Urusei Yatsura

Dandadan

Dandadan is what you get when aliens and ghosts crash into the same story and neither backs down. High schooler Momo believes in ghosts but not aliens; her classmate Okarun believes in aliens but not ghosts. To settle the argument they each visit a haunted site — and both are spectacularly proven right, with Momo awakening psychic powers and Okarun getting possessed by a cursed spirit. Now they're stuck chasing UFOs and vengeful yokai together while nursing a very awkward crush. Yukinobu Tatsu draws it at a full sprint, with some of the most kinetic, imaginative art in current manga and a tone that flips from genuine horror to gross-out comedy to sweet teenage romance without missing a beat. It's chaotic on purpose, and that chaos is the point — you never know whether the next page brings a monster, a joke, or a heartfelt confession. The manga is ongoing and the anime adaptation brings its manic energy roaring to life. If you want something loud, weird, funny, and secretly tender all at once, Dandadan is one of the freshest series around.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You

Aijou Rentaro tried and tried again, but after asking a hundred girls out on a date, he was rejected every single time. In desperation, he prays for guidance…only to be told by a god that his rejections were due to some cosmic error! Now the god is going to set things right by making sure that Aijou gets one hundred dates. Except, as things often do with gods, the dates come with a catch: one hundred girls are destined to be Aijou’s soulmate, and unless he returns their feelings each and every time, they’ll die in horrible accidents! Sure enough, girls start confessing their love to Aijou left and right. But how is he supposed to choose?! He doesn’t want to kill anyone! When he looks at each potential soulmate, it feels like a bolt of lightning. Can someone really love a hundred other people? This hilarious romantic comedy takes the harem concept to a wild extreme! (Source: Seven Seas Entertainment) Note: Won second place of Tsugimanga 2020 Award in the Manga Category

Air Gear

Ikki Minami is a junior high school student with a dream—to become the best Air Trek rider in town. It won’t be easy, as he faces a lot of competition from boys and girls alike. What is Air Trek? Just the latest craze that involves taking a two-wheel inline skate and adding a motor, suspension, and a shock absorber to enable the wearer to execute the wildest, wackiest, most aggressive moves you can imagine. Ikki has a lot to learn as he fights his way to the top in this wild, sexy manga from the creator of Tenjho Tenge! (Source: Kodansha USA)

Ayakashi Triangle

Teenager Kazamaki Matsuri has long been part of an elite force of ninja exorcists, tasked with fighting malicious ayakashi spirits who threaten Japan–especially those after his childhood friend, the spirit medium Kanade Suzu. As he fiercely protects her, and his relationship with her blooms from friendship into something more, a powerful cat ayakashi vows to get between the lovebirds: by casting a forbidden spell that turns Matsuri into a woman! With no apparent way to undo the spell, Matsuri must continue battling ayakashi–and go back to school–in this new feminine body until he can find a way to turn back. (Source: Seven Seas Entertainment) Note: The series originally started serialization in Weekly Shounen Jump. It then moved to Shounen Jump+ starting April 25, 2022.

One-Punch Man

One-Punch Man takes the entire superhero power-fantasy and detonates it with a single joke: what if the strongest hero alive were so overpowered that nothing was a challenge anymore? Saitama trained until he could end any fight with one punch — and got exactly what he wished for, along with a crushing boredom no victory can cure. Bald, unbothered, and secretly the mightiest being on the planet, he shuffles through a world of monster attacks and hero rankings looking for one opponent who can make him feel something again. The genius is that it's both a razor-sharp parody and, whenever it wants to be, a genuinely jaw-dropping action series — the fights around Saitama are enormous, and the artwork (in the webcomic-turned-manga by ONE and Yusuke Murata) is astonishing. His deadpan indifference only makes the spectacle funnier. The Murata manga is the visual showcase; the anime's first season is one of the best-looking adaptations ever made and a perfect introduction. Come for the punchline, stay for how beautifully a series can send up its own genre while outclassing most of it.

SPY x FAMILY

Spy x Family runs on one perfect premise: a master spy has to build a fake family for a mission, and every member is secretly hiding a life of their own. Codename "Twilight" needs a wife and child within days, so he adopts a young orphan and marries in a hurry — never realizing his new daughter Anya is a telepath who can read every mind in the room, and his new wife Yor is a professional assassin. None of them knows the others' secret. All of them are trying, clumsily, to be a real family anyway. Tatsuya Endo balances slick espionage, sudden bursts of action, and genuinely warm domestic comedy, with the wildly expressive Anya stealing nearly every scene. The tension between the danger of their jobs and the tenderness of their pretend home is what makes it sing — it's a spy thriller and a family sitcom that keep making each other better. The manga is ongoing and the anime is a faithful, gorgeous adaptation you can jump into cold. Funny, heartfelt, and endlessly rewatchable, Spy x Family is one of the easiest series on the site to fall for.

Komi Can't Communicate

Komi Can't Communicate finds enormous warmth in a very small goal: making friends. Shoko Komi is the most admired girl in her high school — elegant, poised, seemingly perfect — and hiding a secret. She has a crippling communication disorder that leaves her unable to speak to people, so the awe of her classmates reads, to her, as an unbreachable wall. When the unremarkable Hitohito Tadano figures out the truth, he vows to help her reach her dream of making one hundred friends. Tomohito Oda builds a rom-com of the gentlest kind, told partly through the notes Komi scribbles when words won't come and the delightfully weird classmates she slowly gathers. It's funny and sweet without ever mocking her anxiety — the humor comes from the cast, the tenderness from watching Komi inch, panel by panel, toward the connection she's terrified she can't have. The manga is ongoing and the anime is a charming, faithful adaptation. If you want something low-stakes, heartfelt, and quietly reassuring — a series about how hard and how worth-it reaching out can be — Komi is a comfort read with real heart.

Gantz

Tokyo teens Kei and Masaru are killed by a subway train but awaken in a room with an ominous black orb that gives them weapons, suits and orders. Fighting bizarre alien monstrosities in a deadly game, will they win their freedom or die for the final time? (Source: Dark Horse)

Grand Blue Dreaming

After moving out on his own to a seaside town, Iori Kitahara makes a college debut he never anticipated. A new chapter of his life unfolds, full of diving with beautiful girls and shenanigans with a gaggle of lovable bastards! Idiot-expert Kenji Inoue and au naturel authority Kimitake Yoshioka bring you a glorious college tale filled with booze-fueled antics! (Source: Kodansha USA)