Like cartoons and comics, anime and manga are generally regarded as kids’ stuff. It’s unfair towards mature stories like, say, Perfect Blue and Ghost in the Shell, but the vast majority of the medium does lean towards younger audiences. Even gorefests like Fist of the North Star and dark tales like Death Note were aimed at young teens. As such, most anime and manga leads match their child and teenage demographics.
If those series do have older characters, they're often treated like they’re a day or two from retirement. But there are some strips out there that target older audiences, and feature leads in the prime of their lives, so to speak. When it comes to manga with middle-aged protagonists, these are the best of the bunch.
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8 A Man and His Cat
MyAnimeList Score: 8.31
- Written & Illustrated by Umi Sakurai
- 9 Volumes, 85 chapters (in English)
- Available in English via Square Enix
It’s nice to come across a title that explains its premise in a sentence instead of a paragraph. Originally published as a webcomic, A Man and His Cat is about Kanda, a recently-widowed man who adopts an exotic shorthair cat called Fukumaru. The cat wasn’t as pretty as the other kittens and regularly got passed over. Kanda can sympathize with the cat, as he’s been left behind too. His children grew up and moved away years ago.
The two keep each other company in funny, slice-of-life stories, like a less cynical, more cuddly version of Garfield. The manga caught on well enough to receive official publication, an English translation, and a live-action TV show that’s still running today.
7 Hanamonogatari
AnimePlanet Score: 4/5 Stars
- Written & Illustrated by schwinn
- 3 Volumes, 16 chapters
- Fan Translations only
Hanamonogatari also follows someone recently bereaved. Its lead, Hanayo, finds something more when she seeks solace. Following her husband’s funeral service, she comes across a cosmetics store run by a woman named Yoshiko. She lost interest in makeup years ago because her husband nagged her about it. But after visiting the store, she falls back in love with cosmetics, and with Yoshiko too.
The comic began as a short strip schwinn published on their Twitter account called "A Yuri Manga Where an Elderly Woman is Awakened to the Power of Makeup." It was expanded for publication in Comic Flapper magazine. Manga about middle-aged people are rare enough, but a middle-aged yuri is rarer still. The manga concluded in July 2023, so readers can now read it in full.
6 The Savior’s Book Café in Another World
MyAnimeList Score: 7.63
- Written by Kyōka Izumi
- Illustrated by Reiko Sakurada
- 5 Volumes, 26 chapters
- Available in English via Seven Seas Entertainment
At 34 years old, Tsukina isn’t strictly middle-aged. But since she’s been isekai’d to a medieval fantasy land, she might as well be. Reaching middle age in the Middle Ages took some luck. In the regular world, Tsukina was an office worker who liked to spend her free time curled up with a good book. So, when “God,” a magical sphere, tells her she must go to a fantasy land to become its savior, she says no.
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She says she's too old for that sort of thing, and that "God" should find someone younger. Eventually, they work out a deal where she’ll go if she has the strongest protection magic around, and the ability to summon items via web search. With this ability, she sets up a book café in a quiet, remote spot. But if Tsukina doesn’t go on an adventure, adventure will come to her.
5 Uncle from Another World
MyAnimeList Score: 7.88
- Written & Illustrated by Hotondo Shindeiru
- 10 Volumes, 52 chapters as of September 2023
- Available in English via Yen Press
Being a top Sega gamer doesn't do Yōsuke any good in Uncle from Another World. After getting hit by a truck as a teenager, his body was left in a coma while his spirit went to another world. This world scorned him so badly that he uses his newfound magic to wipe his memories clean to spare his sanity. Nonetheless, he'd use his gaming skills to help him in his adventures.
17 years later, Yōsuke wakes up from his coma as a 34-year-old. Confused by modern culture, he moves in with his nephew Takafumi to help readjust to the real world. At first, Takafumi isn't happy about it, but he warms up over time. He discovers his uncle can still use his magic in the real world, which comes in handy for making money. Plus, his uncle’s stories about the other world take his mind off of his less-happy past.
4 Space Brothers
MyAnimeList Score: 8.77
- Written & Illustrated by Chūya Koyama
- 43 Volumes, 403 chapters as of September 2023
- Available in English via ComiXology and Amazon
Space Brothers brings things back down to Earth, ironically enough. Ever since Mutta and Hibito saw a UFO as kids, they’ve dreamed of going into space. Hibito, over time, succeeded in becoming an astronaut for JAXA, Japan’s equivalent of NASA. Mutta's hard head kept getting him into trouble, putting him in his younger sibling's shadow.
Now much older, he gets a shot at his dream when JAXA accept him on a training course. With Hibito’s support, Mutta may get to join his brother among the stars after all, as long as he keeps his cool. The manga received high praise and the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize. It's no surprise that its anime series and tie-in prequel movie also got glowing receptions.
3 Inuyashiki
MyAnimeList Score: 7.59
- Written & Illustrated by Hiroya Oku
- 10 Volumes, 85 chapters
- Available in English via Kodansha USA
Inuyashiki’s main character, Ichirō, is 58, but he looks much older. The rest of his family don’t care about him, and his only friend is his dog, Hanako. Things might have remained that way if, while walking through a park, he hadn't been struck by an alien attack.
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The aliens cause an explosion that leaves Ichirō on the verge of death. To make up for this, they give him a new, cyborg body. It looks the same as his regular human self, but it comes with a wide variety of functions and weapons. To maintain his humanity, Ichirō decides to use them to help people. But he wasn’t the only one to get this kind of body, and the other cyborg isn’t so altruistic. Sooner or later, the two will end up taking each other on.
2 My Home Hero
MyAnimeList Score: 7.93
- Written by Naoki Yamakawa
- Illustrated by Masashi Asaki
- 21 Volumes, 182 chapters as of September 2023
- Available in English via Kodansha USA
When My Home Hero’s Tetsuo, a 47-year-old salaryman, discovers his daughter is being physically and emotionally abused by her boyfriend Nobuto, he takes the extreme option. Inspired by his mystery and crime novels, he plots out ‘the perfect crime’ and, with the help of his wife Kasen, hides the body. Granted, he also learned Nobuto was a murderer who killed all his prior girlfriends.
With his daughter's life at risk, readers could understand Tetsuo going that far to stop him. But if Tetsuo had looked closer, he’d know Nobuto was also the only son of yakuza head Yoshikazu Matori. Now he has to protect himself, his family, and his home from Matori’s goons, who will stop at nothing to find out what happened to Nobuto. The series received an animated and live-action series in 2023, and there's a live-action movie scheduled for release in 2024.
1 Monster
MyAnimeList Score: 9.15
- Written & Illustrated by Naoki Urasawa
- 18 Volumes, 162 chapters
- Available in English via Viz Media
Naoki Urasawa is well-known now thanks to works like 20th Century Boys and Pluto, but his breakout work in Japan was back in 1994. It was called Monster, and followed brain surgeon Dr. Tenma. While working at a hospital in Germany, he gets caught between saving the life of a young boy called Johan, and saving Düsseldorf mayor Roedecker. He chooses the boy, costing him his reputation at the hospital.
It also put him in the police’s crosshairs when the boy goes missing, leaving behind the dead bodies of the hospital director and a few doctors. Nine years later, the case rears its head again when a criminal who Dr. Tenma treated is stalked and killed by a ‘monster.’ He discovers that the culprit is Johan, the boy he saved. Now Tenma has to bring it to light and stop him before he takes more lives.
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