Remi Chauveau Notes

Reading manga is a common pastime nowadays. For fans, immersing themselves in a good manga while listening to music is an unmatched experience.

Since its beginning, the manga industry has produced more than 50 thousand series.

Recent manga series like Oshi No Ko and The Flowers Of Evil have further popularized the medium due to their heavy adult themes and realistic scenarios.

There is a plethora of manga so popular that they attract fans who exclusively only watch anime. Many of these manga are obscure. Yet, they have the potential to garner a massive fan base once more manga readers acknowledge how amazing they are.

The world of Japanese manga has plenty of mainstream hits like Oshi no Ko and Jujutsu Kaisen, but there's still much more to explore beyond the best-selling mega-hits. For every mainsteam hit, there are a dozen or more hidden gems for fans to check out. This list of underrated manga has been expanded with four more entries so fans can check out some great titles that deserve another chance at fame.

20. Kaya-Chan Isn't Scary Stars a Young Psychic at School

Story & Art By Tarou Yuri, 5 Volumes (Ongoing)

A unique take on horror manga, Kaya-Chan Isn't Scary is a supernatural school life series about a 5-year-old psychic named Kaya Satou. Unbeknownst to her classmates in pre-school, Kaya is the strongest exorcist in the world, who constantly saves their lives daily. From evil specters to curses, Kaya defeats all paranormal phenomena with one blow.

Despite saving their lives, Kaya's classmates find her too strange to be friends with. Throughout Kaya-Chan Isn't Scary, however, Kaya gains new friends and allies as she dives deeper into the paranormal world.

19. Akatsuki Jihen Should Appeal to Demon Slayer Fans

Story & Art By Chigusa Ichihara, 5 Volumes (Finished)

Akatsuki Jihen is similar yet different compared to the Demon Slayer series. Despite being born into a family of Shamans, Mutsuki wants nothing more than for others to treat his sister, Uzuki, fairly. Regardless of being twins, Mutsuki was born with the power to exorcise spirits, while his sister was not. This results in Uzuki being treated harshly by society.

Identical to Tanjiro Kamado's journey to save his sister, Nezuko, Mutsuki goes on a dangerous adventure for Uzuki's sake. Along the way, he has many trials and tribulations to overcome if he wants to create a world where his sister is free.

18. Kanan-Sama Might Be Easy is a Rom-Com Starring the Lovely Daughter of Beelzebub

Story & Art By Nonco, 3 Volumes (Ongoing)

Being the daughter of the Prince of the Underworld, Kanan Zebel portrayed herself as a heartless demon who devoured souls. In reality, she's a kind-hearted teen who's naive about the simplest things. Kanan-Sama Might Be Easy is a romantic comedy that focuses on Beelzebub's daughter as she falls in love with her first victim in the human world, Kyougi Youji.

As time passes, viewers see different types of supernatural beings join the cast to either aid or hinder Kanan's goals. While she tries to come across as evil, her numerous attempts at villainy only reveal more of her purity.

17. Kaibutsu Shoujo Wa Hatsukoi No Yume Wo Miru Ka? Follows the Adventures of the Universe's Smartest Girl

Story & Art By Zaima Rishin, 3 Volumes (Finished)

Kyoko Mikadodai is proof that being too intelligent is detrimental. Kaibutsu Shoujo wa Hatsukoi is a sci-fi school-life manga about Kyoko Mikadodai, the most brilliant girl in the universe. Tired of solving problems given to her by everyone across the galaxy, Kyoko enrolls in school to enjoy being a regular girl. This initially fails, as she's so intelligent that no one can connect with her.

With help from her alien friend, Ikeda, and her childhood friend, Sosuke, Kyoko is soon surrounded by friends who accept her. Kaibutsu Shoujo wa Hatsukoi highlights accepting others for who they are, not for who others assume they will be.

16. Machimaho: I Messed Up And Made The Wrong Person Into A Magical Girl! is a Total Subversion of Magical Girls

Story & Art By Souryou, 12 Volumes (Ongoing)

To say Kayo Majiba is an outlier compared to other magical girls would be an understatement. Machimaho focuses on a girl named Kayo Majiba, who is given the power of a magical girl by a god. Giving Kayo power under the assumption that she's pure of heart, the god immediately realizes he was wrong, as Kayo shows how much of a rude, violent, chain-smoking delinquent she is.

With her power, Kayo exterminates evil beings known as Atasunmo, which are born from negativity. Her ultimate goal is to kill all the gods, good or bad, as punishment for treating human lives so carelessly. Unlike other magical girls, Kayo represents rebellion. In short, this obscure, underrated manga is a total subversion of the magical girl genre.

15. Wistoria's Wand And Sword Should Appeal to SAO and Black Clover Fans

Story & Art By Fujino Oomori, 10 Volumes (Ongoing)

Heavily insinuated to take place within the Danmachi universe, Wistoria's Wand And Sword is a fantasy story about mages and dungeons. Seventeen-year-old Will Serholt is the only student in his academy who can't use magic. As a result, his peers ostracize him for lacking the prowess necessary to succeed in a magical society like theirs.

