Read reviews of the most romantic and fascinating josei manga or graphic novels for women. From office romances, historical fiction, sexually explicit short stories, family dramas and slice of life comedy, see how these josei manga releases stack up against other grown-up graphic novels for ladies.
Spare and elegant, Blue by Kiriko Nananan is a sensitive, minimalist take on yuri, or girls love manga. Read our review to learn more about this decidedly different Japanese graphic novel from Fanfare / Ponent Mon.
Set in Victorian England,
Emma is a tender love story of a young maid and her relationship with the eldest son of a wealthy family. Find out why this
manga kicked off the maid cosplay fad with our review of Volume 1.
In
Honey and Clover Volume 1, five students at an art college outside of Tokyo try to make the grade, fall in love and find enough to eat on a starving student budget.
In the second volume of
Honey and Clover, the classmates head to a hot springs inn, play a special art school version of Twister and sample Hagu's very strange cooking.
In the Utah desert, there's a rooming house called Hotel Africa, where tales of love, longing and redemption are told. A young boy named Elvis watches in wonder as these lost souls try to find their answers in the lonely desert.
Love for Dessert is a collection of short and sexy love stories for women. In the title story, a young professional discovers that her co-worker is sweet on her, even if he can't relate to her insatiable sweet-tooth.
Rich and reclusive "Prince" Anton Prosper is seeking the secret to immortality, and when he brings in geneticist Stephen Kabala to his private island, he gains a collaborator and a lover, and has possibly set in motion the events that will lead to their doom.
Meiko is a Tokyo twenty-something who feels like life is passing her by. Her office job bores her to tears. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Naruo is coming to the sad realization that his rock star ambitions are a long shot at best. But a fateful event changes this young couple's lives and reawakens their passion to pursue their dreams.
Read a review of
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, an award-winning
manga series by Fumiyo Kouno from Last Gasp. Minami is a seamstress who is haunted by the horrors she experienced ten years ago when the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and wonders if true love and happiness is now out of her reach.
Read a review of
Voices of Love, a sexually explicit collection of
josei manga short stories by Kanae Hazuki from LuvLuv Press / Aurora Publishing. Mika's a 25-year old school teacher. Her neighbor Naokazu is not only keeping her up at night with his noisy ways, he turns up one day in her classroom as one of her students. What happens when the sparks fly between this unlikely pair?
Like
Paradise Kiss with
Sex and the City style and sass,
Walkin' Butterfly is a fun, dramatic and romantic story about a gawky misfit and her transformation into a runway model. Read a review of Volume 1 of this
josei manga series from Aurora Publishing.
Based on the true-life experiences of parents raising autistic children,
With The Light (Hikari to Tomoni) tells the story of Sachiko, a young mother and her struggles to understand autism and her autistic son, Hikaru. Read a review of
With The Light Volume 1, a
josei manga graphic novel by Keiko Tobe from Yen Press.
