At the library where I work we have a small to medium size collection of manga but only in French (very few in English). That’s to be expected since one of the mandates of our library is to foster the learning of French among the city’s (or the province’s) new-comer population. However, since the population we are serving is in majority anglophone, one of the librarians thought that it would be nice to develop a little more our nearly inexistant English manga collection. I am offering a few suggestions…

Most of the manga publishers target their releases toward kids and teenagers (kodomo, shōnen, shōjo) and just a few publishers put out manga really aimed at adults (seinen, josei, gekiga) — and I am not talking here about manga of sensual or erotic nature (LadiComi, yaoi, yuri, etc.).

The more traditional manga are translated and distributed by publishers like:

• Dark Horse
• Kodansha
• Tokyopop
• Viz Comics

while the more serious and alternative titles (and unfortunately often less popular) comes from publishers like:

• Digital Manga/eManga
• Drawn & Quarterly (based in Montreal!)
• Ponent Mon/Fanfare
• Seven Seas
• Stone Bridge Press
• Vertical
• Yen Press

For this list, I avoided titles that we already had in our collection in French and — considering that we already had a few gekiga in French, that seinen or josei are also often targeted at teenagers, and that I think we should support local publishers like Drawn & Quarterly — I tried instead to favour more classical or serious manga (hence a selection of mostly gekiga, including mangaka in the likes of Shigeru Mizuki, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Osamu Tezuka, or the more recent Jiro Taniguchi). I am indicating in the list if a title is already available in the Montreal Libraries’s network (even if it is only in French or only in one library).

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Suggestions from traditional publishers:

• 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa (Viz, Teen+, 22 vols) [already available in the Montreal libraries’ network]
• Beck by Harold Sakuishi (Kodansha, 16+, 14 vols) [available in French only]
• Berserk by Kentaro Miura (Dark Horse, 18+, 39+ vols) [available]
• Ghost in the Shell (The): Global Neural Network by various (Kodansha, 2018/09/18, 1 vol) [not available]
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex by Yu Kinutani (Kodansha, 16+, 5 vols) [vol. 1 available in French]
• Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda (Viz, Mature, 6+ vols) [vol. 1-2 available]
• Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano (Viz, Mature, 7 vols) [available]
• Monster by Naoki Urasawa (Viz, Teen+, 9 vols) [available in French only]
• Mushishi by Yuki Urushibara (Kodansha, 10 vols) [available in French only]
• Nana by Ai Yazawa (Viz, Teen+/Mature, 21 vols) [available in French only]
• Old Boy by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuyaki Minegishi (Dark Horse, 18+, 8 vols) [available in French only]
• Pluto by Naoki Urasawa (Viz, Teen+, 8 vols) [available]
• Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida (Viz, Teen+, 14 vols) [available]
• Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue (Viz, Mature, 12 vols) [available]
• Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura (Kodansha, 16+, 10+ vols) [available in French only]

Suggestions from the “alternative” publishers:

• A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q, gekiga) [available]
• A Patch of Dreams by Hideji Oda (Ponent Mon) [not available!]
• Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q, gekiga) [available]
• Alabaster by Osamu Tezuka (DM, seinen, 2 vols) [not available!]
• Andromeda Stories by Keiko Takemiya (Vertical, 3 vols) [not available!]
• Apollo’s Song by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical, 2 vols) [not available!]
• Ayako  by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical) [available]
• Barbara by Osamu Tezuka (DM, seinen) [available only in French]
• Black Jack by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical, 17 vols) [available only in French]
• Book of Human Insects (The) by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical) [available]
• Buddha by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical, 8 vols) [available]
• Cigarette Girl by Masahiko Matsumoto (Top Shelf) [not available!]
• Crime and Punishment by Osamu Tezuka (DM, seinen) [not available!]
• Fallen Words by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q, gekiga) [available]
• Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q, gekiga) [available]
• Guin Saga manga (The): The Seven Magi by Kazuaki Yanagisawa & Kaoru Kurimoto (Vertical, 3 vols) [not available!]
• Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki (D&Q, gekiga, 6 vols) [available]
• Message to Adolf by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical, 2 vols) [available]
• MW by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical) [not available!]
• Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical, 2 vols) [available]
• Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki (D&Q, gekiga) [available]
• Osamu Tezuka Story (The) by Toshio Ban (SBP) [not available!]
• Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa (Vertical, 3 vols) [available in French only]
• Pushman and Other Stories (The) by Shigeru Mizuki (D&Q, gekiga) [not available!]
• Quest for the Missing Girl (The) by Jiro Taniguchi (Ponent Mon) [available]
• Record of the Glass Castle by Osamu Tezuka (DM, seinen) [not available!]
• Sakuran by Moyoco Anno (Vertical) [Available]
• 7 Billion Needles by Nobuaki Tadano (Vertical) [not available!]
• Showa: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki (D&Q, gekiga, 4 vols) [available]
• Times of Botchan (The) by Jiro Taniguchi & Natsuo Sekikawa (Ponent Mon, 4+ vols) [vol. 1-2 available]

Let me know what you think of this list or if you have suggestions of your own…

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