From a traditional publishing standpoint in the Japanese manga industry, seinen describes anything targeted toward young men over 18. Nowadays, much broader audiences enjoy seinen manga, mostly because it delves into more adult themes. Seinen manga may concentrate on war, fighting, politics, sci-fi, fantasy, history, love, sports, or humor. Like any other genre, seinen encompasses an extensive variety of artistic styles and themes.
Countless seinen narratives have redefined what manga can be, making many of them worthy of readers' time and attention. Seinen can be grittier, more complex, more violent, and more nuanced than other manga, but the best seinen series are just as profound. Excellent stories are excellent stories, but the seinen packaging allows for a little more introspection and gray morality.
Updated on September 11th, 2023 by Louis Kemner: This list has been updated to reflect CBR's current publication standards and features a few more of the best seinen manga series currently in publication.
21 Skip and Loafer
(2018 - Present, 9 Volumes)
Skip and Loafer is one of the top seinen manga series for anime fans who enjoy shojo-style romance stories with teenage characters. At times, the line between seinen, shojo, and shonen can be surprisingly blurry, resulting in series like Skip and Loafer that many diverse readers may enjoy, even if they all get something different out of it.
Skip and Loafer is a high school rom-com series starring the heroine Mitsumi Iwakura. A country girl, Mitsumi just moved to Tokyo so she can get a good education, go to college, then become a politician who can make life better for Japan's rural population. Mitsumi's assertive ESTJ personality is impressive and makes her compelling. She's also lovable as a relatable teenage girl who must figure out how to make and keep friends at school, including one special boy who might capture her heart.
20 Drifters
(2009 - Present, 6 Volumes)
Drifters, written by Hellsing author Kouta Hirano, serves as another testament to the renowned mangaka's ability to blend genre and history with style. It focuses on several historical individuals beckoned to a mysterious world where wizards require their abilities in order to rescue their world from annihilation.
While entangled in the Battle of Sekigahara, Shimazu Toyohisa fatally wounds Ii Naomasa but receives grave injuries as well. As he walks away from the battlefield bleeding, Toyohisa is teleported to a passage of doors, where a man behind a desk awaits him. The man, Murasaki, guides Toyohisa into a different world, where he joins a band of other transported warriors from across history.
19 Bocchi the Rock!
(2017 - Present, 6 Volumes)
The seinen manga series Bocchi the Rock! exploded in popularity when it got a one-season anime adaptation back in the Fall 2022 anime season, turning it into a household name overnight for anime fans. The original manga may not have much content compared to longer seinen works, but fans are bound to like what they see.
Bocchi the Rock! feels like a combination of K-On! and Komi Can't Communicate, an innocent seinen manga series showing cute girls doing cute things. Meanwhile, the heroine Hitori Gotoh/Bocchi struggles to overcome her social anxiety. Hitori is eager to become a rock star, but surviving stage fright and putting on a good show at the STARRY club is another matter altogether.
18 My Dress-Up Darling
(2018 - Present, 11 Volumes)
My Dress-Up Darling is one of several great seinen manga series that will also appeal to fans of shonen and shojo rom-coms, giving it broad appeal among many readers. This series also has PG-13 fan service, but does so tastefully, celebrating the main characters' attractive bodies rather than exploiting them.
My Dress-Up Darling is a delightful seinen manga series that's all about the power of cosplay, friendship, and opposites attracting. The genki girl Marin Kitagawa loves cosplay, but she needs the quiet dandere Wakana Gojo to make her costumes, so they complement each other well. True love just might bloom between them, but only if Wakana becomes more assertive. The same goes for Marin, since she's surprisingly shy about love.
17 Golgo 13
(1968 - Present, 209 Volumes)
Some series never go out of style as far as readership is concerned. Golgo 13 has been serialized in Big Comic manga magazine for around 50 years. It is the oldest ongoing manga series, and its tankobon publication has a record number of volumes. The titular Golgo 13, a.k.a. Duke Togo, is an assassin for hire.
The personal details known about Golgo are very limited and there is no agreement in the international intelligence community about who he truly is. His assassinations inevitably invite retributions against Golgo, and soon even the FBI, CIA, and the United States military are hunting him down. While not widely known to modern Western audiences, Golgo 13's success can't be overstated.
16 Kingdom
(2006 - Present, 69 Volumes)
In recent years, historical fiction manga has seen a resurgence in popularity, and more international stories have been embraced. Kingdom's narrative is a fictitious retelling of China's Warring States era, which concluded in 221 BCE when the king of Qin finally unified China. In the manga, Li Xin and Piao are friends who dream of becoming Great Generals, despite their low status.
