If you liked Planetes
12 manga like Planetes
Picked for the same feel: the genres they share with Planetes (philosophical, drama, sci-fi), the same creators, and what readers keep together. Each opens where it is read legally.
Manga like Planetes
Philosophical · Sci-Fi1. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
by Ashinano Hitoshi
- Drama (shared)
- Philosophical (shared)
- Sci-Fi (shared)
- Slice of Life
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
Philosophical · Sci-Fi2. Land of the Lustrous
by Haruko Ichikawa
- Drama (shared)
- Fantasy
- Philosophical (shared)
- 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
Philosophical · Sci-Fi3. Battle Angel Alita
by Kishiro Yukito
- Action
- Drama (shared)
- Philosophical (shared)
- Sci-Fi (shared)
In the lawless Scrapyard beneath the floating city of Zalem, cyber-doctor Daisuke Ido searches the garbage for useful parts. One day he finds the head of a cyborg girl whose human brain is still alive. He gives her a new body and the name Alita, though she remembers nothing of her past. When danger strikes, Alita discovers that her body remembers what her mind does not: the Panzer Kunst, a legendary and deadly martial art. She becomes a Hunter-Warrior, chasing bounties in the Scrapyard's violent streets, competes in the brutal sport of Motorball and slowly searches for her identity in a divided world where the privileged live in the sky and everyone else lives in their trash. Yukito Kishiro's cyberpunk classic is a gripping, philosophical action story about identity and the value of a life. It was adapted into an anime and the Hollywood film Alita: Battle Angel.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Philosophical · Sci-Fi4. Parasyte
by Iwaaki Hitoshi
- Action
- Horror
- Philosophical (shared)
- Psychological
One night, alien parasites fall silently from the sky. They burrow into human hosts, take over their brains and feed on people while wearing ordinary faces. The parasite meant for high-school student Shinichi Izumi fails to reach his brain and takes over his right hand instead. Shinichi and the parasite, who names itself Migi, are forced into an uneasy partnership: one body, two minds, and neither can survive without the other. As parasites spread through the city, including the cold, curious Ryoko Tamiya, who studies humanity as closely as it studies her, Shinichi fights to protect the people he loves, while slowly changing in ways that frighten him. Hitoshi Iwaaki's horror classic is a gripping, thoughtful story about what makes us human and humanity's place in nature. It won the Kodansha Manga Award and was adapted into an anime, live-action films and a Netflix series.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Philosophical · Seinen5. Uzumaki
by Itou Junji
- Drama (shared)
- Horror
- Mystery
- Philosophical (shared)
Kurouzu-cho, a small, foggy town on the coast of Japan, is cursed, not by a ghost or a monster but by a shape: the spiral. Kirie Goshima's withdrawn boyfriend, Shuichi Saito, is the first to notice it, as his father becomes obsessed with spirals in seashells, ferns, whirlpools and everything around him. At first the signs are small and eerie, but soon the curse spreads through the whole town: in the wind, in people's hair and bodies, in the lighthouse and the sea. Kirie tries to understand what is happening and protect the people she loves, while the town is drawn ever deeper into the pattern and escape seems less and less possible. Junji Ito's masterpiece is one of the most celebrated horror manga ever made, a slow, surreal and unforgettable descent drawn with breathtaking detail. It was adapted into a black-and-white anime series.
Read on VIZ MangaOpen
Philosophical · Sci-Fi6. Girls' Last Tour
by Tsukumizu
- Adventure
- Philosophical (shared)
- Sci-Fi (shared)
- Slice of Life
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
Philosophical · Seinen7. Mushishi
by Urushibara Yuki
- Adventure
- Drama (shared)
- Fantasy
- 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.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Sci-Fi · Seinen8. Battle Angel Alita: Last Order
by Yukito Kishiro
- Action
- Sci-Fi (shared)
After her final battle with the scientist Desty Nova, Alita wakes up somewhere she never expected: inside Zalem, the floating city that the people of the Scrapyard below always believed was paradise. What she finds is a place of fear, cruelty and decay, and her close friend Lou is in danger. With a new body and old enemies everywhere, Alita fights her way through Zalem to reach Lou, while the secrets of the sky city and of her own past slowly come to light. The search soon carries her far beyond Earth, to the colonies of space and the Zenith of Things Tournament, where the greatest fighters in the solar system meet in brutal, spectacular martial-arts battles. Yukito Kishiro's sequel sets aside the original ending of Battle Angel Alita and takes the story in a new direction over fourteen years of serialisation. It combines hard science fiction, philosophy and some of the most detailed fight choreography in manga, and was later continued in Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle.
Read on INKROpen
Philosophical · Drama9. Three Days of Happiness
by Taguchi Shouichi, Miaki Sugaru
- Drama (shared)
- Philosophical (shared)
- Romance
- Tragedy
Kusunoki once believed he was destined for great things. Now, close to turning twenty, he is a poor, unmotivated student with no dreams and no friends. When he hears of a shop that buys people's remaining lifespan, he goes to find out what his own future is worth, and the answer is crushing. He sells all but three months of his life. For the time he has left, he is assigned a monitor, a quiet young woman named Miyagi, who must watch over him until the end. At first he wants to spend his final days on wild plans, but as he spends time with Miyagi, he begins to notice the people and moments he once overlooked. Adapted from Sugaru Miaki's novel and drawn by Shoichi Taguchi, Three Days of Happiness is a tender, bittersweet story about regret, companionship and learning how to live. It is short, complete and quietly devastating.
Read on Shonen Jump+Open
Seinen · Drama10. Giant Killing
by Masaya Tsunamoto, Tsujitomo
- Drama (shared)
- Sports
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
Philosophical · Drama11. To Your Eternity
by Yoshitoki Ōima
- Adventure
- Drama (shared)
- Fantasy
- Philosophical (shared)
An orb is cast onto the earth by a mysterious being to observe the world. It can take the form of anything that leaves an impression on it. First it becomes a rock, then moss, then a wolf, and finally a young boy it meets alone in the frozen north, learning what it means to live from everyone who crosses its path. The immortal being, later named Fushi, travels through lands and eras, gaining forms and memories from the people who shape it: a cheerful girl named March, the protective Parona and many others. But a force called the Nokkers hunts Fushi, determined to take everything it has learned, and every bond Fushi forms brings both love and the pain of loss. Yoshitoki Oima, creator of A Silent Voice, tells a sweeping, emotional story about life, death and what makes us human, one life at a time. It was adapted into an anime.
Read on K MANGAOpen
Seinen · Drama12. Initial D
by Shuichi Shigeno
- Action
- Drama (shared)
- Sports
Every morning before dawn, high-school student Takumi Fujiwara delivers tofu down Mount Akina in his father's old Toyota AE86, under one strange rule: a cup of water on the dashboard must not spill. Without ever noticing, he has become the fastest driver on the mountain. When local street racers hear rumours of a mysterious, unbeatable AE86, Takumi is drawn into the world of mountain-pass racing. Facing rival teams such as the elite Akagi RedSuns, led by the Takahashi brothers, he discovers a talent, and eventually a passion, he never knew he had, while his laconic father Bunta watches from the background. Shuichi Shigeno's series made drifting famous around the world, with intense, technical races and a quietly growing hero. It won the Kodansha Manga Award, was adapted into a long-running anime and has a sequel, MF Ghost.
Read on K MANGAOpen