Despite his inability to use magic, Will's physical prowess is unrivaled. His strength and speed are so great that it's said to surpass lightning. Jealous of his skills, many people stand in his way to prevent him from becoming a peerless mage.

14. Kindergarten Wars is Like the Kindergarten Cop of Manga

Story & Art By Yuu Chiiba, 10 Volumes (Ongoing)

Kindergarten Wars is one of the most distinctive manga in recent years. Hired by the government to protect the children of the world's elite, the most notorious convicts work as teachers. Their secret mission is to protect the children from assassins daily while keeping them safe and unaware. The protagonist, Rita, is a former legendary assassin.

If Rita and the other teachers keep their students safe for a year, the government will remove their prison sentences. While Rita wants nothing more than to leave her former life behind and find a boyfriend, she's pulled back in for unknown reasons.

13. Gokurakugai Features a Pair of Devil Investigators

Story & Art By Yuto Sano, 3 Volumes (Ongoing)

Originally a one-shot manga made in 2020, Gokurakugai became a monthly serialization in mid-2022. The series follows the duo of Alma and Tao as they solve various problems in the mysterious Gokuraku District. On the sly, however, Tao and Alma investigate a slew of disappearances all over the district caused by Devils. To combat these Devils, Tao uses his power as a Devil to exorcise them.

While the supernatural manga only has a few chapters, it gained a notable audience in a short amount of time. Gokurakugai is currently focusing on Tao's inability to fight without Alma.

12. Akabane Honeko No Bodyguard Stars the Daughter of a Yakuza Boss

Story & Art By Nigatsu Masamitsu, 8 Volumes (Ongoing)

Although relatively new, Akabane Honeko no Bodyguard shows remarkable potential. Honeko Akabane is secretly the daughter of a yakuza boss. This secret results in many assassins trying to take her life, which she is unaware of. Her childhood friend, Ibuki Arakuni, vows to keep her safe until she graduates.

To aid him, Ibuki and Honeko's entire class has elite assassins who pose as students. Ibuki has to balance protecting Honeko while making time to hang out with her. While this plot is interesting enough, there is a subplot that drives the story even further.

11. Shy is Like My Hero Academia With a Timid Girl as the Lead

Story & Art By Miki Bukimi, 25 Volumes (Ongoing)

Shy is a superhero action series revolving around a hero with the same name. In a world where each country has a representative hero, Teru Momijiyama, or Shy, represents the country of Japan. Befitting her name, Teru is a shy, introverted girl who has trouble speaking her mind. After a bystander is injured during one of her rescues, she isolates herself in shame.

However, after working alongside heroes from other countries, Shy begins to open up to people and discovers how heavy the burden of being a hero is. The series deals with serious topics like abandonment and depression in realistic ways that would make My Hero Academia envious.

10. You Talk Too Much, So Just Shut It Already! Is the Obscure Version of A Sign of Affection

Story & Art By Morita Shunpei and Alde Hyde, 4 Volumes (Finished)

A series with an engaging protagonist, You Talk Too Much, So Just Shut It Already! focuses on a new transfer student named Tsukino Hiiragi. Tsukino was born deaf and uses sign language to communicate. While Tsukino's old classmates picked on her for it, her new ones accepted her without problems. One of Tsukino's classmates in particular, Taiyou Enomoto, casually talks to her despite knowing she can't understand any of it.

Taiyou's constant talking grows on Tsukino as time passes, and she starts subconsciously falling in love with him despite his loud personality. Audiences will find themselves binging this series due to its wholesomeness.

9. My Companion Is The Strongest Undead In Another World Follows an Immortal Young Man and His Vampire Friend

Story & Art By Kizaki Uno, 4 Volumes (Finished)

My Companion Is The Strongest Undead In Another World is one of few unique isekai. After forcefully being teleported to another world, a college student named Yuuma receives the gift of immortality. While this worried him initially, nothing could've prepared him for his true purpose in the new world. A religious organization tortured him for days to use his blood to heal themselves.

While looking for an exit to escape his captors, Yuuma meets a vampire named Eva. Yuuma promises to feed his blood to her in exchange for her help to flee. As the pair travel the world evading the religious organization, they soon form a group of the strongest beings in the underworld.

8. The Errand Boy And The Banchou In Love is a Wacky Pairing Between a Shy Boy and a Delinquent Girl

Story & Art By Kashima Ui, 7 Volumes (Completed)

One of many rom-com's that deserve an anime adaptation, The Errand Boy And The Banchou In Love shows immense potential. A timid boy named Unoki believes he's being bullied by his school's most dangerous delinquent, Toramaru. Toramaru, on the other hand, assumes they're dating. The duo constantly misunderstands what the other is saying until they make their true feelings known to each other.

As Toramaru and Unoki attempt to solidify their relationship, their past troubles come back to haunt them and stand in their way. The Errand Boy And The Banchou In Love details not judging people based on hearsay. A person should judge someone's character personally.

