Anime fans might believe there are a lot of anime being made, but it's nothing compared to all the manga being made. After all, it's "easier" to make a manga than an anime —and much cheaper as well. And with manga magazines needing a constant influx of series, readers get a lot of re-runs in terms of concepts. Of course, that isn't always the case.
The other side of manga being cheaper to release compared to anime is that companies can afford to take more risks than an expensive anime production might. They can allow relative unknowns to bring their best ideas, and those ideas can often be something either no one's ever seen before, or a unique take on something people are already familiar with.
10 Hard-Boiled Cop & Dolphin Is A Buddy Cop Series Featuring A Human & A Talking Dolphin
Boyle Samejima is assigned to a remote island for his latest job as a cop. It’s slower than he would like, though he’s working on an investigation on a strange group known as The Cult of the Sea. Samejima’s partner turns out to be a talking, humanoid dolphin named Orpheus.
To make things even weirder, Orpheus has a young girl following him around named Chako, who happens to be an oracle for The Cult of the Sea, which vanished without a trace.
9 Noah's Notes Is About An Archaeologist & A Student Who Hates History Solving The End Of The World
Noah’s Notes was a series that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2018 that followed a gun-toting archaeologist named Noah Umberbach. Noah worked with an assistant named Kotobuki, a nice young girl with no interest in history who was only looking to find a good husband to settle down with after she graduated.
Together, the two of them discover the secret truth of the world: that humanity has existed once before, and was wiped out in the year 2022. It’s up to Noah and Mirai to figure out a way to help society survive the calamity from happening again.
8 Dr. Stone Is About A Scientist Rebuilding Society After Everyone Was Turned To Stone
Senku Ishigami was living his life working on creating a rocket capable of going into space when a green light turned him —and the rest of the world— to stone. It took five thousand years for him to wake up, and in that time literally, all of the technology has dissolved and turned into nothing again.
With nothing more than his desire to make it back into space and his overwhelming knowledge of science, Senku has to rebuild society from the stone age back into modern society once again.
7 Eldlive Follows A Teen Who Becomes A Space Cop & Has An Alien Inside Of Him
From the creator of Hitman Reborn, Eldlive follows a somewhat similar formula of tossing a very average kid into very absurd circumstances where he has to sink or swim. Chuuta is a teenager who’s been talking to a voice in his head for years...except one day he learns that the voice was actually an alien that’s been living in him all along!
Chuuta is invited to join a space police group known as Eldlive, where he works with a group of aliens from across the solar system to keep the peace. A pretty optimistic sci-fi series, Eldlive released for around four years before coming to a stop in 2018.
6 Blazer Drive Is A Series About Magic Stickers
Blazer Drive was a series that ran in Monthly Shonen Rival for two years from creator Seishi Kishimoto. It takes place in the world of Neo-Tokyo, where the main character, Daichi, goes around collecting items known as Mystickers, which somehow contain magic energy in them.
Daichi loses his brother Ginga in a war against a group known as Qilin Realm, but learns he has the power to absorb the energy of Mystickers and use them for himself. The series didn’t run for terribly long, but it did get its own video game.
5 Holyland Sees A Young Bullied Boy Learn Boxing & Hit The Streets Hunting Street Punks
Kamishiro Yuu is a teenager who stopped going to school because he’d been bullied so heavily. After he stopped, he began practicing boxing —learning how to master a single punch. That mastery brings him into a world of street punks and eventually he earns a name for himself, though that earns him only more problems.
Holyland is a mostly realistic seinen manga —there are no superpowers and no miraculous victories. Only teenagers struggling to find meaning through their strength. Holyland has no anime, only a drama that aired in 2009.
4 Altair: A Record Of Battles Is About A Strategist Trying To Avoid War In Turkiye
Tughril Mahmut is a pasha serving as a member of the Divan in Turkiye. He has only one desire: to keep his country peaceful. But there’s a problem, his country is at odds with a warmongering country, and even his fellow pasha are just as eager to push for war against their enemies.
Altair: A Record Of Battles strips away the powers and even the absurd super genius tactics. Tughril is a great strategist, but he doesn’t have all the answers. This series leans much more in the direction of historical drama than a straightforward fantasy series.
3 Build King Is A Shonen Action Series About Building Houses
Build King starred a pair of carpenters: Tonkachi and Renge. The two of them have grown up on the mysterious Hammer Island, a location surrounded by typhoons and populated by monsters.
No human is meant to live on this island, but the two of them have grown up there, learning how to build houses for the sentient life there. There, the two of them have been waiting, trying to improve their skills for the day that the man who trained them to be builders sends someone to get them both.
2 The Red Ranger Becomes An Adventurer In Another World Combines Fantasy Adventure With Power Rangers
Tougo Asagaki is a hero who, along with his friends in the Kizunarangers, defeated a villain in his world known as the Ender King. It took everything they had, and in the end, Tougo vanished in the aftermath of the fight.
Rather than being dead, Tougo wakes up in a fantasy world where he has to find a way home, working with a young wizard and making new allies while wielding the power of Kizuna Red. It's a very loving send-up of Super Sentai, with everyone wondering exactly why Tougo's powers work so weirdly.
1 Spy x Family Is An Action Series About A Constructed Family Of Secret Agents, Assassins, & ESPers
One of the hottest new manga to release in the last couple of years, Spy x Family is an action series about a newly created family. The husband? Loid Forger, a secret agent who needs a family for his latest mission. The wife? Yor Briar, an assassin known as the “Thorn Princess,” in need of a cover to look normal. The child? Anya, an adopted young girl... who happens to be a mind-reading ESPer.
The three of them have to learn to become a normal family together, which includes Anya going to school and pretending like her parents don’t have the coolest job in the world.