For more than half of my life, I've been reading comics. I've seen the manga industry in North America grow, fall apart, rebuild, and stay stable. Today, we've reached a point where the English-language market is stable. The biggest books are translated at the same time as they come out in Japan, and publishers are taking risks by licensing lesser-known books and old backlist series. It has been a good thing because now we can read some of the best manga.

In making this list, I used a wide range of tools. If you want to know what people think is the best manga this year and what popular shows were popular back in the 1970s, then this book is for you. I'm sure there's a manga out there for every person who likes it. One of the following titles might be interesting to you.

Completed Modern Classics

If you're a new manga fan and want to learn more about the genre in its current form, the following books are good places to start. I chose these books because 1) they're finished and 2) they give you the chance to connect with manga fans who have been reading for a long time.

Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama

Toriyama's now-iconic manga is based on a classic Chinese book called "Journey to the West." Son Goku is an alien who was raised as a human. He trains in martial arts and seeks the dragon balls, which can summon a dragon that can grant any wish, but he doesn't have them.

Inuyasha by Rumiko Takahashi

Rumiko Takahashi may be one of the most well-known female manga artists today. Her backlist includes a lot of important works, like the genderbending martial arts romantic comedy Ranma 12. It's about Kagome, a Japanese schoolgirl who falls into a well at her family's shrine and ends up in the Sengoku era, where she meets people from that time. There, she meets the half-dog demon, Inuyasha, and there are a lot of mishaps.

Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto

Everything you need to know about Naruto can be found on this page. Manga fans have grown up with this series about an orphaned boy who wants to be the best ninja in his village, and it was the first thing they read. If you like cool ninja powers and slick fights, this is the show for you. For people who have never read manga before, it's also one of the easiest to read.

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

When you ask a manga fan what their favorite title is, Fullmetal Alchemist is usually in the top 10. This is because it's one of the best manga out there. After trying to bring their mother back to life, two brothers search for the Philosopher's Stone to make their bodies whole again, but the plan isn't so simple. It's not just that. It's a lot more. If you're a fan of manga, this is one of the best you'll ever read. It looks at the relationship between brothers after an accident, has some of the best female characters you'll ever see, and has an interesting plot that includes conspiracy, redemption, and sacrifice. I think this is the best manga to give to someone who doesn't already like manga to get them interested in it, if they don't already like it.

Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Please don't watch Netflix's terrible, whitewashed version of the manga. Instead, read the original manga. A high school student who is very smart gets a notebook that gives him the power to kill anyone whose name and face he knows. With these new skills, he wants to make a world where there is no crime. But, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya

In high school, Tohru Honda lives with the Sohma family after her mother died in a car accident. In doing so, she learns about their family secret. Each member of the Sohma family has a spirit from the Chinese zodiac. When certain conditions are met, they will change into their animal form. If you're kind, you'll keep this news from Tohru, because she's a good person. Then, she starts to break the family curse.

Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi

"Sailor Moon," which is one of the best manga about magical girls, had a big impact on the way people think about this kind of story today. The heroine, Usagi Tsukino, learns that she is Sailor Moon, a warrior who is meant to protect Earth from evil. With help from other Sailor Scout Warriors, who are meant to represent each of the other planets in our solar system, she goes on a mission to save the world.

Best Ongoing Manga Series

Let's say you want to start reading a series that's still in progress and has a story that's still developing. You can speculate and talk about what you think about the story. These titles will meet that need.

My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia is the new "it" show. It's a heartfelt, Japanese take on the superhero genre. Because everyone has superpowers in this world, Izuku Midoriya can't be a superhero because he was born in a world where everyone has superpowers. But, due to a surprise change in events, he gets his own set of superpowers of his own. His dream might not be so far away after all.

Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama

It was Isayama's vision of a failing human race being overrun by man-eating giants that took the manga world by storm, and he was a big hit. The plot has changed a lot since that first premise. There are now conspiracies, a questionable look at oppression, and even more questionable parallels to real-life history. But the early volumes are still some of the best manga depictions of action-packed survival and adventure.

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda

One Piece is one of the most important manga series of our time. It's done. It doesn't matter. People in Japan have been buying it since it came out in 1997. It holds records and has been at the top of Japanese bestseller lists ever since. On the surface, it's about a young boy who wants to be the ruler of pirates. One Piece is a magical journey that tells everyone to go for their dreams. It's full of funky special abilities, hilarious visual puns, and found family.

One-Punch Man by ONE and Yusuke Murata

One-Punch Man is a sort of satire of the superhero genre. It follows Saitama, a once-average young man who trains to become a superhero. Unfortunately, he's become so powerful that he can defeat everyone with one punch. Saitama is now bored, even though he has joined a superhero group to protect the world from monsters and supervillains.

Influential Classic Manga Series

Your favorite manga books are the ones that most people know. You're reading what a lot of people think is the best manga of 2018. Now, you want to learn more about the series that made manga possible and influenced generations of artists.

Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka

As the "father" of manga, Tezuka's huge collection had a big impact on the medium and set many of the rules we use today. You can't go wrong with any of his books. I chose Astro Boy, which tells the story of a brilliant scientist who replaces his dead son with a robot.

Devilman by Go Nagai

Devilman was first published in the 1970s. Since then, it has had many spin-offs and anime adaptations, the most recent of which took Netflix by storm at the beginning of 2018. It's the story of a young man who is pure of heart and gets the power of a demon. He chooses to use that power to protect people from evil. Because of these things: the question of whether people are worth protecting and his best friend.

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo

Most anime fans know about the now-seminal show, but like many movie adaptations, the movie crams a lot into a short time. This means that many subtleties are lost. At its heart, the manga is about Kaneda, the leader of a biker gang, and his telekinetic friend, Tetsuo. Politics, power, and corruption are also looked at in the story as a whole, though.

Cardcaptor Sakura by CLAMP

A lot of CLAMP's best-loved series are still unfinished. There's no shade. (Maybe a little shade.) If you're a fan of magical girls, Cardcaptor Sakura is probably one of the easier ones to find. It is about a young girl named Sakura who accidentally lets out a set of magical cards. She now has to work to get them back and put them back in a box. It was Cardcaptor Sakura, not Sailor Moon, who started the modern magical girl genre. She made the cutesy look we associate with magical girls today.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki

The anime version of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which is streamed by Crunchyroll, has made the series more popular in English. This long-running show is about the weird lives of the Joestar family. Unique: Each part focuses on a different member of the family and takes place in a different time and place. Among other things, Part 1 is about Jonathan Joestar and takes place in Victorian England, while Part 4 is about Josuke Higashikata and takes place in a small town in Japan. This is one of the most important manga in history, and once you read enough of it, you'll see it in a lot of manga and anime shows.

From now on, I'm going to group manga by genre. Each category has a lot of different ways to do the same thing, so you can find the best manga to read for you.

---