When you read manga, it entertains you, but have you ever wonder how it is like to be a mangaka, how they live their life, or the process of making it. So, here let’s look into their life and see how they work facing criticism, deadlines, and art-block. See how the stories and characters come to life on the black and white pages. So, here is some manga of the Mangaka list.

The Top 40 Best Manga of All Time: The Definitive List!

Best Manga on Mangaka

22. Flower of Life

Genre-Slice of Life/ School Life/ Comedy/ Shoujo

Harutaro is suffering from a serious illness. Therefore, he has to enroll in school one month late. His personality is very optimistic about the entire situation. Other students, after hearing about his situation, worked hard to make him feel welcomed. Especially his chubby but very much loveable friend Sota. However, Kai Majima, President of their Manga Club, seems to be the only one person who intends to make Harutaro’s school life a living nightmare.

Flower of life doesn’t start with how a mangaka lives their life; it just begins with casual high school students and their sweet school life and beautiful friendship.

21. RiN

Genre-School Life/ Romance/ Supernatural/ Shounen/ Drama

Fushimi is a high school boy who is aspirant to be a mangaka. At the beginning of the story, it shows how the main character is struggling with life goals.

Rin is a model who appears to be able to see the future.

The story captures every day struggles artists usually face with an exciting supernatural twist. But the story is somehow very stable with characters and relations. The art style is very unusual but enjoyable.

20. Manga Dogs

Genre-Harem/ Romance/ Comedy/ School Life/ Shoujo/ Drama/ Slice of Life

Fifteen-year-old Khanna by personality seems reserved and shy, but she is living her best life as a mangaka, she even published her debuted manga. When her school started offering manga majors, she enthusiastically signs up for the class. But it is turn out that all of her classmates were male expect her. They soon found out that she is already a pro at drawing. Therefore, they started to convince her to teach them. But also they didn’t take time to realized she already has her manga published.

The characters of this manga are drawn very beautifully.

19. Dramacon

Genre-Drama/ Shoujo/ Romance/ Comedy

Dramacon focuses on Christie Leroux, a fledgling teenage writer who is debuting her manga with her artist boyfriend, Derek Hollman, at her first anime convention. Even though she got a boyfriend, she suddenly is not sure if he is the one of her, and the events of the con keep throwing her in Matt’s path. Whom she met in anime convention, but Matt’s is also full of mystery too. He always got those wacky sunglasses on, and he can’t seem to decide if he wants to be nice to Christe or just be a sarcastic jerk. Christie also meets Lida Zeff, a famous manga artist, and writer, who gives her guidance on improving her manga.

18. Genshiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture

Genre-Slice of Life/ School Life/ Comedy/ Seinen/ Drama

Kanji Sasahara is an introverted college freshman who was looking for a place to fit in. One day, he decides to join a club he would enjoy, Genshiken is also known as the study of modern visual culture. That serves to bring the full spectrum of otaku culture together. His first visit to the club, however, does not end well as Sasahara’s pride is crushed by his senior, Harunobu Madarame, and he leaves the meeting in full denial of his otaku nature.

However, after befriending club member Makoto Kousaka, who turns out to be a hardcore otaku despite his looks, Sasahara becomes more involved with club activities. The activities include obsessing over their favorite anime, reading doujinshi, and attending conventions. As the story of Genshiken progresses, the focus is also placed on Saki Kasukabe. A determined non-otaku who initially struggles to drag her boyfriend Kousaka out of the club and turn him into a normal guy.  A funny and realistic story about otaku and ordinary people exploring the manga and anime subculture.

17.  A Drifting Life

Genre-Historical/ Slice of Life/ Drama/ Seinen

A Drifting Life is an autobiographical Japanese manga written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. The story tells us about Tatsumi’s life as a mangaka beginning from his days of childhood in this manga. He has expanded the horizons of comics storytelling by using the visual language of manga to tell gritty, literary stories about the private lives of everyday people. Using his life long obsession with comics as a framework, Tatsumi weaves a complex story that encompasses family dynamics, Japanese culture and history, first love, the intricacies of the manga industry, and, most importantly, what it means to be an artist. Alternately humorous, enlightening, and haunting, this is the masterful summation of a fascinating life and a historic career. A heartfelt comic memoir that not only frames Tatsumi himself but Japan’s society after World War 2.

Note: Won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Grand Prize in 2009, the Best Reality-Based Work, and the Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia for the Eisner Award in 2010.

16. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun

Genre- Comedy/ Romance/ School/ Shounen/ Slice of Life/ 4-Koma

16-year-old bubbly student Sakura has always had a crush on mature-looking schoolmate Nozaki. When she confessed her love to him, he mistakes her for one of his fans and gives her an autograph. More misunderstanding creates when she says she wants to be with him, so he invites her to his house and has her help on some drawings. But it was a win-win incident because Sakura discovers that Mazaki is a renowned shoujo manga artist working under the pen name Sakiko Yumeno. Furthermore, she also agrees to be his assistant to get closer to him. As they work on his manga Let’s Fall in Love (恋しよっ Koi Shiyo, Let’s Have a Romance), they encounter other schoolmates who assist them and serve as inspirations for his stories. This story is full of witty humor and cliffhanger romance with a dense male protagonist moonlighting as a comic artist.

15. Otomen

Genre- School Life/ Romance/ Comedy/ Shoujo/ Drama

Asuka Masamune is the most relaxed and manliest guy in his school but prefers more girly hobbies. He is the captain of the kendo team where he reached the national championship tournament, and also excels in judo and karate. However, he has a secret, he is an Otomen, which means a guy who loves things that are usually associated with girls: cooking, sewing, and especially reading shoujo manga love stories, he loves them all. When he was a child, this worried his mother very much, as Asuka’s father abandoned the family after declaring he wanted to be a woman. The shock made his mother so ill that Asuka swore to become a more manly man.

He hides this part of his life from his classmates until he meets and falls in love with Ryo Miyakozuka. The daughter of a martial artist and heir to his dojo, who appears to be interested in manly guys. Asuka was encouraged by his friend  Juta Tachibana to pursue her to be in a relationship with her and for them, to be honest with each other. But unbeknownst to him, Juta is secretly a shojo manga artist of Asuka’s favorite manga.

14. Satoshi Kon’s OPUS

Genre- Seinen/ Action/ Supernatural/ Adventure/ Fantasy/ Psychological/ Drama/ Mystery

The story is about a manga artist who is pulled into the world of the manga he is concluding and forced to confront his characters. Manga artist Chikara Nagai is in the process of ending his current serial, Resonance. Who finds that the harshest critic of the shock ending he’s got planned is the character who’ll have to die in it. Nagai’s strengths and weaknesses as a creator are tested beyond their limits. As his present and his past, and the worlds of the manga and reality, become the levels of a maze, he may never escape.

Opus, better known as Satoshi Kon’s Opus, is a manga version of the 90’s blockbuster movie Last Action Hero, starred by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

13. Ore no Manga Michi

Genre-Slice of Life/ Comedy

So we have one more autobiographical manga on our list. Mizukami-sensei tells us the story of his life as a mangaka, it’s a “column manga” in which Satoshi Mizukami recounts the beginning of his career as a mangaka. He starts with the beginning of his career how he encounters hardships in his career. It is fascinating how he explains his career in his manga one chapter per chapter in an exciting way.

12. Billy Bat

Genre- Police/ Mystery/ Drama/ Supernatural/ Seinen/ Psychological/ Historical

from 1949 the Japanese-American comic book artist, Kevin Yamagata who has drawn the popular detective series “Billy Bat”. But one day, he realizes he might have unconsciously copied his character from an image in Japan. So, he went to Japan to ask for permission, but he ends up getting involved in murders connected to Billy Bat. Later on, his Billy Bat comics become a kind of prophecy, its various plotlines precisely predicting future world events.

11. Naisho No Mangaka Tonari no Yutori-san

Genre-4-Koma/ Shounen/ Romance/ Comedy

A 4-Koma about a boy who discovers the girl he likes is a manga artist. When she’s close to the deadline and nowhere near done, he agrees to help her finish her work on time. You will see some incidents where you see him helping her in every means so as not to get caught by anyone.

10. Moeyo Pen

Genre-Drama/ Shounen/ Comedy

Honoo Moyuru runs various manga in various editorial departments, just like the typical mangaka you see everywhere. He’s a manly, hot-blooded, determined person who won’t doubt to risk his own life to create his works.

A few series are starting with Moeyo Pen (Burning Pen), then, later on, came to the sequel series Hoero Pen (Shouting Pen).

09. Spicy Pink

Genre- Slice of Life/ Romance/ Josei

Sakura is a dedicated mangaka who is always buried in her work and deadlines, a dedicated mangaka. She thinks instead of getting into a relationship. She’d rather focus on her work. But she was dragged into goukon by her friend Misono by convincing her that sating will provide good materials for her manga, though. Sakura goes along.

In the goukon she met Koreeda Iku, a plastic surgeon. Although he is handsome, his personality was jerky, he even patronizes Sakura in the elevator, leaving her enraged.

08. Shuukan Shounen Hachi

Genre- Drama/ School Life/ Comedy/ Shounen/ Slice of Life

This manga is an inspiring tale about a self-conscious rookie artist pursuing a mangaka career. Hachiko is a teen boy with a burning desire to be a comic artist. He enrolls in Onigahara Manga Academy, where his skill and determination are put to the test for aspiring mangaka. With only the best students able to become pros, his talented classmate Mikeya Touma becomes his rival when the enigmatic Myaako compliments Hachi’s mediocre storyboard.

