2008 Readers Poll: Best New Seinen Manga

Author & Artist: Hiroya Oku
Publisher: Dark Horse
Visit Dark Horse's Gantz page
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Two high school boys get hit by a subway train and die a grisly death -- or have they? The next thing they know, the pair find themselves in a room with other recently "deceased" people and a mysterious black orb. Their new mission? To hunt down and kill aliens who are hiding on Earth. But just because they died once doesn't mean they can't die again...

Author: marginal
Artist: Syuji Takeya
Publisher: CMX Manga
Visit CMX Manga's Astral Project page
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From the creator of Oldboy comes a new suspense series, this time with a supernatural twist. When Masahiko's sister dies mysteriously, he retrieves a keepsake from her belongings: an unlabeled jazz CD. Curious, he listens to the music and is propelled into an out of body experience. When he returns to his body, he begins to suspect that this CD holds the key to his sister's death and begins a quest to unlock its mysteries.

Author & Artist: Rei Hiroe
Publisher: VIZ Media
Visit VIZ Media's Black Lagoon page
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Rokuro Okajima once lived a drab 9-to-5 salaryman's life in Tokyo. That was until he got sent to Southeast Asia and hooked up with the crew of the Black Lagoon, a pack of mercenary couriers for hire. Now surrounded by a United Nations of mobsters, smugglers and assassins, "Rock's" life is now anything but dull.

Author & Artist: Asano Inio
Publisher: VIZ Signature / VIZ Media
Visit VIZ Media's Solanin page
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Meiko is a recent college graduate, working in an office at a job she hates. Her boyfriend Naruo is permanently crashing at her apartment since his job as a freelance illustrator doesn't pay enough for rent. As Meiko struggles to come to terms with the crushing mediocrity of her so-called adult life, an unexpected event forces her to give her youthful dreams one more shot.

Author & Artist: Kozue Amano
Publisher: TokyoPop
Visit TokyoPop's Aria page
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In Kozue Amano's version of the future, the once dry, red planet of Mars has been terra-formed into Neo-Venezia, an aquatic wonderland called that looks vaguely like Venice, Italy. Aria and its companion series Aqua follows the sweet, slice-of-life adventures of a female gondolier or "undine" in training as she discovers the joys of her new job and the wonders of her new home.

Author & Artist: Takehiko Inoue
Publisher: VIZ Signature / VIZ Media
Visit VIZ Media's Real page
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A motorcycle accident, bone cancer, a speeding truck crashing into a boy on a stolen bicycle -- tragic, life-changing events turn the worlds of three young men upside down. Three very different personalities have only one thing in common -- their passion for playing basketball.

Author & Artist: Akira Hirayama
Publisher: Del Rey Manga
Visit Del Rey Manga's Me and the Devil Blues page
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Legend has it that bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads in exchange for the ability to play the blues. Akira Hirayama takes this musical myth and follows R.J. on a journey that goes beyond the juke joints to the backroads and small towns of a segregated America.

Author & Artist: Kazuo Umezu
Publisher: VIZ Signature / VIZ Media
Visit VIZ Media's Cat-Eyed Boy page
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Living between the worlds of demons and humans while belonging on neither side of the supernatural divide, the Cat-Eyed Boy is an observer, narrator and instigator of a series of horrific events. Humans foolish enough to indulge in greed, vanity or cruelty to others soon find themselves on the receiving end of a bizarre brand of supernatural justice.

Author & Artist: Hideo Azuma
Publisher: Fanfare - Ponent Mon
Visit Fanfare - Ponent Mon's Disappearance Diary page
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When the pressures of work and his alcoholism got too much for him to deal with, manga artist Hideo Azuma decided to "disappear." Leaving behind his family and obligations, he became a homeless person, and learned the fine art of dumpster diving. But Azuma couldn't find it in himself to wallow in self-pity -- instead, he turns his dark days into an unusually humorous, slice-of-life adventure of an everyman dealing with life on the streets, as a blue-collar worker and eventually, in rehab.

Author & Artist: Jiro Taniguchi
Publisher: Fanfare - Ponent Mon
Visit Fanfare - Ponent Mon's Quest for the Missing Girl page
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Expert mountaineer Shiga is called from his mountain retreat to Tokyo to help find his friends teenage daughter Megumi, who has been missing for several days. As Shiga roams the streets, nightclubs and alleys of Tokyo and as his enquiries are stonewalled by the police, he suspects that the teen has run into some big trouble, and he must use all of his wits and skills to rescue her.