Piao gets the chance to accept a significant responsibility within the Qin royal palace. After a brutal coup ensues, Xin encounters Piao on the verge of death. His dying words guide Xin toward the young prince of Qin, Ying Zheng. At first hostile, Xin and Zheng become companions and follow a path paved with hardships as they strive to achieve their respective goals.
15 Black Lagoon
(2002 - Present, 12 Volumes)
Black Lagoon remains a fan-favorite among action manga. The series has gone on hiatus a few times since premiering in 2002, but its audience is dedicated. The story follows the members of the Lagoon Company, a group of pirate mercenaries that smuggle both people and merchandise. Their base is the fictitious port city of Roanapur, near the Cambodian border.
The Lagoon Company's crew includes a former Japanese salaryman, a Chinese-American gunwoman, a Black captain, and an American Jew who works as both the crew's mechanic and computer specialist. With a violent, Hollywood-esque story as diverse and interesting as its characters, Black Lagoon has raised the bar on action manga across the board.
14 Space Brothers
(2007 - Present, 42 Volumes)
High fantasy and ambitious sci-fi stories are certainly areas in which manga has always excelled, but sometimes it's easier to write about fighting space robots than it is to write realistic science fiction. Space Brothers is a beautiful balance of genres that tweaks the world just slightly, using minor changes as a launchpad for an inspiring story about brotherhood and achieving dreams.
Brothers Mutta and Hibito witness a UFO as children, inspiring them to become astronauts as adults. While Hibito aims straight for his dreams and achieves them, Mutta struggles with balancing his life and an office job he dislikes. Mutta's luck changes when the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency accepts his application to become an astronaut, and the story really takes off.
13 Blue Period
(2017 - Present, 14 Volumes)
Bored high schooler Yatora Yaguchi doesn't enjoy the mundanity of his daily life, but he's uncertain about what else he wants. When Yatora becomes fascinated by a classmate's painting, he becomes deeply invested in art and being an artist. He joins his school's art club to get into painting, but that's only the beginning of his journey.
Of course, Yatora faces the usual obstacles that young creatives often do. His parents are reluctant to embrace his choice, and Yatora is years behind artists who have worked at their craft much longer. For fans of Bakuman, Blue Period is a must-read seinen offering.
12 One-Punch Man
(2012 - Present, 28 Volumes)
This oddball manga follows the adventures of Saitama, the eponymous One-Punch Man. On a supercontinent Earth, ferocious beasts and rogues have been spreading chaos in the capitals. In response, a tycoon forms the Hero Association, which hires heroes to combat evil. Meanwhile, Saitama does things his own way.
Saitama's power is so immense that he can literally finish his opponents with a single punch. He is always looking for worthy opponents, but grows bored with the inevitable outcome of every altercation. While the manga is mostly a genre parody, One-Punch Man is sometimes deeply existential, questioning what good comes from getting all that's wished for.
11 Land Of The Lustrous
(2012 - Present, 12 Volumes)
Once or twice every decade, a story comes along that's so unlike anything else that it becomes unforgettable. Years after Land of the Lustrous began publication, there remains no other series like it. After several meteorites destroy the continents and create new moons, Earth is forever changed and countless people sink to the bottom of the sea, becoming crystallized.
Later, these crystal beings rise from the water and recommence their lives. Unfortunately, those remnants of humanity who had moved to the moons now desire to capture and harvest the crystalline race. Phos, a fragile gem, serves as the protagonist and the audience's entry point into this world that's both entirely foreign and all too familiar.
10 March Comes In Like A Lion
(2007 - Present, 17 Volumes)
Many stories are heartbreaking, but it takes a great author to make heartbreak truly meaningful to readers. March Comes In Like A Lion, written by acclaimed mangaka Chika Umino, refuses to pull its punches. Shogi genius Rei Kiryama becomes a professional player before he's even in high school, while simultaneously grappling with family pressure, neglect, and depression.
Rei's private life is on a downward trajectory until he meets the Kawamoto family, who take him under their wing. More about coping with trauma than excelling in shogi, reading March Comes in Like a Lion is a singularly cathartic experience.
9 Real
(1999 - Present, 15 Volumes)
After finishing up Slam Dunk, manga author Takehiko Inoue wasn’t done telling stories about basketball. Inoue moved from Weekly Shonen Jump to Young Jump for his next story, Real. Real focuses on a young man named Tomomi Nomiya, who gives up on his dream of basketball after being kicked out of school.
