooster Teeth website, and it arrived with a question its creators never expected to face: is this thing actually anime? The show was built by Monty Oum, an animator who…
- Rurouni KenshinRurouni Kenshin opens on a man carrying a sword he has sworn never to use. It is 1878, the eleventh year of Japan's Meiji era, and Himura Kenshin wanders the countryside offering protection to strangers as payment for a past he cannot…
- Black ButlerBlack Butler, the manga series written and illustrated by Yana Toboso, opens on a single night in Victorian-era London that changes everything. A twelve-year-old boy named Ciel Phantomhive stands at the center of a summoning ritual…
- Attack on TitanAttack on Titan begins in the year 845, when two enormous humanoids punch through the outermost of three great circular walls and leave a boy named Eren Yeager watching a grinning Titan devour his mother. That single image, a creature…
- Fullmetal AlchemistFullmetal Alchemist began in a single magazine page published on the 12th of July 2001 in Monthly Shōnen Gangan, the monthly anthology put out by Square Enix. Its creator, Hiromu Arakawa, had spent long nights reading contradictory books…
- Bleach (manga)Bleach began with a drawing of a kimono. Tite Kubo, a manga artist whose previous series had just been cancelled, sat down with the image of a death god dressed in traditional Japanese robes, and from that single visual idea built one of…
- DororoDororo begins with a bargain no father should ever make. A powerful daimyo named Kagemitsu Daigo strikes a pact with 48 demons, offering them anything they desire from his newborn child in exchange for power and prosperity over his domain.…
- Fate/stay nightFate/Stay Night began not as a game but as a story Kinoko Nasu wrote in college with no particular destination in mind. He only completed what would become one route out of three, set it aside in 1999, and then co-founded a small creative…
- Speed RacerSpeed Racer began not as a television show, but as a comic book rooted in two films that captivated a young artist in Japan. Tatsuo Yoshida saw Viva Las Vegas and Goldfinger and was transfixed by two very different images: Elvis Presley…
- Ashita no JoeAshita no Joe begins with a young drifter wandering through the San'ya slums, an encounter that will set in motion one of the most debated endings in manga history. When Joe Yabuki stumbles into Danpei Tange, an alcoholic former boxing…
- Dragon HalfDragon Half is a Japanese manga series that turns the conventions of fantasy adventure completely on their head. Written and illustrated by Ryūsuke Mita, it ran in Fujimi Shobo's Dragon Magazine from the 30th of January 1988 to the 30th of…
- KonoSubaKonoSuba begins with an embarrassing death, one so ill-timed that a goddess found it worth mentioning the moment she met Kazuma Satou. Natsume Akatsuki wrote the light novel series to work against typical fantasy tropes, turning the…
- Tetsujin 28-goTetsujin 28-go arrived in 1956, the creation of Mitsuteru Yokoyama, and it asked a question that would echo through decades of Japanese popular culture: what happens when a child inherits a weapon? The premise is stark. A ten-year-old boy…
- Tokyo RevengersIn February 2020, Tokyo Revengers had three million copies in circulation. By September 2021, that figure had climbed past forty million. By June 2024, Ken Wakui's manga had exceeded eighty million copies worldwide. That kind of trajectory…
- Sakigake!! OtokojukuSakigake!! Otokojuku has sold over 26 million copies, yet outside Japan almost no one has heard of it. That single number places it among the best-selling series in Weekly Shonen Jump history, alongside titles that became household names…
- Claymore (manga)Claymore is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Norihiro Yagi, and it opens on a world where the line between human and monster is drawn in silver. On a fictional medieval island, shapeshifting creatures called Yoma prey on…
- Gurren LagannGurren Lagann opens underground, where humanity has forgotten the sky. A meek fourteen-year-old named Simon spends his days digging deeper into the earth, never once seeing the surface that his louder, brasher friend Kamina can barely stop…
- Shōnen mangaShōnen manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics that, by any measure, dominates the global comics market. In 1995, at the industry's peak, shōnen magazines alone sold 662 million copies in a single year. That number did not come…
- Lucky Star (manga)Lucky Star began, in its creator's own words, as nothing special. Kagami Yoshimizu told Newtype USA in June 2005, "I don't really think my production process is anything special." He added that "my personality is very well suited to doing…
- Baccano!Baccano! begins on a ship called the Advenna Avis in 1711, where a group of alchemists summons a demon and walks away with eternal life. That single transaction sets in motion a chain of events that will not fully resolve until the year…
- Cobra (manga)Cobra, the manga series by Buichi Terasawa, opens not with a hero striding across a starfield, but with an ordinary office worker named Johnson who is bored. One Sunday morning, Johnson's robotic servant Ben suggests he visit the Trip…
- Violence JackViolence Jack arrived in Weekly Shonen Magazine on the 22nd of July, 1973, and it arrived with a figure unlike anything manga readers had encountered. Seven to ten feet tall, with the muscles of a gorilla, the fangs of a wolf, and burning…
- Blue ExorcistBlue Exorcist opens with a teenager pulling a sword from a scabbard - and discovering he is the son of Satan. Rin Okumura does not learn this quietly. He watches the man who raised him, Father Shiro Fujimoto, die to protect him. Then…
- Guin SagaGuin Saga began as a single novel in 1979 with a premise that sounds almost absurd: a warrior with no memory, no name, and a leopard mask magically fused to his skull wanders into a world of swords and sorcery. He knows only how to fight,…
- Black CloverBlack Clover, the manga series written and illustrated by Yuki Tabata, opens with a premise that sounds almost like a joke: in a world where every person is born with magical power, the hero has none at all. Asta cannot use magic. He has…
- Bastard!!Bastard!! is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazushi Hagiwara, and it is named after its own irreverence. The title alone signals what it contains: a dark wizard named Dark Schneider, a world built from heavy metal band…