Genre
Philosophical manga
Stories that ask the big questions about life, death, meaning and what it is to be human, and let them linger.
Most read
By how much there is to read, who follows them here and how readers rate them.
Ongoing · 20161. To Your Eternity
by Yoshitoki Ōima
- Adventure
- Drama
- Fantasy
- Philosophical (shared)
An orb is cast onto the earth to observe it. It becomes a rock, then a wolf, then a boy who has been left alone in the snow, learning what it means to live from everyone it meets. From the creator of A Silent Voice: an immortal's journey through love and loss, one life at a time.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Completed · 19942. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
by Ashinano Hitoshi
- Drama
- Philosophical (shared)
- Sci-Fi
- Slice of Life
Long after the seas rose, Alpha, an android, runs a little coffee shop on the Japanese coast while humanity slowly fades. Coffee, watermelon, her guitar and the gulls. A quiet, bittersweet classic about finding beauty at the end of things.
Read on Comic DAYSOpen
Completed · 20123. Land of the Lustrous
by Haruko Ichikawa
- Drama
- Fantasy
- Philosophical (shared)
- Psychological
Far in the future, living gems guard their island against the Lunarians, who come down from the moon to shatter them and carry them off. Phosphophyllite is the youngest and most fragile of them, and wants desperately to be useful. A strange, beautiful and devastating story about what Phos becomes in trying.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Completed · 19884. Parasyte
by Iwaaki Hitoshi
- Action
- Horror
- Philosophical (shared)
- Psychological
Alien parasites fall from the sky, take over human bodies and feed on people while wearing ordinary faces. The one meant for Shinichi Izumi misses his brain and takes his right hand instead. Now the two of them share a body, and neither can afford to lose. A horror classic.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Completed · 19905. Battle Angel Alita
by Kishiro Yukito
- Action
- Drama
- Philosophical (shared)
- Sci-Fi
In the Scrapyard beneath the sky city of Zalem, cyber-doctor Ido finds the head of a cyborg girl with no memory, and gives her a new body. Alita remembers nothing, except a deadly martial art. The cyberpunk classic behind the film.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Completed · 19996. Mushishi
by Urushibara Yuki
- Adventure
- Drama
- Fantasy
- Mystery
Mushi are the most basic forms of life, older than plants or animals, and most people cannot see them. Ginko can. A mushishi, he wanders from village to village, helping people whose lives the mushi have touched. Quiet, strange and beautiful stories, each complete in itself.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Completed · 19987. Uzumaki
by Itou Junji
- Drama
- Horror
- Mystery
- Philosophical (shared)
Kurouzu-cho, a foggy town on the coast, is cursed not by a ghost but by a shape: the spiral. Kirie's boyfriend Shuichi sees it first, in his father's obsession, in the wind, in people's bodies. Junji Ito's horror classic, as the whole town is drawn into the pattern.
Read on VIZ MangaOpen
Completed · 20168. Three Days of Happiness
by Taguchi Shouichi, Miaki Sugaru
- Drama
- Philosophical (shared)
- Romance
- Tragedy
Almost twenty and going nowhere, Kusunoki finds a shop that buys what is left of people's lives, and sells all but his last three months. He spends them under the eye of Miyagi, the woman sent to watch him, and finds out too late what they could have been worth.
Read on Shonen Jump+Open
Completed · 20149. Girls' Last Tour
by Tsukumizu
- Adventure
- Philosophical (shared)
- Sci-Fi
- Slice of Life
Chito and Yuuri travel through the remains of a vast, empty city in their small tracked vehicle. Food, fuel and a place to sleep give their days a simple rhythm, while discoveries prompt larger questions. An intimate journey about companionship and finding meaning after familiar civilisation has vanished.
Read on Yen PressOpen