Theme
Historical manga
Stories set in the past, from feudal Japan to ancient empires, where history shapes every choice.
Most read
By how much there is to read, who follows them here and how readers rate them.
Ongoing · 20191. Mao
by Rumiko Takahashi
- Action
- Mystery
- Supernatural
Nanoka steps through a passage that carries her from modern Japan into the Taisho era. There she meets Mao, an exorcist burdened by a curse that may connect to her own past. Their investigation brings them into contact with dangerous spirits and mysteries crossing generations.
Read on VIZ MangaOpen
Completed · 19942. Rurouni Kenshin
by Nobuhiro Watsuki
- Action
- Adventure
- Drama
- Romance
Tokyo, early Meiji era. A wandering swordsman with a cross-shaped scar carries a reverse-blade sword that cannot kill — because he was once the most feared assassin of the revolution, and has sworn never to kill again. Kenshin Himura finds a home at Kaoru's dojo, and his past keeps finding him there.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Ongoing · 20173. The Apothecary Diaries
by Natsu Hyuuga, Itsuki Nanao, Nekokurage
- Drama
- Medical
- Mystery
- Romance
Maomao, an apothecary's daughter from the pleasure district, is kidnapped and sold into service at the imperial palace. She plans to keep her head down — until she works out why the emperor's babies are dying. A beautiful eunuch named Jinshi notices, and keeps bringing her the court's poisonings and puzzles to solve.
Read on MANGA UP!Open
Completed · 20214. The Elusive Samurai
by Yusei Matsui
- Action
- Comedy
- Drama
Japan, 1333. When the Kamakura shogunate falls, young Tokiyuki Hojo, heir to the ruling family, loses everything in a single day. His one talent is running away. With the help of an eccentric priest, he turns fleeing into a way to fight back — a lively historical adventure based on a real figure.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Completed · 20055. Vinland Saga
by Makoto Yukimura
- Action
- Adventure
- Drama
Growing up amid Viking warfare, Thorfinn carries both a fierce desire for revenge and childhood stories of a distant western land. His journey crosses battlefields, shifting alliances, and lives shaped by conquest. Set against the upheaval of eleventh-century Europe, this historical epic asks what strength means and whether a person can build a future beyond the violence that formed them.
Read on KodanshaOpen
Completed · 20166. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
by Koyoharu Gotouge
- Action
- Adventure
- Drama
- Fantasy
Taisho-era Japan. Tanjiro Kamado comes home from selling charcoal to find his family slaughtered by a demon, and his little sister Nezuko turned into one. She still knows him, and she refuses to eat people. Tanjiro trains to become a demon slayer, hoping to find a way to make her human again — a fierce, sorrowful and very kind story about family.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Hiatus · 20157. The Case Study of Vanitas
by Jun Mochizuki
- Fantasy
- Mystery
- Supernatural
In a steampunk Paris, the vampire Noé meets Vanitas, a human who calls himself a doctor for vampires and carries a grimoire that can cure them of a curse driving them mad. An elegant, twisting story of two very different partners, old secrets and the city's hidden vampire world, from the creator of Pandora Hearts.
Read on MANGA UP!Open
Ongoing · 20218. The Return of the Crazy Demon
by Yu Jin Sung (유진성), JP, Ihy (이히)
- Action
- Adventure
- Comedy
- Fantasy
Ja-Ha Lee, the Mad Demon, dreamed of becoming the God of Martial Arts until he fell off a cliff fleeing the Demonic Cult with a stolen treasure. He wakes in his twenties again, with everything he knows about the future and about the martial arts. This time he plans to get it right, and to pay a few people back.
Read on WEBTOONOpen
Ongoing · 20229. Absolute Sword Sense
by Hanjung Wolya (한중월야), KDRM (김두루미), TI (티아이)
- Action
- Adventure
- Drama
- Fantasy
With his spirit core destroyed, Woonhwi So has spent his life as a third-rate spy for the Blood Cult. On a mission for the legendary Blade Scroll he is killed, and wakes ten years earlier, on the day the Cult took him. He has come back with something new: he can hear the voices of blades.
Read on WEBTOONOpen
Ongoing · 202110. Return of the Blossoming Blade
by Biga, LICO
- Action
- Comedy
Chung Myung, the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, died defeating a demon that threatened the world. A hundred years later he wakes in the body of a beggar boy, and finds his once-great Mount Hua Sect poor, forgotten and falling apart. He sets out to rebuild it his own way: rudely, loudly, and with a great deal of violence.
Read on WEBTOONOpen
Ongoing · 201811. Purple Hyacinth
by Ephemerys, Sophism
- Crime
- Drama
- Mystery
- Romance
Lauren Sinclair, a police officer who can tell when anyone lies, wants to bring down the criminal organisation that killed her family. To do it she must work with Kieran White, its most dangerous assassin. A stylish mystery in a Victorian-inspired city, with a slow-burning romance.
