Top Ten childhood Manga
These are series that I grew up reading and have actually finished. When I see them in the wild it always makes me happy, nostalgic and you know, all those fuzzy feelings. It was hard to narrow down a lot of these and to be honest if you ask me tomorrow this list could be radically different but these are still some of my favorites.
This is a list of Japanese manga that again I have actually read all volumes in because to widen the scope would make decision making that much harder.
Also, growing up I read mostly Shojou which is wild because nowadays I am definitely in a Shonen phase. Life be like that.
Magic Knight Rayearth
Hikaru, Umi and Fuu are Tokyo schoolgirls with nothing else in common, until one fateful day changes everything: the three are summoned to the magical realm of Cephiro and find that their lives are inexorably intertwined. Princess Emeraude, whose willpower keeps Cephiro safe, has been kidnapped by the sinister Zagato, and the three girls must become the legendary Magic Knights in order to save her. It’s not going to be easy, as Zagato has sent his most powerful minions to stop the girls before they can fulfill their destinies. Protected by an ancient wizard’s blessing and determined to find their way home, Hikaru, Umi and Fuu begin the adventure of a lifetime!
CLAMP in general really
CLAMP to this day has some of the prettiest series out there. It’s a team of four authors/artists and they have series that intersect and tie together in the best of ways. A lot of people got into Card Captor Sakura but Rayearth is where I started. All of their series are worth the read especially the twins Tsubasa and xxxHolic, and I don’t know if I could pick my top favorite since they have a wide swath of genres, but Rayearth is one of the ones I always go back to reread.
I’m a sucker for anything elemental and this had swords, armor and fire wolves so it was a no brainer. The magical girl thing was definitely a thing for me portal or magic doorway stories are still fun for me. I liked the world and the magic system quite a bit and i remember reading and rereading this series quite often just to look at that armor one more time.
Fushigi yugi
When best friends Miaka and Yui open the pages of an ancient Chinese book, they are transported into the Universe of the Four Gods, a parallel world to ancient China. Now, to escape schoolwork and family problems, Miaka flees to the parallel world, only to find a lot more danger and romance than she bargained for.
Mythology for the Win
My sister brought this one home after seeing the anime. It was one of the first more mature stories we got to read and it was a ride. I loved the mythology and the introduction to new cultural aspects. The humor was one of the best parts and the complicated love triangles had Twilight beat any day. Miaka was one of the heroines that followed in Usagi’s footsteps, food-loving, a touch bumbling but generally interested in doing good.
Yuu Watase was a go to for me and my sister. We read just about everything she published if we could get our hands on it. She has a good sense of humor, fun characters and her art, while still very manga, had a touch of realism to the details. I really like Alice 19th probably the most of her works, but Fushigi Yugi was close competition and it all started here. The mythology is fun, the world is creative, and I can’t help but appreciate what Miaka brought as a character.
Hana Yori Dango
When her only friend, Makiko, accidentally offends F4 leader Tsukasa, Tsukushi boldly defends her. Enraged, Tsukasa puts the dreaded red tag in Tsukushi’s locker — a sign that she is now a target for the abuse of the F4 gang and the entire school. But when Tsukushi fights the gang with their own weapon, Tsukasa finds himself falling for her!
Swept off my Feet
I’m not a romance person in the sense most people think of. I don’t do the heart eyes or the pining. I do however devour romances like this. Doumyouji and Makino are chaotic, dumb, and willful making for a wild and sincere story. I like that you can watch the art improve with each volume and the fact that the story doesn’t only focus on the romance. There are friendships and struggles that feel very human.
Ok so this was like guilty pleasure #1 for me. I read the first one at a friend’s house, got obsessed and now I devour any and all versions of it from anime to dramas. I loved the female lead and how not perfect she really was. She was one of the first main characters that felt like just a person trying to get by. I loved the dumb chemistry with her and the male lead and I really liked the focus on different levels of relationships.
