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Claire's Best Manga of 2022

It's awards season! And here is a list where someone who reads far too much manga hands out arbitrary genre awards to the series that they enjoyed reading the most. So here are my top picks for this year!

User from Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi

12 items

  • Best overall: The recipe to a great manga series is variety - be that character, plot, setting or genres. This one has a stellar and likeable cast. Shortcake Cake is a high school romance set in a boarding house, where relationships are forbidden…
    Graphic Novel, 2018San Francisco, CA : VIZ Media, LLC, [2018] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best action: It's got everything I love - monsters, an underdog main character, and surprising amounts of laughs. A dude whose job it is to clean up monster disaster zones accidentally fuses with a monster, and now attempts to achieve his dream of…
    Graphic Novel, 2021San Francisco : VIZ Media, LLC, [2021] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best adventure: As someone who grew up with Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2, it was like a blast from the past reading this new series by Rumiko Takahashi. Prepare for more of the same classic material: monster battles, portals to different worlds, and…
    Graphic Novel, 2021San Fransisco : Viz Media, [2021] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best children's: When I saw Arina Tanemura was making a Frozen manga, I speed-typed the request to buy form. It's so beautifully drawn, and while the plot doesn't vary at all from the movie, it was still delightful to read.
    Graphic Novel, 2021San Francisco : VIZ Media, LLC, [2021] — CHILDREN'S GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best comedy: There's definitely a theme this year of manga where a weird animal or creature becomes housemates with a human, completing all the cooking and cleaning for them (wishful thinking?). Penguin & House was by far the funniest, with the…
    Graphic Novel, 2022New York : Kodansha Comics, [2022] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Frieren

    Beyond Journey's End. 1

    Yamada, Kanehito
    Best fantasy: Not often do you find a fantasy epic that is low-fi, but this one was just super calming to read. What happens to a group of adventurers once the big bad is defeated? That's where Frieren begins, through the perspective of Frieren the…
    Graphic Novel, 2021San Francisco, California : VIZ Media, LLC, [2021] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best horror: Okay, this is more of a Tim Burton rather than a Hideo Kojima horror, but I loved every moment of it. Flora moves into a creepy old house and accidentally adopts an eldritch-esque cat. It also comes fully coloured, which might be…
    Graphic Novel, 2021Los Angeles : Seven Seas Entertainment, [2021] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best rainbow read: The unrequited romance! The drama! The misunderstandings! All the things that usually frustrate me when I'm reading get turned into a delightful high school love story where you're never quite sure who has the wrong end of the…
    Graphic Novel, 2020New York : Kodansha Comics, [2020] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best romance: I have waited for almost a decade for this to be translated into English, and it's finally here! Can the immature and too-cool-for-school basketball star Naruse win over the straight-laced high school senior Machida? Read and find out!…
    Graphic Novel, 2021New York : Yen Press, 2021. — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best school life: I took drama in high school, and hoo-boy, did I relate to the personalities in the class and lessons being taught. But also is was lovely to learn more about Japanese stage craft!
    Graphic Novel, 2022Los Angeles, California : Seven Seas Entertainment, [2022] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best superhero: I'll be honest, superheroes aren't really my thing. My favourites tend to be the ones that make me laugh the most - hence Deadpool is my pick for this year. It's exactly what you imagined from a Marvel/Shonen Jump mash-up: plenty of…
    Book, 2022San Francisco, California : VIZ Media, [2022] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL
  • Best wholesome manga: Imagine the most adorable-looking puppy, the warmth you feel when you look into it's soulful eyes. That is exactly what reading this manga feel like. The mum doesn't want to out her son, but at the same time wants to support…
    Graphic Novel, 2022[New York] : Square Enix Manga, [2022] — YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL