Some very specific manga recommendations

[petrea_mitchell]

As seen over here, I took it upon myself to try to recommend some not-terrible manga for a specific person, and was asked to post the list just in case it was useful to anyone else.

As I take most of my manga in animated form these days, these are largely based on experience with the adaptations. However, manga adaptations tend to stay very close to the source material, and any differences in art style are rendered moot by the fact that I'm mostly immune to art styles anyway.

The target of these recommendations has more interest in iyashikei than I do and less in comedy; additionally, I was asked to skew it toward female authors. With those conditions in place, here's what I came up with:

• Land of the Lustrous by Ichikawa Haruko (female): A posthuman tale of discovery and change. If there is one current manga that absolutely deserves more attention from the sf community, this is the one.


• Yona of the Dawn by Kusanagi Mizuho (female): Swords and sorcery in a secondary world based on Korea's Three Kingdoms period.


• Natsume's Book of Friends by Midorikawa Yuki (female): A young man learns that his grandmother enslaved many spirits, and sets about setting them all free.


• The Morose Mononokean by Wazawa Kiri (female): Another one about spirits and low-key problem solving, this one with a young man helping out an exorcist to pay a debt.


• Midnight Occult Civil Servants by Tamotsu Yōko (female): Bureaucrats handle community issues, where the community happens to be mythical creatures which have chosen to live in Tokyo.


• Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun by AidaIro (two-person team, genders unknown): A high schooler makes an unwise bargain with a school ghost and winds up as his assistant. 90% sweet and funny, 10% horror.


• Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san by "Honda" (gender unknown): The only sf content is Honda drawing themself as a skeleton to stay anonymous, but probably of interest to fans as it deals with the business of books. Apparently many people in Japan believe Honda is female, on what evidence I do not know, as there was an outcry when the anime cast a man to play Honda. Longer recommendation for the anime specifically here.


• Hakumei and Mikochi by Kashiki Takuto (male, which is very unusual for iyashikei): Forest elves and anthropomorphic animals live a quiet life enlivened by geeking out about arts and crafts. If you check out the anime, the art is gorgeous. (Hey, I said mostly immune.)


• Kokkoku by Horio Seita (male): A mixture of horror, crime story, and family drama about people with the ability to manipulate time in limited ways. I will never forgive whoever decided that to balance out the very thinky story, the anime needed a closing credits sequence with the main female characters topless. Grrr.


• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Uehashi Nahoko (female): Yes, okay, this is a novel, not a manga. I was originally going to put We Rent Tsukumogami on this list, but apparently there isn't even a pirate translation of the novel out there. So having decided to give myself permission to add one novel, I'll go with Moribito.

If anyone stopping by happens to do anime as well, I have a ton of recommendations in my best of the 2010s post over at Amazing Stories. Alternatively, come join me for a weekly look at simulcast anime! My current lineup is ID: Invaded, In/Spectre, Magia Record, Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, and Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun.