Mangaversity: May 2026

Welcome one, welcome all, to Mangaversity! Join me as I trawl through the month’s manga releases and pick out what’s hot and what’s not. A perennial special thanks to Zack Davisson for pointing out that my initial name was bad and I should feel bad and that Mangaversity is superior.

A new month arrives and you know what that means. More manga! It’s also a new anime season which means new re-releases (Witch Hat,) special promotions, and hopefully boosts in popularity for the titles I love. I’m also trying to move some of my perennial favs back into the main list so I can actually, you know, talk about them. What’s the point of a top 10 list if I’ve separated out all the books I think truck and fuck?

Speaking of, May has a bunch of bangers coming out. It was tough cutting the list down from 15. But I did it and I think I picked some goodies. Let’s go!

Perennial Favorites:

My love for these titles are very well documented and you will not go wrong reading them, though some titles that get featured here come with more caveats than others (“Berserk,” for instance, gets my full endorsement, but is certainly not for everyone.) Because these articles are already so long, I’m streamlining everything that’s not on the main list.

Why aren’t these on the main list even though I love them? There’s only so much I can say about some of these, especially the shonen titles publishing six times a year. I’d rather highlight some new, interesting, weird, and important titles there.

All that said, if you see a title here, assume it’s worth reading and that you should find a copy now. Right now! Go! I see you dawdling.

• Baki the Grappler (Perfect Edition,) Vol. 15 & 16
  • Made the jump because holy shit this series is bonkers and brutal and glorious.
• Hirayasumi, Vol. 9
• Kowloon Generic Romance, Vol. 11
• One-Punch Man, Vol. 33

Deluxe Den:

With the manga explosion that’s occurred in the last few years, there’s been a corresponding increase in deluxe editions of beloved or classic or obscure manga. These books are ones I think are worth a gander but not necessarily a volume that needs a place on the main list. Some of these are personal favorites of mine, others are notable for one reason or another. All are getting the ~deluxe~ treatment.

• Cat's Eye Omnibus, Volume 3
• The Drops of God, Vol. 4
  • Now’s the real test to see if this project is a regular re-release or Vertical committing to completing this thing in print.
• Hunter X Hunter (3-In-1 Edition), Vol. 6
• Pet Shop of Horrors: Collector's Edition, Vol. 6
• Witch Hat Atelier: Grimoire Edition, Vol. 1

Cat Corner:

I see a lot of cat manga when I do this column. It takes every ounce of willpower to not include at least two of these on the list each month. A few months back I realized: I can just make a new section and put the titles and covers here. Cat lovers unite!

• Breakfast with My Two-Tailed Cat, Vol. 4
• A Cat Is a Cat in Any Life
• Cat-Life Balance, Vol. 1
• Laughter in the Sunshine
  • There’s a cat on the cover! It counts!
• My Cat's Aura Is Strong Today, Vol. 1
• My Kitten Is a Picky Eater, Vol. 8
• Nights with a Cat, Vol. 7

Caught My Eye:

These are the manga that didn’t make the cut for one reason or another that I still wanted to bring to your attention. Usually so I can make some kind of snarky remark or to help me remember to actually read the dang things so I can have an informed opinion.

• Bride of Ignat, Volume 1
  • Bumped forward a month apparently and in that time, I’ve read some reviews that give me hope in this being a substantive read! But I already did it last month so…here it is.
• Centuria, Vol. 2
  • The character drama’s gotta be better observed if it’s gonna break free from this list. Still, cool powers!
• Exotic Animal Doctor Vol. 1
  • Not even a single dinosaur or chocobo on that cover shaking my head.
• Gran Familia Vol.3
  • We’ll make you a manga you can’t refuse!
• Kingdom, Vol. 7
  • I’m seeing why this is considered a classic. It’s basically Fist of the North Star with a traditional shonen revenge plot set in China.
• Immortality and Punishment, Vol. 2
  • Two things that feel like they go together more and more.
• The Long Summer of August 31 Vol. 5
  • So that’s what happened with the weather these last couple weeks.
• Mao, Vol. 24
  • Takahashi on auto-pilot is still lots of fun
• Mother, Please Don't Give Birth to a Monster
  • Some manga feel too ick even for me.
• Mujina Into the Deep, Vol. 4
  • I try very hard to read Inio Asano in chunks. Too confusing otherwise.
• Roar: A Star in the Abyss, Vol. 4
  • I’d say there’s no way there are people this cartoonishly awful and manipulative but…
• Scenes from Awajima, Vol. 2
  • Alas, I have yet to read volume 1.
• You Can't Bluff the Sharp-Eyed Sister, Vol. 4
  • Volume 1 had me less enthused than 

Judging by the Cover:

After a good run, it was time to retire my WTF section. It was basically the same three books (or types of books) each month. So, instead, I’m selecting volumes with excellent and/or baffling covers and putting them here. Will there be snark? Time will tell.

