Manga like Utsubora

Ningen Konchuuki

Also known as The Book of Human Insects.

Status: Finished
Genres: Psychological , Thriller

"Human Metamorphosis," a satirical Manga depicting human society compared to the insect world, focuses on the life of a devious woman. Tomura Toshiko, who is said to be a genius, is a rising star writer. Her novel wins the Akutagawa Prize for the best novel of the year. While she attends the award ceremony, another woman named Usuba Kageri commits suicide in another place. It turns out that Kageri and Toshiko used to live together, and the awarded novel was copied from Kageri's transcript. Toshiko is like a parasite: approaching talented people one after another, squeezing everything out of them and stealing their works for her own fame. Behind her success story, she has her secrets.

Tags: Anti-Hero , Revenge , Seinen , Psychosexual , Female Protagonist , Primarily Adult Cast , Writing , Bisexual , Assassins , Male Harem , Nudity , Crime , Economics , Tragedy , Acting , Noir , Urban , Suicide , Yuri , Foreign

Barbara

Also known as Barbara.

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

Wandering the packed tunnels of Shinjuku Station, famous author Yosuke Mikura makes a strange discovery: a ragged hippie who can quote French poetry. Her name is Barbara. He takes her home for a bath and a drink, and before long Barbara has made herself into Mikura’s shadow, saving him from egotistical delusions and jealous enemies. But just as Mikura is no saint, Barbara is no guardian angel, and Mikura grows obsessed with discovering her secrets, tangling with thugs, sadists, magical curses and mythical beings – all the while wondering whether he himself is still sane. Written in 1973 and 1974 and inspired by the classic opera “Tales of Hoffmann” by Jacques Offenbach, Barbara may be Tezuka’s most psychological and unsettling work, shattering the fine line between art and madness with masterful precision.



Tags: Seinen , Primarily Adult Cast , Writing , Memory Manipulation , Male Protagonist , Philosophy , Nudity , Witch , Suicide , Meta

Ayako

Also known as Ayako.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama

Opening a few years after the end of World War II and covering almost a quarter-century, here is comics master Osamu Tezuka’s most direct and sustained critique of Japan’s fate in the aftermath of total defeat. Unusually devoid of cartoon premises yet shot through with dark voyeuristic humor, Ayako looms as a pinnacle of Naturalist literature in Japan with few peers even in prose, the striking heroine a potent emblem of things left unseen following the war.

The year is 1949. Crushed by the Allied Powers, occupied by General MacArthur’s armies, Japan has been experiencing massive change. Agricultural reform is dissolving large estates and redistributing plots to tenant farmers—terrible news, if you’re landowners like the archconservative Tenge family. For patriarch Sakuemon, the chagrin of one of his sons coming home alive from a P.O.W. camp instead of having died for the Emperor is topped only by the revelation that another of his is consorting with “the reds.” What solace does he have but his youngest Ayako, apple of his eye, at once daughter and granddaughter?



Tags: Historical , Politics , Seinen , Espionage , Tragedy , Rural , Incest , Police , Time Skip , Yakuza , Crime , Fugitive , Nudity , Gangs , Urban , Rehabilitation

Chishiryou Dolis

Also known as Dolis.

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

Mitsu is the perfect woman. Looked upon by men as the ideal girl, the perfect lover. Kishi is a bookstore clerk. Mitsu is an art student and one of the store's regular customers. When Kishi falls head-over-heels in love with Mitsu, he soon discovers another side to this seemingly flawless woman. Mitsu's self-destructive tendencies are an emotional hazard that even Kishi's infatuation can't fix. Together, they lose themselves in a world of intense love, drama, and going to the occasional party. But when Mitsu's former lover gives Kishi a warning about her and the meaning of "Dolis," it may already be too late to save her.



Tags: Josei , Full Color , Denpa , Heterosexual , Tragedy , Primarily Adult Cast , Male Protagonist , Nudity

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Also known as Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama

This multi-generational epic dives deep into rakugo, a rich form of Japanese storytelling theater. Small-time crook Yotaro has never forgotten the rakugo tale "The God of Death," which the master Yurakutei Yakumo performed for Yotaro during his time in prison. After his release, he goes to Yakumo's theater and pleads to be made his apprentice. Yakumo reluctantly accepts, but Yotaro quickly finds the world of rakugo is complex and grapples with a growing bond with Yakumo's ward, Konatsu. Meanwhile, the two young people bring reminders of Yakumo’s own inescapable past.



Note: Won the 38th Kodansha Manga Awards for Best General Manga and the New Creator Prize of the 21st Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2017.

Tags: Rakugo , Josei , Male Protagonist , Tragedy , Primarily Adult Cast , Historical , Acting , Family Life , Love Triangle , Work , Afterlife , Suicide , Yakuza , Oiran , Tsundere , Crossdressing , War , Adoption , Heterosexual , Elderly Protagonist

Reiraku

Also known as Downfall.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

Selling copies is the only thing that matters.

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

Kannou Sensei

Status: Releasing
Genres: Romance

Narumi Rokurou is still adrift in life in his forties, unmarried, and working as an editor at a publishing company while writing hardly lucrative literary fiction. His days enjoying life at his own pace are brought to an end one summer night, when a strange twist of fate brings Rokurou together with a mysterious beauty, beginning the story of their crazed love. As once was spoken by Zarathustra: "Everything in a woman is a riddle."

Tags: Work , Male Protagonist , Seinen , Writing , Age Gap , Restaurant , Urban , Primarily Adult Cast , Nudity

S no Kaihou

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological

After the death of Michiko Kawabata, Mei Kashiyama began to suffer from anxiety, hallucinations, and fainting spells, as if someone else is in her head. Tatsuhiko Emaya met Mei when he saved her from a fall after she fainted. Through hypnosis by Emaya's uncle, a psychologist, she learns about the cause of her mental illness, and breaks free with Emaya's help. Note: Includes the additional chapter, M no Kaihou.

Tags: Shoujo , Dissociative Identities , Suicide , Female Protagonist , Primarily Teen Cast , Tragedy