Manga like Aoi Haru

Sunny

Also known as Sunny.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological , Slice of Life

The story of an orphanage, the children who live in it, and the beat-up old Nissan Sunny 1200 which provides them with a means of escape from their boring everyday lives.

Note: Winner of the Best Manga of the Year award at the 2016 Shogakukan Manga Awards.

Tags: Family Life , Ensemble Cast , Primarily Child Cast , Seinen , Estranged Family , Tragedy , Autobiographical , Rural , Adoption , Episodic , Cars , Delinquents , Heterosexual , Time Skip , Baseball

Ping Pong

Also known as Ping Pong.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological , Sports

Makoto “Smile” Tsukimoto and his friend Yutaka “Peco” Hoshino have been playing table tennis since they were kids, but as they enter high school, they find that the game has changed. Seeing potential in them that they themselves don’t fully realize, the coach recruits them for the school team. Bringing out their best will mean challenging the top players from rival schools in the summer tournament, including an ace Chinese exchange student who almost made the Olympic team. With the pressure on, can Smile and Peco take the heat and make it into the finals?



Tags: Table Tennis , Coming of Age , Seinen , Philosophy , Male Protagonist , School Club , Teacher , School , Primarily Male Cast , Tragedy , Primarily Teen Cast , Bullying , Time Skip

Tekkon Kinkreet

Also known as Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White.

Status: Finished
Genres: Action , Drama , Psychological , Supernatural

Orphaned on the mean streets of Treasure Town, lost boys Black and White must mug, steal and fight to survive. Around them moves a world of corruption and loneliness, small-time crooks and neurotic police officers, and a band of sadistic yakuza who have plans for their once-fair city. Can they rise above their environment?

Won the Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Japan for the Eisner Award in 2008.



Tags: Seinen , Gangs , Denpa , Urban , Male Protagonist , Coming of Age , Yakuza , Primarily Child Cast , Mafia , Orphan , Nudity

Haruka na Machi e

Also known as A Distant Neighborhood.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological , Slice of Life

Who hasn't thought about reliving their past, correcting perceived mistakes or changing crucial decisions? Would this better your life or the lives of those closest to you? Or would your altered actions prove even more harmful? One man gets the chance to find out...

Middle-aged Hiroshi Nakahara is on his way home from a business trip when he finds himself on the wrong train heading for his childhood hometown. His footsteps take him to his mother's grave and it's there that he is catapulted back into his life as an 8th grader - but with all his adult memories and knowledge intact. As he struggles to make sense of his predicament his adult memories of his childhood return but are somehow subtly changed. The questions start to form ... would his father still disappear without explanation? would he still marry his wife?



Tags: Time Manipulation , Age Regression , Male Protagonist , Family Life , Seinen , Rural , Magic , Philosophy

Mu-Town no Kodomo-tachi

Also known as Children of Mu-Town.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological

Stylistically intermingling themes of gentrification and rebirth within the setting of a classic yakuza crime drama, Children of Mu-Town follows the course charted by youths of an aging residential housing complex who are struggling for their lives: burdened by financial issues, peer pressure, and uncertain futures, ensnared in the clutches of organized crime, they are searching for a way to survive. When a municipal renovation project seems to offer a future of stability for their dilapidated town, the mysterious and far-reaching consequences that their actions set into motion may leave Juichi and his friends with no option but annihilation…..

A stunning modern “tenement masterpiece” work of manga, Mu-Town is a story of small-town gang intimidation, escalating immigration tensions, political intrigue, and the yearning desperation of youth.

Tags: Politics , Yakuza , Male Protagonist , Primarily Adult Cast

ZERO

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Sports

Goshima is a boxer who has held the world championship title for years and never once lost a match - thus earning himself the nickname 'Zero'. His coach, Araki, describes him as 'a flower that blooms only within the ring'. But with his 30th birthday approaching, everyone begins to question Goshima's worth. Thus he decides to look for the ultimate opponent to give him his final match.

Tags: Boxing , Seinen , Male Protagonist , Primarily Male Cast , Primarily Adult Cast , Language Barrier

Himizu

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological

Every day in Japan, 2500 people die due to any number of causes. Do you think you'll be one of the ones to die? No, of course not. Do you think you'll win the lottery? You'd like to think so, we all would. But Sumida is different. He wants the status quo to remain in every way; live a normal life, get a normal job, have normal kids, never to be anyone fortunate or unfortunate, content in normalcy. Anyone who doesn't agree is foolish, doomed to live their life scraping up a mountain that they can never conquer, fated to die in despair wishing things had been better.

When his mother kicks his father out of the house and onto the streets, he thinks he'll be fine. When his mother leaves him to live with her boyfriend, he makes the best of it. When he realizes that he's no longer average, he strives to make his life worthwhile the only way he knows how. When the demons in the back of his mind speak to him, he tries his best to ignore them.

Tags: Anti-Hero , Tragedy , Denpa , Suicide , Crime , Seinen , Philosophy , Psychosexual , Male Protagonist , Yakuza , Nudity

Nihon no Kyoudai

Status: Finished
Genres: Psychological , Slice of Life

Collection of miscellaneous oneshots by Matsumoto Taiyou.

Tags: Anthology , Seinen

Hanaotoko

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Slice of Life

Shigeo is a high strung elementary school student living with his mother. His only concern is getting ahead in life by doing well in school. He despises his father Hanao (who is separated from them), who's an idealistic free spirit and a kid at heart, infatuated with the sport of baseball.

Shigeo's mother forces Shigeo to take time to visit his father, and so begins Shigeo's lessons that there's more to life than excelling academically (courtesy of his very childish father).

Tags: Baseball , Coming of Age , Family Life , Iyashikei , Philosophy , Rural , Seinen

Go

Status: Finished
Genres: Action , Drama

"Sugihara, a North Korean, began studying at a Japanese high-school. Since his father was an ex-pro boxer, Sugihara knew how to fight other Japanese boys who challenges him to a fight because of his nationality. At one party Sugihara meets a girl who would only let him know of her family name: Sakurai..."

Tags: School , Seinen , Delinquents