• Baki the Grappler (Perfect Edition,) Vol. 15
  • I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show off the intensity of this man’s furrowed brow and pursed lips. Look at the squiggles! The guy is made of clay and rope.
• Isekai Samurai, Vol. 3
  • The dragon under the water looks so rad! Look how well balanced this image is. The sword poking through the title?! If it wasn’t such a crazy high bar to get me to do an isekai, I would be devouring this series yesterday.
• Eden of Witches, Volume 7
  • The way the ivy rings the eye is exactly what I want from a fantasy image. Also, bundle plug that’s hopefully still live!
• Tower Dungeon, Vol. 5
  • Nihei is a very style over substance writer and I don’t always like his style! But damn if the covers for “Tower Dungeon” haven’t been amazing.

The List:

10. Quarterly Yuri Earnings

As a certified Amazing Island fan from back in the day, I’m a real fan of the Castaway model of storytelling. Throw in a sheltered girl finding love with a mysterious city girl and monsters and, well, you’ve got a winning combo. Reviews are also solid for the series. The one thing that docks it points?

It’s published in a quarterly magazine.

So, read this volume and then get ready for another in, I dunno, two years? Four years? The first chapter is from 2018 so do with that what you will.

Monster-Colored Island, Vol. 2
Written and Illustrated by Mitsuru Hattori
Translated by Eleanor Summers
Lettered by Madeleine Jose
Published by Yen Press

Kon and Furuka's bond grows deeper as they explore the island together, so when they spot a faint silhouette outside the Kaiju's lair, they both head inside to investigate. Where could this mysterious cave lead...?

9. I Wonder What Hand This Publisher Will Play

A new publisher joins the ranks! I don’t know much about Mahjong Pros. I assume they’ve got their niche based on the name, though press releases seem to point to a wider catalog. Of course, this entry doesn’t disabuse me of my initial notion. I am happy to highlight another non-fiction manga though.

Quiet portraits! Explorations of professional life and the anxieties that accompany it! What’s not to love about that?

Crybaby Mermaid: Illustrated Memoir of Yumi Uotani
Written by Yoshiki Suda
Illustrated by Mio Junta
Published by Mahjong Pros

The Crybaby Mermaid: An Illustrated Memoir of Yumi Uotani is a nonfiction graphic memoir that follows a professional mahjong player as she navigates anxiety, self-doubt, and the pressures of a public career. Focusing on the emotional reality behind performance rather than competition alone, the story traces her gradual growth through setbacks, persistence, and everyday effort. With a restrained, character-centered visual style, Yoshiki Suda and Mio Junta present a quiet portrait of how confidence and a lasting professional identity are built over time.

8. Five Years And! Three Months?

It’s so weird to continue to see new volumes of “Yotsuba&!” coming out. For the longest time it felt like a series that would be perpetually frozen at, like, volume 13. I could’ve sworn, too, that I just highlighted the last volume. Has it really been since 2021??? This decade really has cooked my brain’s relationship to time.

Yotsuba&!, Vol. 16
Written and Illustrated by Kiyohiko Azuma
Translated by Stephen Paul
Lettered by Abigail Blackman
Published by Yen Press

Yotsuba can't wait to go to school! The teacher will know the names of all the trees and birds that Yotsuba saw while climbing Mount Takao for sure! Daddy didn't know aaanything--and neither did Yanda, obviously. Daddy was worried the trail might be too hard, but nothing could stop Yotsuba, not even the super-long stairs at the end! Yotsuba found all kinds of cool stuff, but Daddy seemed really interested in finding all the benches for some reason...

7. Succession: Forest Edition

When did the genre of Funny Animals morph into Dramatic Beastmen? It had to have happened at some point in the last thirty, forty years. Does it have anything to do with the rise of furry webcomics, allowing for more mainstream acceptance of cartoons about animals that isn’t just comedy? But then, what about “Redwall” or “Watership Down” or "Aesop's Fables?”

