# The 29 Best Afternoon Magazine Manga

> Kodansha's monthly has quietly housed samurai epics, gem people, figure skaters and otaku clubs, many of them cult classics long before any anime arrived.

*By YPB Team · Published November 1, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-29-best-afternoon-magazine-manga*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Vinland Saga** — score 1000/1000
   Makoto Yukimura's Viking saga of revenge and pacifism, serialized in Afternoon from 2005 to 2025.
2. **Mushishi** — score 795/1000
   Yuki Urushibara's quiet supernatural anthology following Ginko, a wanderer who studies primordial life forms.
3. **Blame!** — score 664/1000
   Tsutomu Nihei's near-wordless cyberpunk odyssey through an endless megastructure.
4. **Spirit of Wonder** — score 605/1000
   Kenji Tsuruta's gentle retro-sci-fi short stories, starting with a Chinese restaurant owner and an eccentric inventor.
5. **The Darwin Incident** — score 605/1000
   Shun Umezawa's thriller about a human-chimpanzee hybrid boy caught between society and animal-rights terrorism.
6. **Land of the Lustrous** — score 537/1000
   Haruko Ichikawa's strange, beautiful story of living gem people fighting moon raiders.
7. **Wandance** — score 537/1000
   Coffee's street-dance manga about a stuttering boy who finds his voice through movement.
8. **Mysterious Girlfriend X** — score 537/1000
   Riichi Ueshiba's offbeat romance about a girlfriend whose drool forms an odd emotional bond.
9. **Skip and Loafer** — score 454/1000
   Misaki Takamatsu's warm high-school slice of life about a country girl starting over in Tokyo.
10. **Big Windup!** — score 454/1000
   Asa Higuchi's long-running baseball manga about a timid pitcher and a brand-new high-school team.
11. **Knights of Sidonia** — score 454/1000
   Tsutomu Nihei's space-opera about a seed ship's pilots defending humanity from shapeshifting aliens.
12. **Oh My Goddess!** — score 454/1000
   Kosuke Fujishima's 1988-2014 romantic comedy about a college student who accidentally summons a goddess.
13. **Yakuza Fiance** — score 454/1000
   Asuka Konishi's tense romance about the granddaughter of one yakuza boss engaged to the heir of another.
14. **Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou** — score 353/1000
   Hitoshi Ashinano's serene slice of life about an android running a café as the world quietly winds down.
15. **Blade of the Immortal** — score 353/1000
   Hiroaki Samura's blood-soaked samurai epic about a cursed swordsman who cannot die.
16. **Historie** — score 353/1000
   Hitoshi Iwaaki's historical drama about Eumenes, the Greek scribe who became Alexander's secretary.
17. **Heavenly Delusion** — score 353/1000
   Masakazu Ishiguro's post-apocalyptic mystery split between a ruined Japan and a walled facility of children.
18. **Blue Period** — score 353/1000
   Tsubasa Yamaguchi's coming-of-age story about a delinquent student who discovers painting and aims for art school.
19. **Medalist** — score 353/1000
   Tsurumaikada's figure-skating drama about a failed skater coaching a girl everyone else wrote off.
20. **Gunsmith Cats** — score 353/1000
   Kenichi Sonoda's Chicago action series about a gun-shop owner bounty hunter and her explosives-loving partner.
21. **Little Forest** — score 0/1000
   Daisuke Igarashi's food-and-seasons manga about a young woman living off the land in a mountain village.
22. **Parasyte** — score 0/1000
   Hitoshi Iwaaki's body-horror classic about a teen whose right hand is taken over by an alien parasite.
23. **Genshiken** — score 0/1000
   Shimoku Kio's comedy about a university club of otaku and the friendships inside it.
24. **Shadow Star** — score 0/1000
   Mohiro Kitoh's Narutaru, a deceptively cute tale of girls and star-shaped creatures that turns brutal.
25. **Wave, Listen to Me!** — score 0/1000
   Hiroaki Samura's comedy about a Sapporo woman whose drunken rant turns her into a late-night radio host.
26. **Shion no O** — score 0/1000
   A shogi thriller about a mute girl prodigy hunting the man who murdered her parents.
27. **Mokke** — score 0/1000
   Takatoshi Kumakura's tale of two sisters living with their grandfather and the spirits only they can see.
28. **I Want to Hold Aono-kun** — score 0/1000
   Umi Shiina's horror romance in which a girl's dead boyfriend returns as a ghost she cannot safely touch.
29. **Sora no Manimani** — score 0/1000
   Mako Kashiwagi's astronomy-club comedy about a bookish boy dragged into stargazing by his childhood friend.

Tags: japan, manga, kodansha, magazines