Book picks similar to
Kitaro by 水木しげる


manga
comics
graphic-novels
fantasy

Sailor Moon, Vol. 1


Naoko Takeuchi - 1992
    When Usagi Tsukino adopts a stray cat, she gets more than she bargains for The talking cat, Luna, informs Usagi that she is actually Sailor Moon, a magical princess from the future and protector of the Solar System. With the help of her new friends, the Sailor Scouts, and the mysterious Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon embarks on a quest to save us all from the evil powers of the Negaverse.

The Drifting Classroom: Perfect Edition, Vol. 1


Kazuo Umezz - 2019
    Out of nowhere, an entire school vanishes, leaving nothing but a hole in the ground. While parents mourn and authorities investigate, the students and teachers find themselves not dead but stranded in a terrifying wasteland where they must fight to survive.

Buddha, Vol. 1: Kapilavastu


Osamu Tezuka - 1972
    Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha’s ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezuka’s Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering one’s life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal situations with ground-breaking visual dynamism by an artist who makes sure never to lose his readers’ attention.Tezuka himself was a humanist rather than a Buddhist, and his magnum opus is not an attempt at propaganda. Hermann Hesse’s novel or Bertolucci’s film is comparable in this regard; in fact, Tezuka’s approach is slightly irreverent in that it incorporates something that Western commentators often eschew, namely, humor.

Dracula, Motherf**ker!


Alex de Campi - 2020
    Los Angeles, 1974: an ageing starlet decides to raise the stakes. Crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is the only man who knows it happened, but will anyone believe him before he gets his own chalk outline? And are Dracula's three brides there to help him... or use him as bait? A pulpy, pulse-pounding graphic novel of California psych-horror from acclaimed creators ALEX DE CAMPI and ERICA HENDERSON.

Battle Angel Alita, Vol. 1


Yukito Kishiro - 1990
    When he rebuilds her body, Alita's only clue to her past surfaces-her deadly fighting instincts! And now she is determine to find out the truth about who she once was...

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 1


Yuki Midorikawa - 2003
    R to L (Japanese Style). Takashi Natsume can see the spirits and demons that hide from the rest of humanity. He has always been set apart from other people because of his gift, drifting from relative to relative, never fitting in. Now he is a troubled high school student who has come to live in the small town where his grandmother grew up. And there he discovers that he has inherited more than just the Sight from the mysterious Reiko.

The Swamp


Yoshiharu Tsuge - 2020
    The Swamp collects work from his early years, showing a major talent coming into his own. Bucking the tradition of mystery and adventure stories, Tsuge’s fiction focused on the lives of the citizens of Japan. These mesmerizing comics, like those of his contemporary Yoshihiro Tatsumi, reveal a gritty, at times desperate postwar Japan, while displaying Tsuge’s unique sense of humor and point of view.“Chirpy” is a simple domestic drama about expectations, fidelity, and escape. A couple purchase a beautiful white bird with a red beak. It is said that the bird will grow attached to its owners and never fly away. While the girlfriend is working as a hostess, flirting with men for money, the boyfriend decides to draw a portrait of the new family member, and disaster strikes.In “The Swamp,” a simple rural encounter is charged with sexual tension that is alluring but also fraught with danger. When a young woman happens upon a wing-shot goose, she tries to calm it then suddenly snaps its neck. Later, she befriends a young hunter and offers him shelter, but her motivations remain unclear, especially when the hunter notices a snake in the room where they’ll both be sleeping.The Swamp is a landmark in English manga-publishing history and the first in a series of Tsuge books Drawn & Quarterly will be publishing.

My Brother's Husband, Volume 2


Gengoroh Tagame - 2016
    And that, in many ways, remains a radical concept in Japan even today. In the meantime, the bond between Mike and young Kana grows ever stronger, and yet he is going to have to return to Canada soon--a fact that fills them both with impending heartbreak. But not before more than a few revelations come to light.

Thessaly: Witch for Hire


Bill Willingham - 2005
    Attaching her name to a monster slaying business behind her back is one thing, but agreeing to take on the universe's ultimate destructive force--well, that just proves that love makes you stupid. Faced with this kind of courtship, it'll be a miracle if Thessaly can survive long enough to smack some sense into Fetch's intangible head--never mind stopping the unstoppable doom he's unleashed.

Pet Shop of Horrors, Vol. 1


Matsuri Akino - 1995
    The pets sold here aren's your everyday variety and the Count prides himself on selling Love and Dreams in the form of magical creatures that come with an exclusive contract. But buyers beware. If the contract is broken the Count cannot be held accountable for whatever may happen. A fascinating and macabre look into the very soul of human nature. Contains the following stories: DREAM Young Angelique learns the tragic nature of breeding the rarest of birds in the Strelizia. DESPAIR Out-of-luck actor Robin Hendrix has always preferred the company of reptiles, so it's only natural that he would fall in love with a very special and dangerous one. DAUGHTER There is no love stronger than a mother's love for her daughter, but one mother is about to learn that love can be quite painful. DREIZEHN They say that a dog is a man's best friend but for the recently blinded Karen, the bond with her new seeing eye dog is even closer. Recommended for older teens, ages 16+.

Flying Witch, Vol. 1


Chihiro Ishizuka - 2013
    Prepare to be Bewitched! Makoto Kowata, a novice witch, packs up her belongings (including a black cat familiar) and moves in with her distant cousins in rural Aomori to complete her training and become a full-fledged witch.

Blade of the Immortal, Volume 1: Blood of a Thousand


Hiroaki Samura - 1994
    1- Blood of a Thousand by Samura,Hiroaki. [2010] Paperback

Opus


Satoshi Kon - 2011
    But before he became a director, he was a manga artist, and Dark Horse is honored to remember Kon with the release of Satoshi Kon’s OPUS,an omnibus collection of a two-volume manga from 1996, created by Kon on the eve of his first film. OPUS contains the mastery of both realism and surrealism that would make Kon famous in Perfect Blue,as a manga artist planning a shocking surprise ending to his story gets literally pulled into his own work—to face for himself what he had planned for his characters!OPUS is Kon's metafictional tale of Chikara Nagai, a creator under pressure to finish his latest graphic novel, Resonance, who finds that the harshest critic of the shock ending he's got planned is the character who'll have to die in it! Nagai's stregths and weaknesses as a creator are tested beyond their limits as his present and his past, and the worlds of the manga and of reality, become the levels of a maze he may never escape... let alone get a chance to resolve the story!

Harley Quinn, Vol. 1: Hot in the City


Amanda Conner - 2014
    and leaves no one unscathed in her wake! With art by Chad Hardin and a slew of comics' best artists including Darwyn Cooke, Sam Kieth, Tony S. Daniel, Paul Pope, Walter Simonson and Art Baltazar!Collects HARLEY QUINN #0-8.

The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 1


Kazuo Umezu - 2004
    While parents mourn and authorities investigate, the students and teachers find themselves somewhere far away...somewhere cold and dark... a lifeless, nightmarish wasteland in which their school stands like a lone fortress. As panic turns to terror, as the rules start to fall apart, a sixth-grade boy named Sho and his friends must fight to survive in an alien world...