Ashinano, Hitoshi

In a post-apocalyptic world where an environmental disaster led to the eruption of Mt. Fuji and the inundation of Yokohama, the age of humans is in its twilight. Alpha Hatsuseno is an android and the namesake of a small cafe outside Yokohama. As her owner is away on a trip indefinitely, she has been left responsible for running the cafe. Although she rarely gets any customers, Alpha remains outgoing and cheerful.

While Alpha awaits her owner's homecoming, she explores the vicinity with her scooter and camera. Throughout her journeys, she meets new people and other androids, making memories along the way.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is a beautiful, laid-back story centered around Alpha's daily activities, emphasizing the passing of time in everyday life.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

ヨコハマ買い出し紀行

Matsumoto, Taiyou

Eifuku, Issei

Although the rounin Souichirou Senou quickly discovers that most of his new neighbors in the Katagi Apartments do not trust him, his childlike wonder at the world around him allows him to strike up a friendship with the carpenter's son, Kankichi. With Kankichi's help, Souichirou begins to establish a life in Edo's tenements and exchanges his longtime sword Kunifusa for a bamboo blade, due to his newfound desire to refrain from violence.

Unfortunately for Souichirou, avoiding conflict in Edo is not always possible. Before long, Souichirou finds himself stalked by the brutal assassin Shinnosuke Kikuchi, who delights in butchering anyone caught between him and his target. Each time Souichirou must step forward to defend himself or the people of the tenements, he reawakens the intense bloodlust of his younger days and resurrects memories he would much rather forget.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Takemitsuzamurai

Takemitsu Zamurai

竹光侍

Yukimura, Makoto

Haunted by a space flight accident that claimed the life of his beloved wife, Yuri finds himself six years later as part of a team of debris cleaners on a vessel called the Toy Box charged with clearing space junk from space flight paths. The team consists of Hachimaki, a hot shot debris-man with a sailor's affinity for the orbital ocean; Fee, a chain-smoking tomboy beauty with an abrasive edge; and Pops, a veteran orbital mechanic whose avuncular presence soothes the stress of the job.

(Source: TokyoPop)

Planetes

プラネテス ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ

Mori, Kaoru

It's the turn of the 20th century, and Victorian era England plays host to a poignant and emotional saga of love between two individuals of thoroughly different societal standing. Working class maid Emma and  wealthy aristocrat William Jones find themselves falling for one another despite their allotted positions in life, and it is their persistent efforts to traverse the dangerous minefields of wealth, power, and staunch tradition, that provides the gripping emotional drama of Kaoru Mori's Emma. The rigid social structures of the time and the disapproving elite, including but not limited to William's own family, seek to keep the lovestruck pair apart due to their heavy condemnation of this breach of proper conduct. But despite their best attempts to resist one another, William and Emma's relationship deepens, and their feelings for one another prove to be stronger than the harshest of judgments.

From the author of the acclaimed series Otoyomegatari, comes this impassioned tour de force of two individuals who strive to never give up on their love. But will William and Emma's relationship fall prey to the slew of unforeseen ordeals that rise up to challenge it, or will they get their happy ending after all?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Emma

エマ

Taniguchi, Jiro

Fourty-eight-year-old salaryman Hiroshi Nakahara accidentally takes the wrong train to Tokyo after a business trip in Kyoto. He decides to accept his situation and sit back when he learns that the train is headed toward his hometown in Kurayoshi.

As he walks the streets of his childhood neighborhood, Hiroshi realizes how significantly the place has changed in the 20 years since his mother died. While visiting her grave in the Genzen Temple, he is transported back into the body of his 14-year-old self. Retaining the memories and wisdom of his middle-aged mind, he is now an eighth grader in junior high school.

Hiroshi's regained youth enables him to escape the reality of being an adult man with a wife and two daughters. Unaware how to return to his original time, he begins to relive his adolescence. During his time travel, Hiroshi attempts to uncover the reasons for his father's abandonment of the family in hopes of understanding him and his actions.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Haruka na Machi e

A Distant Neighborhood

遥かな町へ

Tatsumi, Yoshihiro

Over four decades ago, Yoshihiro Tatsumi expanded the horizons of comics storytelling by using the visual language of manga to tell gritty, literary stories about the private lives of everyday people. He has been called "the grandfather of Japanese alternative comics" and has influenced generations of cartoonists around the world. Now the visionary creator of "The Push Man and Other Stories" and "Good-bye" has turned his incisive, unflinching gaze upon himself. Over ten years in the making, "A Drifting Life" is Tatsumis' most ambitious, personal, and heart felt work: an autobiographical bildungsroman in comics form. Using his life long obsession with comics as a frame work, Tatsumi weaves a complex story that encompasses family dynamics, Japanese culture and history, first love, the intricacies of the manga industry, and most importantly, what it means to be an artist. Alternately humorous, enlightening, and haunting, this is the masterful summartion of a fascinating life and a historic career.

(Source: Drawn &amp; Quarterly)

Gekiga Hyouryuu

A Drifting Life

劇画漂流

Sekiya, Tetsuji

Shogo Ban, a college student from Fukuoka, likes to cook. Thanks to the owner of the restaurant where he works part-time, he finds himself working at the line of Roppongi's best Italian restaurant, Trattoria Baccanale, and discovers that the real deal isn't quite as easy as he'd thought. The manga follows Ban as he struggles to keep up with the hectic workload and his co-workers, along with issues outside the kitchen like his relationship with his girlfriend Eri, who he left behind in Fukuoka.

(Source: MU)

Bambino!

バンビ～ノ！

Nakamura, Hikaru

Saint☆Oniisan is slice-of-life or divine-life, tale of Jesus and Buddha as they try to experience the modern world, in this case, Japan. The manga places a funny twist on religion, attitudes, culture and customs in Japan through the eyes of Jesus and Buddha.

You see Jesus and Buddha experiencing Asakusa, public baths, theme parks, and the internet. Throughout the manga, we get a little history of their divine greatness only to see their apparent insignificance in modern Japanese society. Suffice to say, before people can recognize that they're actually Jesus and Buddha, people think of them as someone who looks like Johnny Depp or a guy with a button on his forehead. For real.

Saint☆Oniisan

Saint☆Young Men

聖☆おにいさん

Abe, Yarou

A manga that revolves around an old-fashioned all-night food stall, the various dishes that the stall owner prepares to suit the tastes of different customers, and the joys, griefs, trials and tribulations of his faithful patrons.

(Source: MU)

Shinya Shokudou

深夜食堂

Tezuka, Osamu

The story of friendship between a samurai and a doctor in the final days of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Hidamari no Ki

陽だまりの樹

Ishikawa, Masayuki

Tadayasu Sawaki has a gift: he can see all kinds of microbes, from the ones that ferment sake to everyday bathroom mold. Not only that, but they're not scientifically accurate but instead cute chibi creatures. When he enters an agricultural university and a professor finds out about his gift, he begins to meet new people that help him discover more about his abilities and himself.

Moyashimon

Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture

もやしもん

Yoshinaga, Fumi

Shirou Kakei, a straitlaced lawyer, cooks gourmet dinners for himself and his longtime gay lover, Kenji Yabuki, a carefree, hippie-ish hairdresser. The story is told through the lens of dinner preparation.

(Source: Entropy)

12 Manga Like Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru