Manga like Tokyo Higoro

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 , Heterosexual , Prostitution , Nudity ,

Kakukaku Shikajika

Also known as Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

High schooler Akiko has big plans to become a popular mangaka before she even graduates, but she needs to get much better at drawing if she ever wants to reach her goal. Looking for an easy fix, she signs up for an art class, thinking all her problems will soon be solved. She’s in for a surprise: her new instructor is a sword-wielding taskmaster who doesn’t care about manga one bit. But maybe this unconventional art teacher is just what she needs to realize her dreams!



Notes:
Kakukaku Shikajika is an autobiography detailing the life of author Akiko Higashimura.
The manga won the Grand Prize at the 8th Manga Taisho Award in 2015.

Tags: Drawing , Coming of Age , Otaku Culture , Autobiographical , Teacher , Josei , Female Protagonist , Tragedy , Non-fiction , College , Time Skip , Meta , Work , Writing , Primarily Adult Cast , Rural , Swordplay , Philosophy , Educational , Mopeds

Look Back

Also known as Look Back.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

Fujino is a fourth grader who draws a manga strip for the school newspaper. Her art makes her the star of the class, but one day she's told that Kyomoto, a student who refuses to come to school, would also like to submit a manga for the paper...



Note: The one-shot was compiled in a special volume, released on September 3, 2021.

Tags: Drawing , Tragedy , Female Protagonist , Primarily Female Cast , Hikikomori , Coming of Age , Shounen , Work , Meta , School , Philosophy , Primarily Child Cast , Rehabilitation , Yuri

Fune wo Amu

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

The story follows the employees at the Genbu Shobou publishing company. Araki, who is a veteran editor for the dictionary department, is looking for a successor now that he's approaching retirement age. After Majime Mitsuya—a salesman who's a poor talker—meets Masashi Nishioka—Araki's coworker who is sociable and frivolous—Araki overhears their conversation and decides to recruit Majime into the department. The story follows "the awkward humans" Majime and Masashi as they work together to compile a medium-sized Japanese dictionary titled "The Great Passage" (Daitokai).



Tags: Josei , Work , Primarily Adult Cast , Office , Male Protagonist , Writing , Philosophy , Time Skip , Marriage

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 , Adoption , Rural , Episodic , Cars , Delinquents , Heterosexual , Baseball , Time Skip

Solanin

Also known as Solanin.

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

College graduates struggle to cope with the real world. Music offers refuge in this modern manga with an American attitude. Meiko Inoue is a recent college grad working as an office lady in a job she hates. Her boyfriend Naruo is permanently crashing at her apartment because his job as a freelance illustrator doesn't pay enough for rent. And her parents in the country keep sending her boxes of veggies that just rot in her fridge. Straddling the line between her years as a student and the rest of her life, Meiko struggles with the feeling that she's just not cut out to be a part of the real world.



Notes:
Nominated for the Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Japan and the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material.
Includes one extra chapter and one-shot "Haru yo Koi (Awaiting Spring)" first included in the October 2017 new Japanese edition.

Tags: Coming of Age , Band , Seinen , Tragedy , Primarily Adult Cast , Heterosexual , Found Family , Female Protagonist , Family Life , Urban , Rock Music , College , Office Lady , Nudity

Manga Henshuu-sha ga Kaisha wo Yamete Inakakurashi wo Shitara Isekai Datta Kudan

Also known as That Time the Manga Editor Started a New Life in the Countryside.

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

Sick of his job and the city, Yohei “Kuma” Sakuma has a grand plan—to start anew in the countryside and live off the land. Thing is, he hasn't told his wife yet, nor does he know the first thing about growing rice. Between crooked houses, swarms of bugs, and grueling work under the sun, the city slicker Kuma and his wife Miyu get a crash course in country life. But at the end of the day, with beer in hand as they take in the sights, they begin to understand that country life can be real hard, but real good.



Tags: Male Protagonist , Rural , Agriculture , Work , Primarily Adult Cast , Autobiographical

Hitori de Ikiru wa Mama Naranu

Also known as You Can't Live All on Your Own!.

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

What is considered "normal" for a 30 year old? Should she be married, have a carreer, live independently...?

Shuko Maeda, 28, is a single office worker who lives in a shared house with her three friends. One of them is Eika Matsuki, a career woman whose life revolves around work. Then, there's Misaki Kawaseda, a musician, singer and hopeless romantic. Finally: Shio Momoyama, who works freelance and is laid back in her professional and personal life. Together, they navigate the stresses and joys of daily life as women approaching 30, in a society that has certain expectations for them, while they all try to find their own unique way to thrive!



Tags: Primarily Female Cast , Josei , Female Protagonist , Primarily Adult Cast , Work , Heterosexual , Aromantic , Asexual , LGBTQ+ Themes , Office Lady

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: Drawing , Historical , Autobiographical , Non-fiction , Gekiga , Tragedy , Work , School

Bakuman.

Also known as Bakuman。.

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

Average student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world?



Tags: Drawing , Work , Meta , Shounen , Writing , Educational , Coming of Age , Male Protagonist , Heterosexual , Otaku Culture , Tomboy , School , Tragedy