Read on WEBTOONOpen
Ongoing · 201312. The Heroic Legend of Arslan
by Yoshiki Tanaka, Hiromu Arakawa
- Action
- Adventure
- Drama
- Fantasy
Prince Arslan of Pars is fourteen, gentle and unsure of himself when his father's undefeated army is betrayed and destroyed in a single battle. With a handful of loyal companions he sets out to take back his kingdom — Yoshiki Tanaka's epic, drawn by the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Completed · 201813. Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku
by Yuji Kaku
- Action
- Adventure
- Fantasy
- Horror
Gabimaru the Hollow, a ninja on death row, is offered a pardon: travel to a mysterious island and bring back the elixir of life. His executioner, Sagiri, goes with him. The island is beautiful and full of horrors — a savage, lushly drawn survival story.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Ongoing · 200614. Kingdom
by Yasuhisa Hara
- Action
- Drama
During China's Warring States period, a war orphan dreams of rising from servitude to become a great general. His path becomes intertwined with a young king's ambition to unite the divided land. Vast campaigns and political struggles test the distance between their ideals and the cost of war.
Read on VIZOpen
Ongoing · 201915. My Happy Marriage
by Agitogi Akumi, Kousaka Rito
- Drama
- Romance
Born without the gift her family is known for, Miyo Saimori is treated as a servant by her father, her stepmother and her gifted half-sister. Then she is sent away as a bride candidate to Kiyoka Kudou, a soldier rumoured to be so cold that every candidate before her has fled. A slow, gentle romance with a supernatural edge, set in an alternate Meiji-era Japan.
Read on MANGA UP!Open
Ongoing · 201616. Moriarty the Patriot
by Ryosuke Takeuchi, Hikaru Miyoshi
- Crime
- Drama
- Mystery
- Psychological
Victorian England is rotten with privilege, and William James Moriarty means to tear it down. With his brothers he becomes a consultant for crime, solving people's problems in ways the law never would. Sherlock Holmes's great enemy, told from his side, as a clever, stylish crime story.
Read on VIZOpen
Completed · 198717. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency
by Hirohiko Araki
- Action
- Adventure
- Comedy
- Supernatural
New York, 1938. Joseph Joestar — Jonathan's grandson, a brash trickster who predicts his opponents' next line — learns that ancient beings older than vampires are waking up. He has to master the breathing technique of Hamon to stop them, cheating and bluffing his way through the funniest part of the saga.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Completed · 200518. House of Five Leaves
by Natsume Ono
- Drama
- Mystery
A skilled but painfully shy ronin accepts work as a bodyguard from a charismatic stranger. The job brings him into the orbit of a kidnapping group with complicated motives and concealed histories. In Edo's quieter corners, trust develops slowly between people who have reasons to hide.
Read on VIZ MangaOpen
Completed · 198719. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood
by Hirohiko Araki
- Action
- Adventure
- Horror
- Supernatural
Victorian England. Jonathan Joestar, a gentleman's son, gains an adopted brother: Dio Brando, who sets out to take everything Jonathan has. An ancient stone mask turns their rivalry into something inhuman. Where the Joestar family saga begins — loud, strange and unforgettable.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Ongoing · 202520. Chronicles of the Lazy Sovereign
by Biga, Kim Kkulppal, Red Hook
- Action
- Drama
Yeonho Wi is remembered as a hero of great virtue and greater strength. He was also, by every account, the laziest man alive — always about to start training tomorrow. A historian digs into the records to find out how one got to be the other. A martial arts comedy in full colour.
Read on WEBTOONOpen
Completed · 172021. Toba-e
by Various
- Comedy
Eighteenth-century comic picture books of long-limbed figures falling over each other, named after the monk credited with the frolicking-animals scrolls. Cheap, printed in quantity, and sold to be laughed at rather than kept.
Read here, freeOpen
Ongoing · 202022. Nano Machine
by Great H, Hanjung Wolya, GGBG
- Action
- Fantasy
Cheon Yeo-woon is the scorned illegitimate son of a demonic cult's leader, trying to survive his brothers' cruelty. Then a descendant from the future injects him with a nano machine. Now he can learn any martial art at impossible speed: a fast, satisfying murim story.
Read on WEBTOONOpen
Completed · 186723. Ally Sloper
by Charles H. Ross
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
A red-nosed London schemer who slopes up the alley when the rent is due. The first comic character to carry his own magazine and to be sold as merchandise — he was on mugs before anybody had thought that through.
Read here, freeOpen
Completed · 118024. Ban Dainagon Ekotoba
by Attributed to Tokiwa Mitsunaga
- Drama
A twelfth-century handscroll about a courtier accused of burning down a palace gate. Unrolled right to left, the crowd runs, the rumour spreads and the accusation lands — a story told by moving the reader along the paper.
Read here, freeOpen