My Go-to Manga Recommendations

Gojo and Kitagawa are social opposites, but their passions lead to them becoming friends... and possibly more?

Cosplay manga!!! Anime ruined it for me not gonna lie. I absolutely love Marin! She's the epitome of a girl nerd who's absolutely passionate about her interests! I hate how her character was watered down to just a gooner material. She was so oversexualized in the anime as well. Anyways, a social recluse x gyaru extrovert is a beloved dynamic!!

This is about a Roman guy who travels between ancient Rome and Japan as he tries to incorporate the inventions he's seen from an advanced country into Rome.

I remember reading this because I was set on reading mangas that won awards. Apparently, this is a winner of the 3rd Manga Taisho Award (2010). And I'm not surprised why. Definitely super funny and informative!! It's so fun to see how ancient people react to innovative ideas that change their lifestyle!

I LIED. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS FOR THE EASILY DISTURBED AND WITH CRIPPING MENTAL HEALTH. BUT OTHERWISE, GOOD AND SAD!!

Author's own autobiographical manga of her experience being lesbian.

Oh god, this made me cry so bad. So raw and vulnerable.

Same as the first one except this one shared more of her experience with mental health and her life struggles.

Mori Buntarou, a loner, is cajoled by a classmate to climb a school building, feeling a sense of fulfillment when he reaches the top.

It's a manga about alpinism or mountaineering. Shinichi Sakamoto is known for his "Innocent" mangas, but I find this more appealing to me. Definitely love the story and what happened to Mori!! So happy to see what happened to him at the end. Also, mountain climbing is scary af!! But this showed what a climber's life and desire looked like.

Set during the French Revolution in 18th century, this tells the story of Charles-Henri Sanson from a family of executioners and him facing his harsh fate.

Read this long ago, but I could still remember how uncomfortable this was. It's good, but the characters were so realistic. I feel so bad for the main protagonist trying to resist killing people. I can even remember his first kill till today. Art is literally insane. You can see how Shinichi Sakamoto draws his characters on YouTube.

Two partners hunt down witches while trying to find the eternal witch to revert Guideau's curse, encountering troubles along the way.

The worldbuilding is so good with this one. I didn't even know it had an anime. Love, love the dynamic between both main characters while also introducing other characters in the story. The plot, art, and interconnectedness of characters are seamless and great!! I wonder what Ashaf meant when Guideau's special to him?

A group of friends enact a "revenge" prank on their bullies, but ended up accidentally killing them.

This goes to show how shallow men's friendships are, how a person's true colors show when something bad happened. Truly loved that ending though, very realistic. Tobio was depressed and his feelings of guilt eats him away while trying to live out his average life. Paisen was genuine, but felt pity for him :(((

From high school, college and then to adulthood, depicting the lives of two men who are madly in love with unchanging feelings within changing realities.

I'll recommend this to anyone who doesn't read BL and is a straight guy. God, I remember sobbing and wailing so HARD inside our bathroom with a pillow suppressing my cries. THIS IS HEART-BREAKING but SWEET but also BITTERSWEET. I hope more straight/cis people read LGBTQIA manga and realize love isn't so different from theirs.