Many of us otaku enjoy reading their favorite manga and form a special bond between us, the characters, and the story as a whole. Of course, some, but not all, wish for anime adaptations toward specific manga of their choice and watch their favorite scenes in action.
Today, we will delve into a top 10 manga that we think deserves an anime and add them into the mix of the anime seasons to spice things up. There is something to note before we begin is that viewers and readers should understand that it is tedious for the anime industries to cram the entire story from the manga in for 12, about 23 minutes each, episodes if they are aiming for a season. So bear in mind, that anime, manga, and light novel have their own story to tell.
10. Sankaku no Kyori wa Kagirinai Zero (Bizarre Love Triangle)
- Authors: Saginomiya, Misaki (Story) and Kasumi, Morino (Art)
- Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, School, Seinen
- Volumes: 1
- Published: April 2019 - Ongoing
Yano Shiki adapts and utilizes various personalities to please anyone he meets and interacts in school. One day, Minase Akiha, a beautiful transfer student, came to him and remarked about the book he was reading. That moment is enough for Yano to draw interest towards Minase, but the conversation comes to an abrupt when the time comes.
The manga is about how Yano who tries to live in everyone’s expectation by acting in specific characters. But Minase was a whole different case but similar to his. Minase does, in fact, have split personalities. Despite the circumstances, Yano fell in love with Akiha, who is one of the personalities within Minase and he decides to teach Minase how to act and utilize their capabilities to avoid suspicions while getting to know their personalities.
The concept of the love triangle implemented in this manga wasn’t based on three people, but rather two people and one of them has a split personality. This approach leads to another realm of possibilities of what kind of relationships do these personalities manifest. Now then, how will Yano and Minase get through this?
9. A-rank Boukensha no Slow Life (An A-ranked Adventurer’s “Slow-living”)
- Authors: Warabino, Kugeko (Art), Renkinou (Story)
- Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Magic, Romance, Slice of Life
- Volumes: 2
- Published: April 2019 - Ongoing
Aldred was the leader of an A-ranked party, Black Silver. He has accomplished a quest of slaying a dragon. Now that he took down a monster of the strongest species, he was left with an option to retire from his adventurer status and decides to live in a countryside Nordende, a place filled with beautiful sceneries and where he had visited during a quest in a past.
You may have noticed the word romance in the genre. Yes, the romance in this manga revolves around the retired young adventurer and the shy and beautiful villager of the Nordende, called Flora. This manga focuses on what it feels like for a person, who used to live in the glory days or a city or capital for a long time, lives in a rural area to relax and live their lives in a peaceful environment, meeting all kinds of people in a small village for necessities. If you read this manga, sometimes, you will feel like you’re playing Animal Crossing or the nostalgia of Wolf Children but minus the wolves.
8. “Kyuubo” Suterareteta Dragon Hirotta “Kaikata” (Urgent Request: How to Raise an
Abandoned Dragon)
- Authors: Kitora, Con (Art), Assamu, Tee (Story)
- Genres: Fantasy
- Volumes: 1
- Published: November 2019 - Ongoing
Tetsu is a normal high school boy who is known for his strong toughness. One day, a lizard that he picked up turns out to be an extremely rare dragon. With the wonders of the internet, he posted an inquiry about it, and that unexpectedly become viral.
The world in this manga is a mixture of fantasy, modern, and a normal high school settings, where there are orcs, angels and demons, and any other species and myths you can think of. Oh, we forgot to mention humans with cat-ears as well. Tetsu is just your normal high school student while others possess a magic of their own. He was constantly looked down by popular students because of that fact and you can’t help but feel bad for Tetsu and admire how patience he is.
Based on the initial chapters of the manga, it focuses on how much responsibility does it take for owners to take care of and nurture their pets. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a pet dragon and hope to god that they don’t eat us alive? On second thought, let’s just hope they don’t eat us.