Vampire Game
One Century ago the king of Saint Pheliosta, and the Vampire King, Duzell, had a monumental duel. Duzell was defeated and cursed Phelios that they would fight again in their next re-incarnation, a century later.
99 and 1/2 years later, Duzell has been reborn as a wildcat and rescued from the wild by Ishtar, the great-granddaughter of his nemesis, Phelios. But where is Phelios?
Ishtar decides to help the Vampire King find his nemesis, and the Vampire Game begins.
This was one Of the First
This was one of the weird more obscure ones that was special to me because it was one of the first full series that I bought. It was a touch odd especially for a vampire story, missing the now very common tropes and opting for a more adventure type story. I do like the uncommon lead and Ishtar is fun to hang out with. She’s capricious and clever, haughty and kind. I just really liked this story.
Like I said this is one of the first I bought for myself and I was hooked on the mystery of Duzell and the characters that played out as the potential reincarnation. It went from silly to serious pretty quickly and I appreciated how all the characters had another side to them past the tropes.
Basara
Basara is a post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure series and one of the most popular shôjo manga of the 90s in Japan. It is the story of how a young girl becomes “the child of destiny” and finds the strength to free her people and seek revenge for the death of her brother.
What an Epic
It was kinda lucky growing up in the 90s. So many things were becoming accessible but you didn’t have an algorithm limiting what you looked at either. This was one of those I feel I got lucky with. It is one of the best stories I have ever read. Post apocalyptic Japan, squabbling kings, intrigue and prophecies there is hardly ever a dull moment.
The story changed the way I look at plots. It changed the way I perceived enemies to lovers and the potential depth that can come from a complicated relationship. It was an epic that I still go back to reread because nothing else is like it. The art was rough but in the long run it just added to its charm and identity.
Skip Beat!
When Kyoko’s heart is broken, she decides that revenge is a dish best served in the spotlight!
Kyoko Mogami followed her true love Sho to Tokyo to support him while he made it big as an idol. But he’s casting her out now that he’s famous! Kyoko won’t suffer in silence—she’s going to get her sweet revenge by beating Sho in show biz!
Kyoko knows she’s not plain and uninteresting, no matter what Sho says. With the help of a little makeover, Kyoko’s ready to exact her revenge. But first she needs to land an audition, and she sets her sights on the agency where Sho’s lead rival works. Her persistence pays off, but her broken heart turns out to be a disadvantage. Kyoko has lost the will to love anybody, let alone fans she’s never met. Can the agency see past this problem to Kyoko’s true star potential?
I love Her
This is the one exception on this list. I have not actually finished the series yet but that isn’t what’s important. What’s important is how much I love Kyoko. This series is so good at making things funny and serious at the same time. The art is great, the characters are compelling with interesting motivations. I am not super interested in the idol lifestyle but this had me obsessed.
I must have borrowed it through the Network (the weirdly widespread group of people that bought manga and were gracious enough to share) but tbh I don’t specifically remember where I first snagged it. I do know that I would reread it like crazy. I would pile up all the volumes I had in a mound around me and just start reading. They could always get me to laugh like nothing else. There would be ridiculous shenanigans but I really liked when you would get the darker secret side of a character and how they were truly thinking about themselves. Especially when the story would show them healing with another character. It is just one of my favorites.
Ouran High School Host Club
In this screwball romantic comedy, Haruhi, a poor girl at a rich kids’ school, is forced to repay an $80,000 debt by working for the school’s swankiest, all-male club—as a boy! There, she discovers just how wealthy the six members are and how different the rich are from everybody else…
One day, Haruhi, a scholarship student at exclusive Ouran High School, breaks an $80,000 vase that belongs to the “Host Club,” a mysterious campus group consisting of six super-rich (and gorgeous) guys. To pay back the damages, she is forced to work for the club, and it’s there that she discovers just how wealthy the boys are and how different they are from everybody else.
