If you liked DAYS
12 manga like DAYS
Picked for the same feel: the genres they share with DAYS (comedy, sports, drama), the same creators, and what readers keep together. Each opens where it is read legally.
Manga like DAYS
Coming of Age · Sports1. Haikyu!!
by Haruichi Furudate
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Sports (shared)
Shoyo Hinata fell in love with volleyball after watching the Little Giant, a short player who soared over taller opponents for Karasuno High. Hinata is short too, and his middle school barely had a team, but in his only official match he faced Tobio Kageyama, a genius setter known as the King of the Court, and lost badly. Hinata enrols at Karasuno, once a powerhouse and now dismissed as the flightless crows, only to find Kageyama there as his new teammate. The two cannot stand each other, yet together they invent a lightning-fast quick attack that could change everything. With their senpai and a quirky team, they set their sights on nationals and on rivals such as Nekoma and Aoba Johsai. Haruichi Furudate's series is a warm, thrilling sports story about teamwork, rivalry and growing up, where every player gets a moment to shine. It won the Shogakukan Manga Award and was adapted into a beloved anime and films.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Readers also like it2. Blue Lock
by Muneyuki Kaneshiro, Yusuke Nomura
- Drama (shared)
- Psychological
- Sports (shared)
After another disappointing World Cup, the Japan Football Union decides the country needs a true ace striker. Its answer is Blue Lock, a facility run by the eccentric coach Jinpachi Ego, where 300 of Japan's best young forwards compete for a single place. Whoever loses is banned from ever playing for the national team. Yoichi Isagi enters Blue Lock after a match in which he passed when he should have shot. Surrounded by rivals such as the playful dribbler Bachira, the effortless genius Nagi and the fearsome Rin Itoshi, he must learn to be selfish and to read the game better than anyone else, in matches that feel like survival battles. Written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and drawn by Yusuke Nomura, Blue Lock turns football into an intense psychological contest about ego, talent and growth. It won the Kodansha Manga Award, inspired a hit anime, and has its own spin-off, Blue Lock: Episode Nagi.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Readers also like it3. Giant Killing
by Masaya Tsunamoto, Tsujitomo
- Drama (shared)
- Sports (shared)
East Tokyo United is a struggling football club in Japan's top league, long past its glory days and short on confidence. To turn things around, it hires Takeshi Tatsumi, a former star of the club who walked out on it years ago to play in England, and who has since become famous for leading an amateur English side to giant-killing upsets against big teams. Tatsumi is unconventional, laid-back and annoyingly confident, and many players, staff and supporters resent his return. But his eye for hidden talent, such as the timid young midfielder Tsubaki, and his clever tactics begin to change the team, one improbable victory at a time. Written by Masaya Tsunamoto and drawn by Tsujitomo, Giant Killing is a football manga told from the manager's bench, about strategy, belief and rebuilding a club. It won the Kodansha Manga Award and was adapted into an anime.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Readers also like it4. Blue Lock: Episode Nagi
by Muneyuki Kaneshiro, Kouta Sannomiya, Yusuke Nomura
- Drama (shared)
- Psychological
- Sports (shared)
Seishiro Nagi finds almost everything a hassle. The second-year high-school student would rather play games on his phone than try at anything, and he has never cared about football. That changes when his classmate Reo Mikage, the heir to a giant corporation, sees him trap a ball with impossible ease and decides that the two of them will win the World Cup together. Pulled onto the pitch almost against his will, Nagi discovers that he is a natural, able to control any pass as if the ball obeys him. When Blue Lock, a ruthless training programme designed to create the world's greatest striker, calls them in, Nagi and Reo's partnership is put to the test, and so is Nagi's habit of never wanting anything badly enough. Written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and drawn by Kouta Sannomiya, this spin-off retells the Blue Lock project from Nagi's point of view. It adds new scenes alongside famous moments from the main series and follows the slow, surprising awakening of a lazy genius.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Readers also like it5. Slam Dunk
by Takehiko Inoue
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Sports (shared)
Hanamichi Sakuragi is a tall, red-haired delinquent who has been rejected by fifty girls in a row. When Haruko Akagi, the first girl who is not afraid of him, asks whether he likes basketball, he instantly says yes, despite knowing nothing about the sport, and joins Shohoku High's basketball team to impress her. His natural athleticism is astonishing, but his fundamentals are terrible, and his pride clashes with everyone: the stern captain Akagi, Haruko's brother; the cool genius Kaede Rukawa, his instant rival; and teammates such as Ryota Miyagi and Hisashi Mitsui. Under the calm coach Anzai, Shohoku sets out to become the best in Japan. Takehiko Inoue's classic made basketball hugely popular in Japan and remains one of the best-selling sports manga ever. Funny, intense and deeply moving, it was adapted into an anime and, decades later, into the hit film The First Slam Dunk, directed by Inoue himself.