7. Rebuild World
- Authors: Ayamura, Kirihito (Art). Nafuse (Story)
- Genres: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Seinen
- Volumes: 1
- Published: July 2019 - Ongoing
Akira explores the ruins of the old world as a hunter, searching and trading artifacts as a source of income to get out of his birthplace, Slumtown. During one of his expedition, he found himself a strange woman, standing in the middle of the field stark naked. Her name is Alpha and she will be your guide.
The reason behind this choice is that we need more gun-type anime. The manga is a combination of Aoharu x Kikanjuu, Nier Automata, and Gun Gale Online. The interesting part of this manga is that it showcases how Alpha tutors and trains Akira on how to be a human and a hunter. From general education, reading, writing, gun disciplines, gun maintenance, micro and macro transactions, and decision making in the field.
We find this sort of manga educational of how one would develop and invest themselves for the purpose of survival and reality itself. A lesson of kill or be killed, decisions and keeping your emotions in check. A slight hesitation is more than enough to get yourself killed. So, are you ready for this?
6. Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru (Seven Swords Dominate)
- Authors: Esuno, Sakae (Art) and Uno, Bokuto (Story)
- Genres: Action, Fantasy, School, Shounen
- Volumes: 2
- Published: May 2019 - Ongoing
A new year ushers in the chance for new students to enroll in a prestigious magic school of Kimberly during the season of spring. Sakura trees bloom. Magical creatures welcome the new students wearing black robes and strapped with swords and magic canes. But that moment of leisure didn’t last long as an underground labyrinth swallows the whole students. Trying to get out of the ominous and terrifying place with his companions, Oliver allies with a single girl with a Japanese sword strapped to her hip, Nanao.
Welcome to Hogwarts! Sorry, wrong school. Welcome to Kimberly Magic Academy! You will be spending seven years of your life to hone your skills as a mage. It wasn’t just magic, you will experience and learn swordsmanship and bestiary, and try to survive from “accidents.” The setting of this manga is a combination Harry Potter universe, Nanatsu no Taizai and Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry. The artwork of the surroundings is so surreal and it feels like we’re in a historic European country, a bit medieval but cleaner.
5. MoMo: The Blood Taker
- Authors: Sugito, Akira
- Genres: Mystery, Drama, Vampire, Psychological, Seinen
- Volumes: 5
- Published: January 2019 - Ongoing
Mikogami Keigo, a professional detective in Tokyo, is investigating a series of usual cases where victims’ blood is fully drained. However, his search was nothing more than revenge for the cruel death of his wife ten years ago. His whole life change when he meets a silver- haired girl, Draculia Momo, who has been observing him.
Okay, real talk. We really need more vampire anime in the market. The theme of MoMo: The Blood Taker is vengeance. The setting reminds us of Code Vein, Tokyo Ghoul, and Psycho Pass. The interesting and somewhat relatable to reality regarding discriminations within the social status in the vampire society. Mikogami, who used to be a human and a professional detective, will have to learn the power that was given to him to search for the killer of his wife and also deal with other tasks assigned by his master.
The art style of the action scenes could sometimes drag you down with all the pressure they give off and you can feel the anger, hatred, and focus coming from Mikogami. There are many situations that lead you to question yourself on which approach is morally right, because we’re talking about vampires and humans, who would you save and why?
4. Tensei Majo wa Horobi wo Tsugeru (In which a witch casts the curse of death)
- Authors: Yuzuhara, Tail (Story) and sora (Art)
- Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Romance
- Volumes: 2
- Published: December 2018 - Ongoing
When a high school student Sena Shirai is about to leave her shut-in lifestyle and join the outside world, she got herself into a traffic accident. She opens her eyes, only to find herself reborn into a fantasy world. However, because everyone around her sees her as a witch, Sena goes back to her former habits and lives in solitude in the woods until a young man visits her.
We just want to start it off with how amazing the artwork and the color page are. Sena’s red riding hood clothing… mmm. Sena has two spells Explode and Destroy which are the main spells that were feared by the villagers close to her home. And no, she is not Megumin except she’s 18. The concept of how a hot young man, Keith, came to visit her is like Akagami no Shirayuki-hime. The application of magic with emphasis on the usage of items like small cute jars, candy, bells, and other items. The art of spell casting is like a poem and the first thing that came to our mind is that wow, these make sense.
