Urasawa, Naoki

As the 20th century approaches its end, people all over the world are anxious that the world is changing. And probably not for the better.

Kenji Endou is a normal convenience store manager who is just trying to get by. But when he learns that one of his old friends going by the name "Donkey" has suddenly committed suicide and that a new cult led by a figure known as "Friend" is becoming more notorious, Kenji starts to feel that something is not right. With a few key clues left behind by his deceased friend, Kenji realizes that this cult is much more than he ever thought it would be—not only is this mysterious organization directly targeting him and his childhood friends, but the whole world also faces a grave danger that only the friends have the key to stop.

Kenji's simple life of barely making ends meet is flipped upside down when he reunites with his childhood friends, and together they must figure out the truth of how their past is connected to the cult, as the turn of the century could mean the possible end of the world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

20th Century Boys

20世紀少年

Otomo, Katsuhiro

1988: It is World War III. Tokyo is decimated by a mysterious black explosion, unmatched in magnitude.

2019: Fast forward 31 years. Neo-Tokyo, hastily built on the ruins of old Tokyo, is a sprawling cityscape of neon extravaganza. It is a fusion of towering skyscrapers and cutting-edge technology that is permeated through and through with an explosive, hyper-violent cocktail of biker gangs, poverty, and revolutionaries. In this derelict metropolis live Tetsuo Shima and Shoutarou Kaneda, two bikers who are the best of friends and the fiercest of rivals, despite being affiliated with the same gang. Desperate to prove himself as Kaneda's equal, Tetsuo unwittingly pulls a stunt that culminates in the awakening of a cryptic existence that threatens to change both the face of Neo-Tokyo and the lives of those who call the city their home—the awakening of a government secret simply known as Akira. 

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Akira

AKIRA

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

Kishiro, Yukito

The utopian metropolis of Zalem soars high in the skies, its presence dominating the horizon. Beneath it is the noxious underbelly known as The Scrapyard, where the city stockpiles all of its waste. Living amongst the vast heaps of garbage are humans and cyborgs, surviving by any means necessary.

Daisuke Ido, a doctor specializing in cyborg repairs, finds the head of a young female cyborg while scavenging a pile of old android parts. Proceeding to build her a new body, he names her Gally. Upon activation, Gally does not seem to remember anything about her past life. Nonetheless, she does not seem to mind as long as she stays by Ido’s side.

However, she soon discovers that Ido has a side job as a hunter-warrior, a bounty hunter working for The Scrapyard’s government. Despite Ido’s warning, she decides to become one herself, awakening her forgotten knowledge of fighting techniques. Equipped with newfound strength, Gally is determined to fight through the alleys of The Scrapyard and beyond, retrieving fragments from her past to rediscover her true identity.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gunnm

Battle Angel Alita

銃夢 GUNNM

Iwaaki, Hitoshi

"Parasites" are tennis ball sized creatures, whose numbers and origins are unknown. They invade and take over the human mind in order to survive. Shinichi Izumi is a 16-year-old high school student who lives with his parents in a quiet neighborhood. One night, a Parasite invades Shinichi's body in an attempt to take control of it. However, it fails to complete the takeover process and ultimately ends up inhabiting only his right arm. 

Thus, both Shinichi and the Parasite—who calls himself Migi—retain their individual minds. Now in a peculiar "human and alien" relationship, Migi proposes that they cooperate to survive. Shinichi has no choice but to agree, and he must now cling to his morality as he and Migi face off against other bloodthirsty Parasites.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kiseijuu

Parasyte

寄生獣

Nightow, Yasuhiro

Much of the damage attributed to "Vash" is caused by the activities of bounty hunters who are after the 60,000,000,000$$ (sixty billion "double dollars") reward on Vash's head for the destruction of a city called July. Vash does not clearly remember the destruction of July, and only wants "love and peace", as he puts it; though he is a gunfighter of inhuman skill, he uses his weapons only to save lives wherever he can.

As the series progresses, more is gradually learned about Vash's mysterious history and the history of the human civilization on Gunsmoke, the desert planet the series is set on. The series is often humorous in tone, but at the same time it involves very serious character development and especially in later episodes it becomes quite emotionally intense. Vash is occasionally joined by a priest, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, who is almost as good a gunfighter as Vash himself, and later is targeted by a band of assassins known as the Gung-Ho Guns for reasons which are mysterious at first.

Trigun evolves into a very serious discussion of the nature of morality, posing questions such as: What is the nature of morality? Can we judge different moral codes? If a person is forced to betray their moral code, does that betrayal invalidate that moral code, and can the person still try to live up to that moral code? Can the person find redemption from their wrongs, and if so, how?