Read on VIZ BooksOpen
Readers also like it6. BECK
by Harold Sakuishi
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Romance
- Slice of Life
For the first fourteen years of his life, Yukio Tanaka has been completely ordinary: no hobbies, no passion and a deep fear of standing out. Everything changes when he meets Ryusuke Minami, a wild, unpredictable sixteen-year-old guitarist just back from New York, and his strange patchwork dog named Beck. Ryusuke introduces Yukio, nicknamed Koyuki, to rock music, and soon Koyuki is learning guitar and discovering that he has an extraordinary singing voice. Together they form a band, BECK, with a group of talented misfits, and struggle through bad gigs, rivalries, record-label politics and the dream of making it big. Harold Sakuishi's series captures the raw energy of starting a band and the joy of music, with a heartfelt coming-of-age story at its core. It won the Kodansha Manga Award and was adapted into an anime and a live-action film.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Coming of Age · School Life7. 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 · Sports8. Blue Box
by Kouji Miura
- Drama (shared)
- Romance
- Slice of Life
- Sports (shared)
Taiki Inomata is on the boys' badminton team at Eimei, a sports powerhouse, and every morning he trains in the gym alongside Chinatsu Kano, a year older than him and the star of the girls' basketball team. He has a hopeless crush on her. One spring day everything changes: Chinatsu's parents move abroad for work, and because their mothers are old friends, she comes to live in Taiki's family home. Sharing breakfast and a front door while keeping it secret at school, the two grow closer, but both have big goals to chase on the court, and Taiki is determined to become someone worthy of standing beside her. Kouji Miura's series is a gentle, heartfelt romance about first love, early mornings, sport and growing up, drawn with soft, expressive art. It was adapted into an anime.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Sports · School Life9. Ace of the Diamond act II
by Yuji Terajima
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Sports (shared)
When Eijun Sawamura was fifteen, he met the catcher Kazuya Miyuki, and he has wanted to pitch into his mitt ever since. Now in his second year at Seido High, one of Japan's baseball powerhouses, Eijun is still determined to earn the ace's number one jersey. A new season brings talented first-years eager to take their places, while Eijun's rival Satoru Furuya, a fireball pitcher, wants the same number. Places on the field must be earned through relentless training and performance, as Seido aims for Koshien once more, facing formidable rivals such as the genius pitcher Mei Narumiya. Yuji Terajima's sequel to Ace of the Diamond continues one of the most detailed and passionate baseball manga ever made, full of tactics, close games and team spirit. It was adapted into an anime.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Sports · School Life10. Kuroko's Basketball
by Tadatoshi Fujimaki
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Sports (shared)
Teiko Middle School's basketball team had five prodigies known as the Generation of Miracles, and a phantom sixth player that almost nobody remembers. That player is Tetsuya Kuroko, so plain and easy to overlook that his passes seem to come out of nowhere. At Seirin High School, Kuroko teams up with Taiga Kagami, a hot-headed powerhouse just back from America, and sets out to defeat his former teammates one by one. Each member of the Generation of Miracles now plays for a different powerful school, with talents that seem unbeatable, and Seirin's young team must find ways to overcome them through teamwork and trust. Tadatoshi Fujimaki's series is an energetic sports manga with superhuman basketball, flamboyant rivals and a big heart. It was adapted into a hugely popular anime and films.
Read on MANGA PlusOpen
Coming of Age · Shounen11. 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 · School Life12. Bakuman
by Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata
- Comedy (shared)
- Drama (shared)
- Romance
- Slice of Life
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