If you liked Aria
12 manga like Aria
Picked for the same feel: the genres they share with Aria (fantasy, slice of life, comedy), the same creators, and what readers keep together. Each opens where it is read legally.
Manga like Aria
Readers also like it1. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
by Ashinano Hitoshi
- Drama (shared)
- Philosophical
- Sci-Fi (shared)
- Slice of Life (shared)
Long after an environmental catastrophe raised the seas, humanity is slowly and peacefully fading away. On the Japanese coast near Yokohama, Alpha, a gentle android, runs a small coffee shop, waiting for the owner who left on a journey and never returned. Her days are made of simple things: brewing coffee for the rare customer, riding her scooter through flooded towns, playing her guitar, sharing watermelon with neighbours and watching the seasons change. As she travels and meets the few people and strange beings who remain, Alpha finds beauty and contentment in a world that is quietly ending. Hitoshi Ashinano's classic is one of the great works of gentle, healing manga, quiet and bittersweet, with gorgeous landscapes and a deep sense of peace. It was adapted into two short anime series.
Read on Comic DAYSOpen
Readers also like it2. Mushishi
by Urushibara Yuki
- Adventure
- Drama (shared)
- Fantasy (shared)
- Mystery
Mushi are the most basic forms of life, older than plants or animals, existing alongside our world but invisible to almost everyone. Some live in the darkness behind your eyelids, some feed on silence, some drive people mad. Ginko can see them. A mushishi, a specialist in the strange phenomena they cause, he wanders from village to village, white-haired and always smoking a cigarette that keeps mushi away. In each story, Ginko meets people whose lives the mushi have touched, from children with strange gifts and ailments to whole villages living unknowingly beside them. He seeks to understand rather than destroy, and the solutions he finds are often bittersweet. Yuki Urushibara's series is quiet, strange and beautiful, a collection of self-contained tales steeped in the atmosphere of rural Japan. It won the Kodansha Manga Award and was adapted into an acclaimed anime and a live-action film.
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Readers also like it3. Yotsuba&!
by Kiyohiko Azuma
- Comedy (shared)
- Slice of Life (shared)
Yotsuba Koiwai is five years old, has green hair and is full of energy. She has just moved to a new town with her easygoing adoptive father, and to her, everything is a new discovery: swings, air conditioners, cicadas, rain, the doorbell and the family next door. The neighbours are the three Ayase sisters, Asagi, Fuuka and Ena, who quickly become her friends and partners in countless small adventures, along with her father's very tall friend Jumbo. Shopping trips, festivals, bike rides and summer storms become events, as Yotsuba's questions and conclusions make the adults around her see their ordinary world in a fresh way. Kiyohiko Azuma, creator of Azumanga Daioh, fills Yotsuba&! with detailed, lively art and gentle humour. It is one of the most beloved everyday comedies in manga, a joyful reminder of what it feels like to encounter the world for the first time.
Read on Yen PressOpen
Readers also like it4. Land of the Lustrous
by Haruko Ichikawa
- Drama (shared)
- Fantasy (shared)
- Philosophical
- Psychological
Far in the future, on the last remaining land, live twenty-eight Lustrous: immortal beings made of living gemstones. They are guarded by their teacher, Kongo, and must fight the Lunarians, who descend from the moon on clouds to shatter them and carry the fragments away as ornaments. Phosphophyllite is the youngest and most fragile of the gems, too brittle to fight and too clumsy for most work. Desperate to be useful, Phos is instead asked to compile an encyclopedia of their world. The task leads Phos to Cinnabar, a lonely gem who patrols the night, and to a series of changes that will transform Phos, body and mind, far more than anyone expects. Haruko Ichikawa's series is strange, beautiful and devastating, drawn with elegant, airy lines. It explores identity, change and the meaning of the self, and was adapted into a striking computer-animated anime.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Readers also like it5. Girls' Last Tour
by Tsukumizu
- Adventure
- Philosophical
- Sci-Fi (shared)
- Slice of Life (shared)
Civilisation is dead, but Chito and Yuuri are still alive. The two girls ride their beloved Kettenkrad, a half-track motorbike, through the silent ruins of a vast, multi-level city, searching for food, fuel and somewhere warm to sleep. Serious, bookish Chito drives and worries; carefree, hungry Yuuri carries the rifle and finds joy in small things. Climbing ever higher through the layers of the city, they find abandoned factories, strange machines, the occasional survivor and traces of the people who lived there before. Each discovery prompts questions about war, memory, faith and why anything matters at the end of the world. Tsukumizu's series is quiet, melancholic and gently funny, an intimate story of companionship drawn in soft, simple lines against enormous empty landscapes. It became a cult favourite and was adapted into a much-loved anime.
Read on Yen PressOpen
Readers also like it6. Barakamon
by Satsuki Yoshino
- Comedy (shared)
- Slice of Life (shared)
Seishu Handa is a talented young calligrapher with a promising career. When a respected curator dismisses his work as textbook-perfect but lifeless, Handa loses his temper and punches him. As punishment, his father sends him to live on a remote island off the westernmost edge of Japan to reflect. Handa, a city boy through and through, hopes to find peace and inspiration. Instead, the island's energetic children, led by the fearless little Naru, burst into his house at all hours, and the islanders make him part of their daily lives. Their noise and warmth slowly loosen his grip on perfection, and his calligraphy begins to change. Satsuki Yoshino's series is a gentle, funny and heartwarming story about art, community and slowing down. It was adapted into an anime and has a prequel, Handa-kun.
