Manga like Munou no Hito

Fune ni Sumu

Also known as Boat Life.

Status: Finished
Genres: Slice of Life

Serialized between 1996 and 2000, Boat Life stars novelist Tsuda Kenta, a lightly veiled stand-in for the artist, Tsuge Tadao, himself, as he pursues a life of reprieve and reverie on a small, makeshift house boat on a river outside of Tokyo. Based loosely on the artist’s own daily life, this charming story follows the hapless protagonist on a series of magical absurdist quests, featuring a panoply of personable characters, including a drunkard fisherman, a pervy monk, a talking corpse, a senile hermit, and a half-supportive, half-doubtful wife and adult son. Most of the scenes take place on the Tonegawa River in Chiba, a favorite fishing spot of Tsuge’s. Others occur at the artist’s home or at Joker, a jeans and apparel shop the Tsuges opened in 1977. While fans of Trash Market and Slum Wolf will enjoy this late-career elaboration of après-guerre themes Tsuge has been exploring since his debut in the legendary alt-manga magazine Garo in the late ‘60s, fans of his brother Tsuge Yoshiharu’s The Man Without Talent will appreciate the more relaxed and optimistic take on middle-aged reclusion and the grind of work and family. Note: Chapter count includes one extra.

Tags: Male Protagonist

NHK ni Youkoso!

Also known as Welcome to the N.H.K..

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Drama , Psychological , Romance

Sato Tatsuhiro is a drug-addled "hikikomori" (a Japanese shut-in) who thinks a sinister organization, NHK (Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai), is the cause of all his problems! He falls in love with a girl, Misaki, who he thinks is trying to assassinate him, but doesn't know how to talk to her or if he can trust her. The more he stay in his house watching anime porn, reading manga and doing drugs, the harder it is for him to leave. Only Misaki can keep him from rotting away in his own apartment!



Tags: Hikikomori , Otaku Culture , Rehabilitation , Tragedy , Primarily Adult Cast , Philosophy , Male Protagonist , Denpa , Drugs , Seinen , Suicide , Bullying , Nudity , Disability

Hoshi Mamoru Inu

Also known as Stargazing Dog.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

A little girl picks up a puppy abandoned in a cardboard box and takes it home. As the years pass, the father of the family forms a strong bond with the dog as his wife and daughter drift away from him. Faced with a divorce, he puts a few cardboard boxes and the dog in his car and drives south to see the sea.

Tags: Animals , Family Life , Seinen , Tragedy , Male Protagonist , Ensemble Cast , Coming of Age

Gekiga Hyouryuu

Also known as A Drifting Life.

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Drama , Romance , Slice of Life

Over four decades ago, Yoshihiro Tatsumi expanded the horizons of comics storytelling by using the visual language of manga to tell gritty, literary stories about the private lives of everyday people. He has been called "the grandfather of Japanese alternative comics" and has influenced generations of cartoonists around the world. Now the visionary creator of "The Push Man and Other Stories" and "Good-bye" has turned his incisive, unflinching gaze upon himself. Over ten years in the making, "A Drifting Life" is Tatsumis' most ambitious, personal, and heart felt work: an autobiographical bildungsroman in comics form.Using his life long obsession with comics as a frame work, Tatsumi weaves a complex story that encompasses family dynamics, Japanese culture and history, first love, the intricacies of the manga industry, and most importantly, what it means to be an artist. Alternately humorous, enlightening, and haunting, this is the masterful summartion of a fascinating life and a historic career.



Tags: Autobiographical , Historical , Drawing , Non-fiction , Tragedy , Work , School , Seinen

Oyasumi Punpun

Also known as Goodnight Punpun.

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

Meet Punpun Punyama. He’s an average kid in an average town.
He wants to win a Nobel Prize and save the world.
He wants the girl he has a crush on to like him back.
He wants to find some porn.
That’s what he wants, but what does he get…?



Tags: Coming of Age , Seinen , Tragedy , Philosophy , Denpa , Suicide , Psychosexual , Urban , Male Protagonist , Heterosexual , Anti-Hero , Time Skip , Fugitive , Surreal Comedy , School , Cult , Meta , Nudity , Gods , Work , Body Horror , Love Triangle , Ghost

Reiraku

Also known as Downfall.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

Selling copies is the only thing that matters.

So what if your first series just ended and you have no idea how to start the next one, your marriage is breaking up, your pure love of manga has been destroyed by the cruel reality of the industry and nothing seems to fill the sucking void inside you...

Find the secret combo for a new hit manga series and everything will be okay.

Right?



Tags: Work , Drawing , Seinen , Male Protagonist , Primarily Adult Cast , Prostitution , Heterosexual , Nudity ,

Sekishoku Elegy

Also known as Red Colored Elegy.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

Seiichi Hayashi produced Red Colored Elegy between 1970 and 1971, in the aftermath of a politically turbulent and culturally vibrant decade that promised but failed to deliver new possibilities. With a combination of sparse line work and visual codes borrowed from animation and film, the quiet melancholy lives of a young couple struggling to make ends meet are beautifully captured in this poetic masterpiece.

Uninvolved with the political movements of the time, Ichiro and Sachiko hope for something better, but they're no revolutionaries; their spare time is spent drinking, smoking, daydreaming, and sleeping--together and at times with others. While Ichiro attempts to make a living from his comics, Sachiko's parents are eager to arrange a marriage for her, but Ichiro doesn't seem interested. Both in their relationship and at work, Ichiro and Sachiko are unable to say the things they need to say, and like any couple, at times say things to each other that they do not mean, ultimately communicating as much with their body language and what remains unsaid as with words.

Red Colored Elegy is informed as much by underground Japanese comics of the time as it is by the French Nouvelle Vague, and its cultural referents range from James Dean to Ken Takakura. Its influence in Japan was so large that Morio Agata, a prominent Japanese folk musician and singer songwriter, debuted with a love song written and named after it.

"I wanted to live like Sachiko and Ichiro; to have aspirations even while living stoically and humbly." --Morio Agata



Tags: Seinen , Work , Drawing , Suicide , Primarily Adult Cast , Nudity , Heterosexual

Aruku Hito

Also known as The Walking Man.

Status: Finished
Genres: Slice of Life

Who takes the time these days to climb a tree in bare feet to rescue a child's toy? To stop and observe the birds? To play in the puddles after a storm? To go down to the sea to put a shell back? The Walking Man does as he strolls at random through urban Japan—often silent, often alone—with his vivid dreams that let time stand still.



Tags: Iyashikei , Seinen , Primarily Adult Cast , Male Protagonist , Episodic , Urban , Time Skip , Achronological Order , Family Life , Nudity

Tonari no Onna

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

A collection of late-period Yoshiharu Tsuge stories, originally published 1981-1985.

Tonari no Onna (隣りの女)
Sanpo no Hibi (散歩の日々)
Shounen (少年)
Aru Mumei Sakka (ある無名作家)
Kinjo no Keshiki (近所の景色)
Ikebukuro Hyakutenkai (池袋百点会)

Tags: Anthology , Seinen

Kakusan

Status: Finished
Genres: Adventure , Drama , Psychological , Romance , Supernatural

Katsuhiko Tobe faces an odd dilemma. Losing control of his physical self, his body diffuses into nothingness as his disembodied consciousness flows throughout the world constantly contemplating both the world and his current situation. Meanwhile, his best friend Azami Seshimo waits in their native Japan for Katsuhiko's return.



Note: the 1st edition also includes 2 short-stories.

Tags: Seinen , Travel , Nudity