For What It’s Worth
So it started with the anime on this one but as it stopped suddenly in the middle drastic measures had to be taken. This was one of the first I read on my own instead of with a friend or a sister. It is clever, subversive, and downright hilarious. Most of it is goofy shenanigans but things would get serious and real issues were handled in a sensitive and kind way.
I love Haruhi so much but what really made it work was her relationship with the host club. Not all of them were a romantic interest and they all had their own baggage that they were dealing with. It could always get me to laugh especially Tamaki. Let’s be real he was my favorite. He made me laugh, he broke my heart, and he wormed his way into my standards. That level of devotion is what I would want in a relationship
Fruits Basket
A family with an ancient curse…
And the girl who will change their lives forever…
Tohru Honda was an orphan with no place to go until the mysterious Sohma family offered her a place to call home. Now her ordinary high school life is turned upside down as she’s introduced to the Sohma’s world of magical curses and family secrets.
Tohru my Role model
This is where my empathy and kindness found a place. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking, human and cruel. The zodiac theme is one of my favorite things and I feel like it was one of the biggest draws for me. I loved the representation of the curse and even the implications of what a touch of kindness can do in a tough situation.
I might have to do a deep dive on this one. There are too many things to look at. I loved just about every aspect of this story and the deeper you get in it the more intense it is. I think the ending was very satisfying for the build up as well. The characters have depth and great stories as well as great designs. I laughed, I cried, and I ‘m probably going to read them again soon.
Tokyo Mew Mew
Ichigo is out on a hot date with her ‘crush’ when suddenly she’s involved in an odd incident in which her DNA is merged with the DNA of an almost extinct wildcat. When four other girls’ DNA is merged with the DNA of four other almost extinct animals, it’s apparent that they’re part of a much bigger plan. Ichigo and her friends have been chosen to become a part of a secret project called the “Mew Project.” Their mission: To protect the planet from aliens who are using the planet’s animals to attack humans.
I Have a Type
I sincerely don’t remember where this one came from. It might have been in the mass collecting that I went through when I started making babysitting money. Either way it is absolutely ridiculous in its premise but I loved it. There was something so earnest about the way it is written and it is really hard not to love the characters. Plus, y’know the Sailor Moon vibes.
I do like the magical girl thing as a plot set up but I really liked the aliens and the animal genetics bit too. It was absolutely far-fetched but it made for fun visuals. Really it was Ichigo. I liked her spunk and how she handled stress; it felt very realistic. The side characters were engaging too but it was the twist towards the end which was a touch surprising. It was a great starter manga with a small enough volume count to get through in a night.
Sailor Moon
One of the most-beloved of all Japanese manga titles, Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon has enthralled millions of readers worldwide since its debut in book form in early 1992. When Usagi Tsukino adopts a stray cat, she gets more than she bargains for The talking cat, Luna, informs Usagi that she is actually Sailor Moon, a magical princess from the future and protector of the Solar System. With the help of her new friends, the Sailor Scouts, and the mysterious Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon embarks on a quest to save us all from the evil powers of the Negaverse.
List Reasoning
Sailor Moon was that gateway drug for a lot of anime fans of my generation. Between Serena and Goku we were all kind of doomed. I watched the show as a kid but we stumbled across the books at a Barnes & Nobles and that was when the whole world of manga opened up for us. It has been pretty wild to watch the media grow from the scrounging days to tripping over anime references in all sorts of venues. I really feel like it wouldn’t be as popular now with Sailor Moon and her fellow scouts.
Top #1 favorite childhood thing. Well, Sailor Moon and Batman. She gave my eight year old life purpose. However old I was. Sailor Moon was the slippery slope that got me into magic, anime, fashion, all sorts of things. It was that defining thing that made me feel like my life was fun and full of magic. The anime is as cheesy and corny as you would expect but the manga especially has this artistry to it that really sets it apart. Naoko Takeuchi can really really draw exquisite clothing.