Read on Yen PressOpen
Readers also like it7. Witch Hat Atelier
by Kamome Shirahama
- Adventure
- Drama (shared)
- Fantasy (shared)
Coco has always loved magic, but in her world witches are said to be born with their power, and she was not. One day, a travelling witch named Qifrey visits her family's dressmaker shop, and Coco secretly watches him at work. She discovers the truth: magic is not innate at all, it is drawn, with special ink and precise symbols. When Coco tries a spell herself using a book she received as a child, something terrible happens to her mother. Qifrey takes her on as an apprentice, both to protect her and to find a way to undo the damage. At his atelier she studies alongside fellow apprentices such as the proud Agott, and learns why magic is so carefully guarded, and why some people seek its forbidden forms. Kamome Shirahama's series is one of the most beautifully drawn fantasy manga of its time, full of wonder and careful world-building. It won the Eisner Award and is being adapted into an anime.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Coming of Age · Slice of Life8. Bakuman
by Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Romance
- Slice of Life (shared)
Moritaka Mashiro can draw; his classmate Akito Takagi can write. Akito wants them to become a manga-creating duo, but Moritaka is reluctant: his uncle was a manga artist who worked himself to death. Then he learns that Miho Azuki, the girl he likes, dreams of becoming a voice actress, and impulsively promises that they will marry once his manga becomes an anime with her in the lead role. The two boys set out to be serialised in Weekly Shonen Jump, facing editors, deadlines, reader surveys and rejection, and competing with rivals such as the eccentric teenage genius Eiji Niizuma. Every success brings new pressure, and every failure forces them to rethink what makes a manga work. From Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note, Bakuman is an insider's look at the manga industry told with the intensity of a sports series. It was adapted into an anime and a live-action film.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Coming of Age · Shounen9. Akane-banashi
by Yuki Suenaga, Takamasa Moue
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
Rakugo is the ultimate form of storytelling: a single performer, kneeling on a cushion, brings an entire tale to life using only voice, gestures, a fan and a cloth. Akane Osaki grew up watching her father, Shinta, a gifted rakugo storyteller, and loving the art with all her heart. Then, at the exam that should have made him a full master, Shinta and every other candidate are expelled from the art by the head of their school, in front of Akane's eyes. Years later, Akane sets out to become a rakugo master herself, training under one of her father's peers and determined to prove that her father's rakugo was right. Written by Yuki Suenaga and drawn by Takamasa Moue, Akane-banashi is a stirring story of performance, practice and inheritance, where a single voice can hold a whole room. It became a standout hit of Weekly Shonen Jump.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Coming of Age · Shounen10. Show-ha Shoten!
by Akinari Asakura, Takeshi Obata
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
Shy Azemichi Shijima has secretly been studying the art of comedy and writing jokes in secret, but he would never dare perform them. His outgoing classmate Taiyo Higashikata, a former child actor, dreams of being funny, but has no material. After Higashikata ropes Shijima into performing as a comedy duo at a school show, the two discover they have real chemistry: Shijima's writing and Higashikata's stage presence. They set out to reach the top of Japan's comedy world, competing in manzai contests and learning how much work hides behind an apparently effortless laugh. Written by Akinari Asakura and drawn by Takeshi Obata, artist of Death Note and Bakuman, Show-ha Shoten! is a passionate story about comedy, partnership and the courage to step on stage.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Coming of Age · Slice of Life11. Look Back
by Tatsuki Fujimoto
- Drama (shared)
- Slice of Life (shared)
Fujino is a fourth-grader who draws a comic strip for the school newspaper, and everyone tells her she is the best artist around. Then her teacher asks her to share the page with Kyomoto, a classmate who never comes to school, and Kyomoto's strip turns out to be breathtakingly good. Stung, Fujino throws herself into practising, and when the two finally meet, she discovers that Kyomoto has always admired her work. The two girls begin creating manga together, spending years side by side at their desks, until their paths begin to diverge and life tests the bond their art created. Tatsuki Fujimoto, creator of Chainsaw Man, tells this story in a single long chapter about the pride, isolation and connection behind creative work, and about the impossibility of separating a life from what one makes. It was adapted into an acclaimed animated film.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Coming of Age · Slice of Life12. A Silent Voice
by Yoshitoki Oima
- Drama (shared)
- Romance
- Slice of Life (shared)
In primary school, Shoya Ishida bullied Shoko Nishimiya, a deaf girl who joined his class, mocking her and breaking her hearing aids again and again. When Shoko transferred away, the class turned the blame entirely on Shoya, and he became an outcast himself. Years later, lonely and burdened with guilt, he sets out to find her and make amends. Shoya learns sign language and reconnects with Shoko, her protective younger sister Yuzuru and their old classmates, but an apology cannot erase the past. Both of them carry deep wounds and self-blame, and their reunion forces everyone involved to face what really happened and how they treated one another. Yoshitoki Oima's series is a moving, honest story about guilt, forgiveness, disability and learning to face other people again. It grew from a prize-winning one-shot and was adapted into an acclaimed animated film by Kyoto Animation.
Read on K MANGAOpen