I’m falling down a rabbit hole I don’t mean to. “The Scum Laugh” just seems like such a grim collection of stories that I had to reflect. It is a grim time. Perhaps this is what we deserve.

The Scum Laugh, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Atatakairo
Published by Seven Seas

A full-color manga about the lives of beastmen suffering from madness.

The wolfman Deseo once slaughtered his family out of morbid curiosity. Now he has a family of his own. Haut, a wealthy elk heir struggling with their gender, falls in love with Clivia, a fox-woman servant, and together they must hide their relationship from Haut's domineering father. What will happen to these cursed families of beastfolk? This full-color manga tears open the heart of their madness.

6. Magical Girls: It’s About Grief, Edition

There’s a joke floating around that every A24 picture (horror picture, specifically) is not-so-subtly a metaphor for grief. Big scary clown? Grief. Witches in the woods? Grief. Eerie shapes in the distance? Light in the sky? The ghost of your recently deceased friend everywhere you turn? Grief. Grief. Grief.

It makes sense. American culture sucks at grieving. Yet it is inescapable. Which, once again brings me in a roundabout way to this pick.

“Magical Karina” strikes me as the kind of manga that I always assumed “Cardcaptor Sakura” or “Sailor Moon” was actually like. The image on the cover is pensive. Karina is small against the sky. The watercolor sunset making her look almost like a mirage; not quite there. Her face, though, is determined and the mace she clutches, violent. There’s a personal darkness here that’s forward and I can’t help but want to know more.

Magical Karina, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Coyuri Tono
Published by Kodansha Comics

Just this morning, Karina was sitting at the breakfast table, cleaning up the miso soup her grandmother dropped on the floor. Now, she's being called out to class to go to the hospital and see her grandma's body...with a piece of seaweed still stuck to her uniform. She still finds time to make it to her hourly job at a family restaurant, but on the way home, she sees a glittering, elephant-like creature floating the sky... And a teenage boy appears to push her out of the way of its attack! Death is stalking Karina's town in a form that only she can see, and this boy gives her two choices: Die or transform and fight! She can scarcely follow what he's saying, but her clothes do change, and the staff she finds herself holding has enough heft to do some serious damage... But is there space in Karina's life for getting revenge for her grandma and fighting magical monsters when she's already stretched to her limit? 

5. What if Your Cat Was a Monster?

I love my cats. They’re glorious little gremlins. One loves to headbutt my ankles whenever I’m walking and the other is a climber, with a particular fondness for the tops of open doors. As you all know from my cat’s only section, it’s easy to get my attention with a cat on the cover.

The other way is to give it a wild supernatural twist! Coco, it seems, has a cat that’s actually an eyeless, toothed-maw-for-face monster. Is it safe? Is it secretly eating people in town? What’s its deal!? Look how cute its teefs are!

Kuro: The Complete Edition
Written and Illustrated by Somato
Translated by Taylor Engel
Published by Yen Press

Keep to the roads, keep your eyes open, and keep away from the mansion on the edge of town!In a world where fearsome monsters lurk just beyond the beaten path, Coco and her pet cat, Kuro, are living it up in the mayor's mansion! While only the two of them reside there, Kuro's feline antics provide endless entertainment– chasing balls, performing acrobatics, violently spearing the monsters that stray into the garden...Coco seems blissfully unaware of the danger so close by, but the townspeople can't say the same! Although Kuro has never threatened Coco or the village before, who knows whether the monster she calls her pet is as fickle as the cat he resembles...?!

4. High School Drama

I wonder when there will come a time when a coming-of-age dramedy won’t grab my attention. For now, I’m happy to dig into this one about five classmates who crash into each other’s lives and unearth the many things they’ve been keeping to themselves. It’s got pedigree - an adaptation of an acclaimed novelist by said novelist - and it's got a very cute art-style. The cover also gives us a glimpse into the personalities of the five. If they’re even half as well observed as the tableau here, we’ve got a winner on our hands.

I Have a Secret: The Complete Manga Collection, Vol. 1
Written by Yoru Sumino
Illustrated by Zui Nieki
Published by Seven Seas

The manga adaptation of the hit coming-of-age story with supernatural overtones from the bestselling, acclaimed author of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas!

