✨✨2022 Year in Manga Roundup / Recommendations ✨✨
This year I read 200+ manga (all available printed in english)!!
I’ve broken them down into M/M , F/M and F/F romance and Other categories to recommend my faves from each 💓💓
Please be mindful that a lot of these are 18+ or have heavy content warnings.
My most read category with 59 titles, it’s incredibly hard to choose a top 10 but I’ve tried to pick some lesser known titles.
Honorary mention to Classmates which published it’s final volume this year and is an all time fave.
I Cannot Reach You: Slow burn, the height of sweet and cute school romance. A quiet reserved boy is head over heels for his oblivious outgoing friend. The art is so cute and there are many moments to make your heart race.
Therapy Game / Therapy Game Restart: (nsfw) Sweet and sexy, bisexual MC, selfish playboy type falls for sweet recently heartbroken veternarian, ‘my friends dared me to date you but I’ve accidentally fallen in love’. Technically a sequel to Secret XXX but works as a stand alone series.
Dekoboko Sugar Days / Bittersweet Days: Childhood friends to lovers, overwhelmingly adorable. The sweet boy that always needed to be saved grows taller than his tough best friend. He is still adorable and needs protecting anyways. I can’t get the smile off my face reading this one.
Finder: (major cw for sexual assault turning into lovers, extremely nsfw) My problematic fave series, journalist x mafia boss, the journalist just can’t lay off following the mafia boss around despite being regularly taken advantage of, they slowly fall in love. This series is super trashy and very graphic but I had such a good time with it. The journalist has a lot of SA directed at him by all parties but he is fairly unbothered by it. Super melodramatic and fun if the content doesn’t put you off.
Bad Boys Happy Home: (cw for attempted sexual assault, nsfw) Rowdy boys regularly meet up to vent stress by beating each other up, they become roommates, they fall in love. Has some mysterious stuff going on in the background. Illustrated by an artist that usually does shonen manga so it has a fresh and unique style for a BL.
Madk: (cw gore, assault, various nasty things, very nsfw) The ultimate monsterfucker romance, boy sells his soul in exchange for the chance to eat a demon’s flesh. Gets more than he bargained for. Super interesting world building and stunning visuals, if you like toxic, gory horror vibes in your romance check this one out.
Monotone Blue: Sweet oneshot furry romance between a pessimistic loner cat and a gentle lizard.
My Love Mix-up: Misunderstandings lead to boy faking a crush on his classmate, accidentally gets feelings for real. One of the funniest things I read. Super cute F/M side romance too.
The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter: A deeply relatable overworked accountant is accidentally taken to another world along with the Chosen One, all he wants is to do his accounting job. Gets into a magical fuck or die situation. I loved this so much more than I expected to, it was delightful.
The Vampire and his Pleasant Companions: A sweet American vampire gets accidentally shipped in bat form to Japan. He is taken in by a man and falls in (unrequited?) love. They solve mysteries together. This one is extremely charming with an adorable bat and the love interest appears to be on the asexual/aromantic spectrum (still unclear in the story so far).
I read 15 titles and chose a top 4 to recommend!
Crossdressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie: Trapped in the body of a villainess from a dating sim, she disguises herself as a boy to avoid death flags. Of course everyone falls in love with her. Very typical for the isekai genre but I really enjoyed it!! Very funny and cute.
My Dress-Up Darling: (cw sexually suggestive with teen characters) A boy begins sewing cosplay costumes for a cool girl with a nerdy side. Fanservice series but with a deep love of cosplay and a lot of heart, I adore the main girl and the romance is adorable. Later volumes address characters with insecurities, gender presentation in crossplay, etc. Really optimistic and fun.
Sweat and Soap: (kinda fetishy content but really wholesome????) She has a sweat disorder, he is a soap designer obsessed with her smell. Odd setup but leads to such a sweet romance, follows them building their relationship, moving in, thinking about kids and marriage, etc. Sexy and sweet.
Wotakoi: An all-time fave, follows three nerdy couples, workplace romance. One childhood friends to lovers, one dating since highschool, and one newly budding romance. Soo funny and such good romantic payoff. Loads of geek culture jokes, the anime is good but the manga is way better.
I read 6 titles and am recommending 2!
Even Though We’re Adults: A married woman cheats on her husband with another woman. They both are trying to deal with the fallout whilst stepping around their feelings for each other. A surprising take on a cheating setup, the husband and his family are a big part of the story.
How Do We Relationship: (cw themes of depression, some relationship toxicity) Two girls in a university music club decide to date as they are the only lesbians one another knows. They struggle to make a relationship work despite shaky foundations. I personally found these characters overwhelmingly relatable.
I read 20 titles I would classify as other. These are my top 5.
Sensei’s Pious Lie: (cw heavy themes, graphic depictions of sexual assault, incestuous themes, student/teacher relationship) A woman and her student, both of whom have been sexually abused, begin a relationship. Deals with the struggle to trust others in the aftermath of abuse. Focus on very heavy traumas. This is an incredibly dark read but so deeply interesting. If you have any triggers probably avoid this one.
Beastars: (cw murder, violence, probably other things) A dark take on a Zootopia like setting. A wolf fighting to control his carnivore instincts despite his crush on a tiny rabbit. The plot is super weird but so engaging, gets weirder as time goes on.
Boy Meets Maria: (cw fairly graphic depiction of childhood sexual assault) A brash boy falls in love with a moody nonbinary peer. Deals with trauma and finding a sense of self.
O Maidens in Your Savage Season: (cw childhood sexual assault, unrequited student/teacher) Dramatic literature club girls going through the throes of puberty. Fantastic characters and cute romance. Has a wonderful anime adaptation.
Witch Hat Atelier: The most gorgeous fantasy artwork you will ever see. Follows a young girl learning to be a witch, with a sinister force lurking in the background.
Please let me know what your fave reads of the year were 💓💓💓
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