(Source: Wikipedia)

Trigun Maximum

トライガンマキシマム

Nihei, Tsutomu

In an enormous steel labyrinth riddled with horrifying creatures, humanity is forced to isolate itself in small enclaves while living in constant fear of its annihilation. In this dystopia, only a strange young man known as Killy is brave enough to traverse its unforgiving territories. 

Possessing superhuman strength and a rare Graviton Beam Emitter, Killy fights off bloodthirsty beasts and other fiendish forces in his desperate search for a human with the Net Terminal Gene—genetic information that holds the potential to restore the corrupt world. 

The dark world of Blame! follows Killy as he meets new people, sheds more blood, and draws closer to finding the Net Terminal Gene. Through these exploits, the true nature of the world is slowly pieced together.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Blame!

BLAME!

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

Endo, Hiroki

In the panic surrounding a worldwide pandemic which kills 15 percent of the population and cripples many more, a secret organization, the Propater, topples the UN and seizes control of much of the world. A boy and a girl, raised in an abandoned virology research center, immune to the virus, are attacked by the Propater and escape.

Twenty years later, the boy is the most powerful drug lord in South America. He aids his son from behind the scenes as he evades and eventually with the help of mercenaries from Nomad (some of them former Propater operatives) fights the Propater. As the plot develops focus shifts away from the main character and develops many sub-plots dedicated to terrorism, Human-improvement, the struggle of the developing countries and the power battles between the drug cartels and Propater.

Based strongly on Gnostic mythology, all major characters are named after gnostic deities, and have analogous roles.

(Source: MU)

Eden: It's an Endless World!

EDEN ～It's an Endless World!～

Oku, Hiroya

Lonely high school student Kei Kurono isolates himself out of a growing cynicism toward his fellow man and the cruelty they are capable of enacting. One day, while waiting to take the subway to school, Kei's classmate Masaru Katou leaps onto the tracks in an effort to save a drunk man. Driven by an uncharacteristic desire to rescue someone else, Kei follows Katou down into danger. While successful in saving him, the two boys are killed by the train.

Kei wakes up beside Katou in an apartment full of strangers and furnished by a giant black orb with a glass-like outer surface. After finding out that everyone in the room has recently died, words appear on the black ball tasking them with killing a strange creature. The ball equips Kei and the others with power suits and mysterious guns before sending them off to collect this bizarre bounty.

Although Kei discovers the mission to be far more deadly than originally suspected, he manages to survive. He is teleported back to the apartment where he and the other survivors are rewarded point values according to their actions in battle by the black sphere, which a fellow survivor says is called "Gantz." Despite his death earlier that day, Kei is granted the ability to return to his daily life with one condition: he can be uprooted from his day at any time and summoned back to the apartment, where Gantz will task him and other recently deceased with the assassination of another target. 

While Katou dreads the inevitable return to Gantz, Kei finds himself living for the sole purpose of carrying out these missions. Thriving in the heat of battle and learning to care about himself and his comrades, Kei faces escalating monstrous threats that begin to bleed out into his normal life outside of Gantz.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gantz

GANTZ

Shirow, Masamune

The year is 2029. The world has endured four world wars and ushered in a new age of technological advancement that has largely transformed society as humanity knows it. Cybernetic enhancements, robotic AIs, and cyborgs have now become the norm in a world where humans are more machine than man. However, with this modern change, crime started evolving as well: hackers, corrupt officials, and other opportunists have found ways to sneak into innovative systems for their own personal agendas.

In Japan, where such crimes run rampant, the government establishes Section 9—a clandestine team of highly trained operatives—to counter these threats. Major Motoko Kusanagi, a woman of impenetrable caliber and bravado, leads Section 9 on its mission to tackle cyberterrorism and ensure that the nation's stability does not falter in the pace of the rapidly progressing future.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Koukaku Kidoutai: The Ghost in the Shell

The Ghost in the Shell

攻殻機動隊 THE GHOST IN THE SHELL

Takahashi, Shin

Shuji and Chise are two Hokkaido high school students barely starting a relationship with each other. Then, with no warning, a squadron of bombers from an unknown country destroy the city of Sapporo. All hope is lost when suddenly, the bombers are destroyed by a small red light floating across the sky. At this point, Shuji finds out that the one responsible for eliminating the enemy forces is Chise, who reveals herself as a cyborg engineered for mass-destruction.

(Source: ANN)

Manga Like Steins;Gate: Mugen Enten no Arc Light