Manga like Zenikko

Zeni Geba

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Horror , Psychological

When Futaro was five years old, his father left his home. Futaro's mother got sick in poverty. Also, Futaro has a ugly face, like Quasimodo. He's been discriminated against and treated like trash by almost everyone in his neighborhood. Finally, his mother dies because they can't afford medical treatment. Burying his mother's body, Futaro makes up his mind to do anything for money...

Tags: Shounen , Tragedy

Ashita no Joe

Also known as Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow.

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

Joe Yabuki is a troubled young man who runs away from an orphanage. Wandering through the Tokyo slums, he meets former boxing trainer Danpei. Joe is later arrested and goes to a temporary jail where he fights Nishi, his future best friend, ​and leader of a group of hooligans. He and Nishi then go to a juvenile prison miles away from Tokyo. There Joe meets Rikiishi, a former boxing prodigy, and a rivalry develops between them. They face each other in a match in which Rikiishi dominates Joe until the latter hits him with a cross-counter, resulting in both being knocked out. This inspires the other prison inmates to take up boxing. Joe and Rikiishi vow to fight again.



Tags: Boxing , Tragedy , Coming of Age , Male Protagonist , Rehabilitation , Orphan , Urban , Athletics , Class Struggle , Primarily Male Cast , Shounen , Delinquents , Prison , Foreign , Yakuza , War

Jigoku no Gundan

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Horror

A boy abandoned at birth and raised by rats, with the mysterious power to control rats, grows up seeing the dark side of the humans that rejected him, and vows to become humanity's greatest enemy. Note: Start and end dates based on the tankoubon publication dates.

Tags: Language Barrier , Travel , Foreign , Politics , Fugitive , Tragedy , Anti-Hero , Gore , Shounen , Animals , Male Protagonist

Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daishou

Status: Finished
Genres: Action , Drama

This monumental manga became the driving force behind Shonen Jump, the tough kid boss of the neighborhood, Mankichi Togawa, uses his fighting skills and charm to find friends as he takes on the bad guys and the big shots who control Japan's financial world. This series, which was followed enthusiastically by the youth of the time, blazed the trail for a new class of readers. This work embodies the spirit of the magazine Shonen Jump. It had a major influence on the authors who followed. In 1969, it became the first Shonen Jump work to be turned into animation, and in 1971 it was turned into a live action film.



Tags: Delinquents , Gangs , Shounen , Male Protagonist , Coming of Age , Rehabilitation , Economics

Tobenai Tsubasa

Status: Finished
Genres: Action , Drama , Romance

Akira Godai is a brilliant student who one day had his father, an unsuccessful painter, killed in a traffic accident, forcing him to work part-time as a door boy at a bar in Ginza to pay for his school fees.
One day, Akira found a wallet containing a large sum of money left in a jacket entrusted to him by a customer, which he took with him to the bathroom, took the money inside and threw the wallet out the window; that quickly backfires, as a passerby saw him throwing the wallet, leading to his arrest. Now, as Akira is sent to prison, he'll have to struggle to survive in this harsh environment.

Tags: Shounen , Prison