5 Manga You Won’t Be Able To Stop Laughing At
Sometimes manga gives you a bit a of a chuckle. Sometimes it is a full blown laugh. This is the latter. If you are looking for some comedy where you won’t be able to hold back the laughter, look no further. I promise you humor. Brilliant humor.
5. 斉木楠雄のψ難 (Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan)
Japanese Level: ☆☆
Being a high school student isn’t easy. Being a high school student who has every super power imaginable and is as powerful as a god also isn’t easy.
Kusuo is just a simple guy. He likes coffee jelly. He likes watching his favorite TV shows. He doesn’t like to be bothered by annoying people. He doesn’t like to stand out. So being born with some superpowers can’t be that much of a curse, can it?
Watch as Kusuo must use all of his infinite powers to avoid being confessed to by a female classmate, standing out too much in school sports, and getting too high grades.
Every character is done incredibly well in this gag manga, and you can’t help but smile at the thought of an unstoppable high school student who cares most about not having the ending of a movie spoiled that he wants to see because he accidentally might read someone else’s mind.
Official Voice Comic of the series on YouTube:
4. 最強伝説黒沢 (The Legend of a Strongest Man – Kurosawa)
Japanese Level: ☆
After working as a construction worker for most of his life, 46 year old Kurosawa doesn’t come to expect much. Beer, snacks, and a few laughs made him happy.
But now he wants more. This can’t be all there is to life. He wants to beloved by his co-workers, be appreciated by his friends, and be remembered for something other then taking too many bathroom breaks.
Kurosawa is weird, socially awkward, and manages to mess up every situation. But he’s up for a new challenge. He will be accepted! He will be loved! Even if every attempt seems to have the opposite effect. He will become the legend of the strongest.
While this all sounds somewhat serious, this is a major comedy, and one that will have you cheering on Kurosawa as he somehow manages to botch everything. The ending is absolutely beautiful though, and will have you in tears.
Fun fan-made music video of the series:
3. テルマエロマエ (Thermae Romae)
Japanese Level: ☆☆☆☆
Building bathhouses isn’t easy when you are in Ancient Rome. Dying for some new change, some new inspiration that he can introduce to the Roman world, architect Lucius finds an answer. That answer is in modern Japan, where he accidentally time travels to, and starts copying the simple bathing related ideas that Japan has to offer.
Upon returning to Ancient Rome, Japan’s bathing innovation is a success. Who knew? So he goes back for more. But the more he brings back, the more his troubles begin.
2. 戦勇 (Senyu)
Japanese Level: ☆☆
Alba is a chosen hero. Maybe. He has to stop the demon king. Maybe. So why is the demon king joining up with him? Why are other heroes targeting him? What is he trying to accomplish again?
A major parody on the “hero must defeat the demon king” story found in many old manga and video games. This story knows its source material well, and turns all the old standards and cliches on their head.
This is RPG humor at it’s best.
1. デトロイト・メタル・シティ (Detroit Metal City)
Japanese Level: ☆☆
What’s the fastest way of achieving your dreams of becoming an acoustic folk pop singer? Who knows, but being the lead singer of a death metal band can’t possibly be it.
Soichi never imagined this is where he’d end up. How did his pop dreams turn into metal nightmares? Why does everyone hate his pop singing but worship his metal persona. Why does he try so hard to quit the metal world yet his every action gives him even more legendary metal status.
Funny, vulgar, and strange. Watch Soichi accidentally conquer the death metal world as he is pulled away from his other fashionable fantasies.
Warning: this manga is not for the faint of heart!
What are some other great comedy manga you’ve come across?
Share the laughter!
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
アフロ田中 and すごいよ!マサルさん were manga I enjoyed. デトロイト・メタル・シティ was the first manga I saw and was like “Oh no! No furigana!” but tried it anyway and was surprised at how relatively easy it was.
Afro Tanaka is coming up on a future manga post!
And it’s good to keep in mind that just because it doesn’t have furigana, doesn’t mean it is necessarily more difficult.
Yay! Manga reviews!
I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of these before…I thought I was pretty well-versed in comedy manga. Thanks for the recs!
I love 銀魂 but the abundant text and heavy use of slang make it too difficult for me to really read and enjoy in Japanese right now…same goes for ハチミツとクロバー. But NGライフ is one of my favorite gag mangas I’ve ever read in English, and re-reading it now in Japanese is pretty easy (2 stars, if that) and it still cracks me up. I highly recommend NGライフ as a high-energy, hilarious romantic-panic-comedy manga for beginners, or anyone in need of a laugh!
Expect many more coming up in the near future! Thanks for adding the additional recommendations.
I love these types of articles, will definitely be picking up at least 2 of these this week when my iPhone gets here. My screen is too cumbersome to read manga on ATM so I’ve been sticking to books and drama
I read manga from my iPhone 5, and never felt it a strain (though zooming is required). If you are getting the iPhone 6 (especially the plus), I’d assume it will be even much better.
yeah the zooming gets to me after a while, and I read on ibooks so every page is a 2 page spread? Which works great for ipad, where you can just click the side of the screen and it jumps to the next page. But when you’re zoomed in the whole time it can be a real pain. Reading on my ipad is such a joy (but I don’t always have it with me). Yeah, I got a plus, that extra screen real estate should get it close enough to ipad territory. I guess my problem is more with furigana. Though it’s probably better if I can’t read them, considering I’m reading furigana’less books.
I love in ibooks how you can highlight words and define them in the monolingual dictionary. It’s helped me out so much with the one deck too because I’m able to highlight/define words within definitions and example sentences. It’s a really fantastic feature that has made me review on my phone over my desktop, which I used to prefer. Though I must admit, I’m too lazy to branch. This has helped me avoid that somewhat! Doesn’t work for branches within branches, though.
そらのおとしもの(☆☆) is hilarious if you don’t mind ecchi comedies. The use of chibi forms always has me cracking up.
Added! Maybe I should include some kind of asterix for ecchi comedies for people who don’t want to see them.
I just recently saw that 我妻さんは俺のヨメ(☆☆)(My Wife Is Wagatsuma-san) is ending soon so I picked it up and it is absolutely hilarious.
It’s about a guy in high school who suddenly starts slipping back and forth 10 years into the future, at the most random times, where finds out he’s married to the prettiest girl in school. All the awkward situations caused by the time slipping, or just goofing around with his friends, are very funny.
Great article, I feel an amazon.jp order forming!..
This also explains why I found テルマエロマエ to be a bit too complicated when I first tried it many levels ago.
For fans of Naruto & silly humor, I would highly recommend:
ロック・リーの青春フルパワー忍伝 (Spring Time for Rock Lee, The Full Power Legend)((Official translation seems to be: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals 0_O.. )) It’s all about Rock Lee and his ever losing battle with coolness. There is also an anime!
I find non-action series like the above read slower, which make them last longer (less pages of nothing but action scenes). So it’ll be worth it.
Yes, テルマエロマエ is not easy! But once you can enjoy it, it is so worth it.
I love the DMC anime so I guess trying the manga would be a good idea. Only 10 volumes, so it shouldn’t dent the wallet too much. Thanks for the recommendations~~
Buy it! It’ll be worth it. I enjoyed the manga more than the anime. A lot of great parts didn’t make the anime cut.
For anyone interested. There are some free mangas/books being given away on iTunes, including One Piece and Dragon Ball z episode 1, both in colour!
Man, I have never thought of Vomics being publicly available on youtube as an immersion tool. These are even pacier than video game graphic novels. So cool. Think I’ve just found a new study partner.