With the number of manga hits Shueisha’s Shonen Jump generates month after month, it’s easy to forget that it’s just one in a number of publishers creating content for the thriving, ever-growing manga market. Indeed, there are two other major publishers – Kodansha and Shogakukan – that consistently produce excellent, if less celebrated, manga stories that are every bit as good as Jump’s best.
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Of all the manga industry publishers, Kodansha and Shogakukan have the resources, tradition, and influence to challenge Shueisha’s global manga omnipresence. Like Shueisha, both began as book publishers before finding a rich revenue stream in manga and later anime. Interestingly, Shueisaha was originally founded by Shogakukan as its entertainment imprint, and the two are joint owners of the American manga distributor Viz Media. Here, then, is a list of manga titles from Kodansha and Shogakukan that manga fans should be reading now.
10 Detective Conan (Shogakukan)
Gosho Aoyama’s Detective Conan, which is known in the U.S. as Case Closed, tells the story of Shinichi Kudo, a high school student with an aptitude for solving crimes. However, after a secret organization he’s been investigating poisons him with a mysterious drug, his body is transformed back to that of a toddler. Determined to continue pursuing his passion, and figure out how to neutralize the drug’s effect, Shinichi Kudo assumes an alternate identity and continues solving crimes. Detective Conan is one of the longest-running manga, and not without a reason: solid storytelling, interesting characters, and an ongoing mystery backstory that amazingly stays dynamic. It’s detective manga at its finest.
9 Go! Go! Loser Ranger (Kodansha)
Negi Haruba’s Go! Go! Loser Ranger flips the script on the well-known Sentai genre that’s been popularized in the U.S. by the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Rather than detailing the heroic exploits of a super-powered group of teenagers, the story follows a bunch of villains who having been defeated over and over by a hero team known as the Dragon Keepers. The villains decide to infiltrate the Dragon Keeper organization in order to finally achieve total world domination. It’s a great bottom-up take on the genre that perfectly plays off decades-worth of popular Sentai tropes.
8 Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro (Kodansha)
Nanashi’s Don’t Mess With Me, Miss Nagatoro tells the story of shy but earnest student Naoto Hachioji, who is continuously bullied by his classmates. When a freshman student named Hayase Nagatoro joins in the abuse, Naoto sees it as more of the same. However, something strange occurs as Nagatoro’s attentions intensify; she’s seemingly on a mission to help Naoto be the best he can be. It’s a unique “boy meets girl” story that creatively mixes slice-of-life manga elements with romance manga style to produce a thoroughly enjoyable coming of age story.
7 Ultraman (Shogakukan)
While Eiichiro Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi’s Ultraman is part of the popular television and movie franchise, it is nothing like its televised version. This Ultraman is a grittier, more serious, and much more compelling story than those spawned in the wider Ultraman universe after the first TV series ended. This story links back directly to the first Ultraman in the original 1966 TV series and his alter-ego Shin Hayata. After sharing the same body for so long, Hayata absorbs some of Ultraman’s abilities and passes them on to his son Shinjiro. Years later, armed with superhuman abilities and a special power suit, Shinjiro is called on to fill the void that Ultraman left when he returned to his home world.
6 Gachiakuta (Kodansha)
Kei Urana’s Gachiakuta tells the story of Rudo – an orphan living in the slums outside of Heaven. After being framed for killing his foster father, Rudo is cast into the Abyss; the area below the Slums where all the trash from Heaven is dumped, and where criminals are exiled. In the Abyss, Rudo becomes a Janitor, a group of people organized to protect the inhabitants from the monsters who’ve evolved from the countless ages Heaven has been dumping refuse into the area. Rudo vows to learn the skills and abilities to one day get his revenge on the people who framed him. Manga fans should check it out not only for Rudo’s story, which is full of interesting twists, but also for the tremendous world-building Urana pulls off.
Related: Attack on Titan Publisher Kodansha Announces New Manga App
5 Pluto (Shogakukan)
Naoki Urasawa, Osamu Tezuka and Takashi Nagasaki’s Pluto reimagines the groundbreaking, fan-favorite anime Astro Boy as a gritty ‘whodunit’ involving an advanced robot police detective assigned to find the individual responsible for taking out the world’s greatest robots. His investigation is further complicated by the fact that, like Astro Boy, he is also a target of the killer. Outside the obvious links to one of the most popular and well-known heroes in anime, this manga is as solid as they come in terms of story, character, and artwork, and a thrilling crime story even without its sci-fi elements.
4 Shangri-La Frontier (Kodansha)
Katarina and Ryosuke Fuji’s Shangri-La Frontier tells the story of Rakuro Hizutome, a high school gamer who loves the challenge of playing and winning at “trash” games – badly-made games, or VR video games that are still in beta, and full of glitches that completed games rarely show. Having climbed the ranks to become one of the best “trash gamers” online, he tries a new trash game at the suggestion of a friend only to find it’s the hardest he’s ever played, and his results have real-life consequences. Shangri-La Frontier is not for everyone, but for the growing group of ‘gaming manga’ readers, there’s no better series.
3 Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt (Shogakukan)
As a manga, Yasuo Ohtagaki’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt is a bit of an anomaly in a franchise known for its animated television and film content. However, it might also be the best that the franchise has to offer. The story takes place concurrently with the original Gundam television series, but so far is not explicitly part of Gundam canon. It focuses on a battle between the Principality of Zeon and the Earth Federation in a section of space called “Thunderbolt.” The conflict focuses on Zeon soldier Daryl Lorenz and Earth soldier Io Fleming as they face off against one another to secure victory for their respective sides. This is required reading for anyone into the Gundam franchise.
2 Akabane’s Bodyguard (Kodansha)
Masamitsu Nigatsu’s Akabane’s Bodyguard tells the story of high school student Ibuki Arakuni, who learns that his friend Akabane Koneko is the target of assassins due to the fact that her father is a mobster. Tasked with making sure that she graduates safely, Ibuki embarks on the year-long job of being Akabane’s secret bodyguard. It’s a hard life for Ibuki, but there’s also plenty of room for romance and humor. This title is worthy of attention for Nigatsu’s solid integration of multiple manga genres, including gangster, romance, comedy, school, and action in a compelling story with consistently interesting characters.
1 Blue Lock (Kodansha)
No list including Kodansha titles would be complete without Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura’s Blue Lock, the story based on Japan’s real-life quest to be a world power in soccer. Specifically, the story focuses on high school middling soccer player Isagi Yoichi and his plan to become the nation’s premier soccer forward through the Blue Lock – a program that mercilessly trains its participants to be the best they can be or give up soccer altogether. Besides the intense drama between the Blue Lock participants themselves, as well as the program management, Blue Lock is interesting because of its “superhero-fication” of this extreme sports story.
Even though the above recommendations are the best sources for fans to introduce themselves to what Kodansha and Shogakukan has to offer, they represent just a small portion of the quality manga content both publishers generate each month. Much of that content can truly give Shonen Jump a run for its money, and shows just how much great content there is for manga fans willing to dig a little deeper.