7. Succubus And Hitman Depicts a Boy Being Reborn to Hunt His Family's Killers

Story & Art By Fukami Makoto and Seigo Tokiya, 7 Volumes (Ongoing)

Succubus And Hitman is as wild as it is raunchy. After an unknown boy's murdered along with his family, he makes a deal with a succubus in purgatory to resurrect him. In exchange for reincarnating in the body of a deceased teen, he's forced to work as an assassin who targets corrupted souls. Now living under the name Shouya Gamou alongside his succubus, Armelina, he's on the hunt to track down his former killers.
Shouya begins to immerse himself in the world of magic and demons. As he tracks down his executioners individually, Shouya subjects them to the worst fates imaginable.

6. Tsuyoshi: The One Who No One Can Win Against Is Another Take on the One-Punch Man Genre

Story & Art By Moruyama Kyosuke, 22 Volumes (Ongoing)

Reminiscent of the hit series One-Punch Man, Tsuyoshi follows the daily life of a convenience store worker named Tsuyoshi Kawabata. To the average person, Tsuyoshi looks like a boring guy with nothing interesting going on. In reality, however, he's the strongest man in Japan. Every day on his way to work, Tsuyoshi's challenged by fighters across the world who want to test their strength against him.

Tsuyoshi's fights usually end with one attack, and he's so strong, that countries want his strength for themselves. The Chinese government secretly sent his coworker and crush, Chin, to discover the secret behind his mythic power.

5. Rental Onii-Chan Shows a Girl Getting a New Brother Figure in Her Life

Story & Art By Ichiiro Hako, 4 Volumes (Complete)

Rental Onii-Chan is arguably one of the most uplifting manga ever. A middle school girl named Kanami suffers abuse at the hands of her older brother. Once a caring sibling who was close to Kanami, her brother changed after the death of their parents. After another day of neglect, Kanami goes to a park and meets a teen named Makoto, who proposes a transactional relationship where she pays him to act as her brother.

Makoto knows what it's like to feel isolated and grows attached to Kanami quickly. The pair use each other as sources of strength to move forward and face their hardships.

4. Summer Ghost is About How the Dead May Help the Living

Story By Otsuichi, Art By Miyoshi Ino, 1 Volume (complete)

A variety of anime movies have manga adaptations that casual fans in the West might not know about, and that includes Summer Ghost, a drama series with some supernatural vibes. If Western manga/anime fans never saw the movie, they can check out the manga version, which is in one convenient omnibus volume for easy reading.

Three teens — a girl and two boys — contact one another online and decide to meet up at an abandoned airfield one summer evening to try and find a rumored ghost. Soon, they will not only find the ghost in question but also find the answers to their own suffering and hardship, even if it means confronting some painful truths.

3. I Had That Same Dream Again Explores Happiness From Three Different Perspectives

Story By Yoru Sumimo, Art By Idumi Kirihara, 1 Volume (Complete)

I Had That Same Dream Again is one of many one-volume underrated manga series that fans are encouraged to try out so they can take a break from the more mainstream titles. This charming manga series is a curious mix of carefree innocence and heavy drama since the protagonist is an elementary school student with some troubled friends.

Nanoka Koyanagi has three friends, including an elderly woman who lives alone, a 20-something woman crudely nicknamed "Skank-san," and a glum high school girl named Minami. Nanoka has a quest: to find the true meaning of happiness and ponder what it means for a person to embrace joy. She can't figure out the answers herself, but her three disparate friends might.

2. You and I Are Polar Opposites Is a Lovely Example of Opposites Attracting

Story & Art by Koucha Agasawa, 6 Volumes (Ongoing)

The delightful manga series You and I Are Polar Opposites should appeal to fans of moderately mainstream series like Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! and certainly smash-hits like My Dress-Up Darling, both of which have anime adaptations. The Polar Opposites series has no anime yet, but if Hokkaido Gals and Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible can get anime adaptations, then Polar Opposites just might.

This carefree high school rom-com stars Yusuke Tani, a quiet and serious high school boy who somehow ends up friends with a cheerful girl in his class named Miyu Suzuki, an outgoing student with some genki girl and gyaru elements to her. Yusuke and Miyu may seem worlds apart, but they are both good people who need a new kind of friend, so they will form a surprisingly strong bond and enjoy exploring high school life together.

1. Black Torch is Ideal For JJK and Bleach Fans

Story & Art By Tsuyoshi Takaki, 5 Volumes (Finished)

It's well-known that Jujutsu Kaisen took many cues from Tite Kubo's Bleach, and the same appears true for Black Torch, so fans of either of those shōnen mega-hits ought to try this underrated manga as well. Indeed, Black Torch's story ends rather abruptly, perhaps sooner than the author originally intended, but it's still a fun ride for a few volumes.

This shōnen action adventure stars Jiro Azuma, a teenage boy and a trained ninja who, by chance, becomes the living vessel for a cat spirit named Rago. Rago is an example of a mononoke, or a supernatural monster, and such creatures are usually hostile to humanity. It's up to Jiro to team up with the antihero Rago and the members of the Bureau of Espionage to confront other mononoke threats, including those who aim to exploit Rago's formidable power.

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20 Hidden Gem Manga Almost No One Knows About