3. Necromance
- Authors: Doumoto, Yuuki
- Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Shounen
- Volumes: 3
- Published: August 2019 - Ongoing
Five brave heroes successfully defeat the Demon King and save the world, but at the cost of a hero’s life, Shibuki Raven. Instead of a celebration, the entire nation held a funeral for Raven. Because of the regrets and longing for his one true love Pastel Safina, Raven comes back to life, except that he couldn’t lay a finger on Safina as he is now undead.
You read the genre of this series and you know the drill. The objective of the party is to search for the demon king to turn Raven back to normal. The adventure is filled with comedy and the interactions between characters are heartwarming and you can’t help but feel like supporting the characters’ romantic development. The monsters can be errr… unorthodox but interesting nonetheless.
The most interesting part of this manga is that it shows what a wholesome long-distance relationship looks like but they are literally next to each other and because of their social status. If you’re looking for a series where two individuals who are extremely shy in their own way trying to figure out to develop their romantic relationship together, give this manga a try.
2. Namae no Nai Kaibutsu: Kumo to Shoujo to Ryouki Satsujin
- Authors: Banjou, Azusa (Art) and Kuroki, Kyouya (Story)
- Genres: Mystery, Horror, Supernatural
- Volumes: 3
- Published: September 2018 – September 2019
A monster spider, with the ability to take the form of whoever it eats, takes a cute high school and makes out with Rei, the main character. At the same time, multiple strange murders are spreading throughout the town and Rei begins to wonder whether the murders are connected to the spider before him.
Warning: if you have arachnophobia, we highly suggest you to skip this manga. Azusa really nails on the details of the spider in terms of artwork because they look horrifying as… ahem. Kyouya’s approach of the manga is the emphasis of how a spider functions but in a human body which leads to a spider waifu. She doesn’t have capabilities for speech so it makes a lot of sense because she is a spider from the inside and it is difficult enough for Rei to determine whether she is a friend or a foe.
Thus, this leads to a mystery aspect of the story where the victims of the strange cases had their internal organs removed without a trace. See the trend there? Of course, we shouldn’t rush to conclusions because we need solid evidence, right? The organs and gore in the manga are super realistic, so please don’t eat anything while reading this. You wouldn’t want to ruin your appetite unless you want to for all the wrong reasons.
1. Spy X Family
- Authors: Endou, Tatsuya
- Genres: Action, Comedy, Shounen
- Volumes: 4+
- Published: March 2019 - Ongoing
Meet James Bond from 007, but in anime and a lot of family wholesome comedy. A legendary secret spy Loid Forger, codename “Twilight,” is tasked to complete operation Strix, where he must investigate and stop the Ostanian Politician Desmond from sparking a war between Westalis and their neighboring country. However, to get close to his target, he has to get married, adopt a child, and pretends as a family.
The manga begins with Loid was given the most difficult mission of his life: starting a family. The reason behind this is because of the fact that he had never experienced true love and care throughout his career since he is a spy, to begin with. The unique part of this manga is that his wife is a professional hitman and the child he adopted turns out to be an Esper. Besides, with the power of reading minds, Anya knows Loid and Yor’s secret and decides to keep it quiet to make the situations… interesting. This manga is filled with relatable wholesome and comedic elements and some scenes might drive your maternal instinct over the roof.
Final Thoughts
These are the top 10 manga that we feel deserves and anime. The decision is based on looking for something interesting, different but similar at the same time to broaden our perspective to a certain extent. It was difficult to make decisions when it comes to anime adaptation for manga because they are not within our control and it is up to the anime industries. Besides, they have to make sure that the anime well-executed and possible to show the important elements and information from the original manga for context. We know some of you readers out there know at least one manga that needs to be adapted into an anime and we can’t fit all of them into an article. That is the whole reason for the comments section, so feel free to add your suggestions of the manga you love. One last thing,let’s hope yours and our favorite manga receive anime adaptation in the future.