When he meets the disabled Kiyoharu Togawa, who plays wheelchair basketball for fun, Tomomi realizes he doesn’t want to give up on the game he loves so much. Real not only focuses on the passion involved in following a sport professionally, but also manages to be inclusive of disabled individuals. Inoue writes disabled characters with respect, while also making them fully realized, three-dimensional individuals.
8 Aoashi
(2015 - Present, 32 Volumes)
Creators Yugo Kobayashi and Naohiko Ueno created a classic soccer manga in Aoashi. Published in the weekly Seinen magazine Big Comic Spirits, Ao Ashi has been around long enough to even get its own anime series. The story focuses on Ashito Aoi, a young boy who meets Youth League coach, Tatsuya Fukuda.
Ashito's incredible skills convince Fukuda to try out for a J-League soccer club. Pulled away from the usual high school club tropes, Aoashi establishes its own identity, making for a must-read for fans of soccer or well-written seinen series. Another soccer-based manga that's popular right now is Blue Lock, although this one falls firmly in the shonen genre.
7 Grand Blue
(2014 - Present, 20 Volumes)
Frustrating as it might be on occasion, there are simply too many manga stories about high schoolers out there. Kenji Inoue and Kimitake Yoshioka went in a different direction with their series Grand Blue, published in the good! Afternoon magazine.
Grand Blue follows college student Iori Kitahara, who just recently started college while working at his uncle's scuba diving shop. While there, he's forced into hanging out with a bunch of rowdy upperclassmen, though he quickly becomes friends with all of them. Iori's perfect college life might seem miles away, but it still makes for one of the funniest manga on the stands.
6 Witch Hat Atelier
(2016 - Present, 12 Volumes)
One of the more popular series coming out of the Seinen magazine Morning Two is Kamome Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier. The story follows a young girl named Coco, who's always been obsessed with witches and their ability to cast magic. Although she wants to cast magic herself, she's never met anyone who actually uses those powers.
Coco's life forever changes when she meets a mage named Qifrey. Qifrey decides to train her in the ability to use magic, introducing her to the life of a mage. However, being a mage isn't all fun, as Coco learns she'll have to work with Qifrey to track down some dangerous mages known as the Brimmed Caps.
5 Magus Of The Library
(2017 - Present, 7 Volumes)
In 2017, Izumi Mitsu worked with the seinen magazine good! Afternoon to publish the series Magus of the Library. The protagonist of the series is Theo Fumis, a young boy from the slums with a deep and enduring love for reading and literature.
Unfortunately for him, the local library doesn't allow the lower class inside. However, after being loaned a book by an elite librarian, Theo tracks the librarian down, leading him on a journey to Aftzaak, the City of Books. Magus of the Library is full of jaw-droppingly beautiful artwork and tells a fantastic story about the importance of literature.
4 Oshi No Ko
(2020 - Present, 12 Volumes)
Oshi no Ko quietly became one of the best seinen manga series when it launched in 2020, and its popularity soared when it got an anime in the Spring 2023 anime season. Oshi no Ko is compelling and memorable because it blends many genres and storytelling elements into a single narrative.
Oshi no Ko is many things — a sharp critique of the Japanese idol industry, a revenge story, a partial isekai story, a tale of found family, and far more. The narrative starts when a rural doctor and his young patient both pass away and get reborn as their favorite pop idol's twin son and daughter, and a tragic plot twist soon sets them on a dark path indeed.
3 Vagabond
(1998 - Present, 37 Volumes)
Even if the famed manga series Vagabond is currently on hiatus, it still ranks among the best seinen manga currently in publication. Written and drawn by Takehiko Inoue, Vagabond is a historical story set in medieval Japan, following the adventures of Musashi Miyamoto, a vagabond swordsman who survived the bloody Battle of Sekigahara.
Author Takehiko Inoue wanted to challenge himself with a new story after completing Slam Dunk, so he borrowed ideas from Eiji Yoshikawa's 1935 novel Musashi and got to work. Since then, Vagabond has become a must-read seinen manga for fans of Japanese history and deep stories with compelling antiheroes.
2 Vinland Saga
(2005 - Present, 26 Volumes)
Vinland Saga follows the young protagonist Thorfinn Karlsefni, who was raised hearing stories about ancient mariners who found Vinland, a fruitful land where war has been eradicated. Vinland wasn't in the slightest like the unforgiving township in Iceland where Thorfinn was born, and far removed from his later role as a vicious mercenary.
Though his father once told him that battle is meaningless, Thorfinn faces trauma early in life that corrupts his mind and heart for years. The central accomplishment of Vinland Saga is the way the story questions a culture of violence and establishes humanity's need to rise above cruelty. Thorfinn's journey is an ode to pacifism, as rewarding by the end as it is harrowing along the way.