07. Stupid Love Comedy

Genre- Slice of Life/ Romance/ Comedy/ Shoujo/ Drama

Sakura Suzu is a rookie shoujo mangaka who has yet to taste the sweet feeling of success. One day, her editor, who has worked with her since her debut, is transferred. The new editor named Osamu, who is very handsome, is assigned to work with her, but his specialism is seinen manga. It turns out to be love at first sight for Sakura, but unfortunately, he doesn’t match her feelings.

06. Hope

Genre- Slice of Life/ Drama/ Romance/ School Life/ Shoujo

as not many people support being a mangaka, Hikari is going through the same situation where everyone was telling her to give up o her dream of being a shoujo manga artist. Despite not having any particular talents, she spends time in class drawing, hoping that one day she can become a manga artist just like Suzu Chidori, who she looks up to. But after her teacher rips up her drawings and her classmates reject them as well. Discouraged, she throws her drawings out a bridge only for them to be found by a kind guy named Yuu. Luckily Yuu turns out to be an artist too, and the first one who encourages her to continue and tender friendship blossoms. Thus, Hikari is inspired once more to pursue her dream. But the road to becoming a manga artist isn’t easy, full of those that look down on her.

05. Meoto Safari

Genre- Drama/ Romance/ Josei/ Comedy

Jo is an average manga artist slash divorcee, a dime a dozen in Japan. But he has a secret, and his editor knows his terrible secret, a secret that he plagiarized his own editor Nichika’s comic, which she threatens to expose unless he puts a ring on her finger and marries her.

04. Shut-In Shoutarou Kominami Takes On the World

Genre- Slice of Life/ Seinen/ Comedy

this story’s base conceit is that Taiga Kitazono, a gag manga artist, and his editor Katou need a “muse” for Kitazono’s latest series. They specifically want a “sholcken,” a laborious in-world portmanteau of “shy, lazy, chicken” for the job. In an attempt to rally against his “no longer human” nature, shut-in Shoutarou Kominami manages to take himself out of his house to secure gainful employment. In a stroke of good fortune, he ends up getting hired by Taiga Kitazono and thinks he is a psychologist who’s promised to help him cast off the shackles of his shlocken personality! If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

03. Kishibe Rohan Louvre e Iku

Genre-Mystery/ Drama/ Supernatural/ Shounen/ Psychological/ Horror

Rohan is a young Japanese mangaka who still hasn’t released his manga. He started to draw her first love, a mysterious and beautiful woman who tells him a story of the cursed painting, which is 200 years old. She said to him that the painting was painted with the darkest/ blackest ink ever, which the painter extracted from a 1000-year-old tree that the painter had to cut down without the approval of the emperor. Later, he was executed for what he did, but the painting was preserved from the destruction by a curator of the Louvre. Some days later, she went missing when she found out her draw her in his manga. A decade later, Rohan visited Paris and ask the museum to unearth the painting from deep within its archives. But he is utterly unprepared for the power of the cursed painting that he unlaced.

02. Doujin Work

Genre-Slice of Life/ Seinen/ School Life/ Comedy/ Ecchi

Dojin Work is 4-Koma style manga. It is about a young girl named Najimi Osana and her exposure to the doujin world. Her first attempt to become a Doujin artist was after seeing how much one of her friends can make at a convention. Tsuyurin-sama greets her, then suddenly decided to write doujin after seeing Tsuyurin-sama’s doujin work. Tsuyuri is a dōjin artist and creates her dōjinshi under the name Bloomer Girl. Najimi loves to draw, though soon learns contrary to what she expected that this new world is anything but easy. As she attends more conventions and meets more people, Najimi eventually manages to find a group of very interesting friends. These friends already have some experience in the field and help her out along the way so that she can someday make a name for herself by creating doujinshi.

01. Bakuman

Genre-Slice of Life/ Romance/ Comedy/ School Life/ Shounen/ Drama

Bakuman was written by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata, and it is the best manga on mangaka.  Also, they have worked together on the popular manga Death Note.  This manga contains the personal lives of mangakas with lots of twists and drama, which makes this story more engaging than one would expect. Bakuman may not be the best choice as the new manga reader.

This manga has two main protagonists, Mashiro Moritaka and Tagaki Akito they are on their journey of becoming the greatest of Japan’s mangaka. Moritaka Mashiro dreamt of becoming a mangaka, just like his uncle, who was his inspiration. But a tragedy strikes, he gives up on his dream and spends his middle school days studying, aiming to become a salaryman. Suddenly one day, his classmate Akito Takagi, also the school’s top student and aspiring writer, got Moritaka’s notebook with detailed sketches. Seeing the vast potential of his artistic talent, Akito approaches Moritaka, and proposes to become mangaka together.