Five high school classmates hold secrets close to their hearts--hidden talents, unspoken feelings, and buried pain. As they collide with each other on the path to growing up, they might jostle some of those secrets free. From Yoru Sumino, acclaimed author of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas and I Had That Same Dream Again comes a gentle, intriguing tale about love, life, and the things we leave unsaid.

3. Messy Witches on the Internet

I have a deeply ambivalent relationship to social media and mostly experience it through media at this point. It means my view of it is pretty skewed, certainly towards its negatives thanks to exploitative companies and social structures that incentivize our worst habits and impulses for those sweet, sweet ad dollars and data sales mmmmmnumnumnumnum. Anyway, this series has a witch coming out of the woods after 100 years and learning about social media. I’m sure it’ll end great for her!

What’s that? It doesn’t? It’s also only got one volume so far? It’s also a yuri romcom and has a killer cover? Well, alrighty then. Lemme look. 

Oh, I LOVE that design. Folks, we might have another hit that only comes out once every three years…Feels like reviewing webcomics all over again.

Wicked Spot, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Sal Jiang
Published by Vertical Comics

By the swiping of my thumbs,
Something wicked sexy this way comes!

Bored out of her mind after hiding for nearly a century in a decrepit cabin deep in the woods, Sada the witch stumbles upon modern-day social media and is instantly spellbound. But as she will soon discover, even the strongest supporters can swiftly become dedicated trolls, and some attention may portend more toil and trouble than she bargained for...

2. The Best Shonen Manga Right Now (sans One Piece)

I said it. I almost left it without the caveat of “One Piece” but even I’m not bold enough to say it’s better than the world-wide best-selling, over 1000 chapters long, endlessly imaginative juggernaut of WSJ. Still, of everything coming out now, it’s easily #2. Yes, above “Chainsaw Man” (which I love dearly including its ending.) 

“Akane-Banashi” is simply extraordinary. Expressive and clean, with a deep love of Rakugo, every new arc is exciting and a joy. I never miss a chapter. The volume releases are coming up on some really amazing stuff, including some much needed character backstory for the two old men(tors) of the series.

With the anime finally coming out, I hope it brings a whole new crowd to this beautiful series. Speaking of, it’s free! On YouTube! Legally! Go watch it! Share it! Get those numbers up! It’s basically the only anime we know the popularity of in actual view counts too and has a comments section again. What a wild world we live in.

Akane-Banashi, Vol. 16
Written by Yuki Suenaga
Illustrated by Takamasa Moue
Published by Viz Media

As youngsters, Issho and Shiguma are trapped in poverty, doing odd jobs, getting in fights, and behaving utterly unlike the professional rakugoka they will one day become. When the previous Shiguma, Kiroku Kashiwaya, charms them with his art, they join his rakugo school, and he influences them to work hard and better themselves. But one day, everything changes... In recounting this story to Akane, Urara reveals the secret behind the birth of the Arakawa School. Will it change Akane's perception on becoming Issho's apprentice? This volume also includes the one-shot "Tatarashido," a story about stand-up comedy from fun-loving high schoolers!

1. Nine and Void

Even with all that praise, I had to put “Void: No. Nine” at the top spot. It’s got a damn stylish cover courtesy of Shima Shinya, whose flat colors and simple, rough-around-the-edges cartooning reminds me of Natsuki Ono. (“ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.”is a favorite series of mine.) The plot also rocks.

Ripping a vengeful god from the heavens? A post-apocalypse scavenging run by a rag-tag group with wildly conflicting motivations? It’s a sci-fi dungeon crawl into madness! Having just watched a bunch of “Aliens” and “Fear and Hunger” related media, this is 10,000% my jam and I think it’ll be yours too.

Void: No. Nine, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Shima Shinya
Translated by Sean McCann
Lettered by Abigail Blackman
Published by Yen Press

Centuries after humanity ripped a vengeful god from the heavens, Reclamation City No. 9 stands atop the barren world that remains. Below, a network of tunnels is a chance for the most desperate and deranged to strike it rich scavenging--if they can make it back alive. For the vestiges of a dead god cling to life, bathed in the shadows of ancient halls. Impelled by avarice, circumstance, or something more sinister, nine strangers make the descent. But in the darkness that awaits, it's anyone's guess where the greater danger lurks: in the unhallowed maze ahead, or with those who walked into hell alongside them...

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