I figure I can’t be the only one relatively new to manga or the only one playing catch-up. I also can’t be the only person looking for recommendations of where to head next, so I thought, “Maybe ten or fifteen people will be interested in my opinion on what’s recently entered my eyeholes!”

Like Western comics, manga is a medium rather than a genre, and I try to read pretty widely, which means I read a decent variety of subjects and stories – as well as books suitable for various age groups. If there’s something specific you’re looking for, hit us up on Twitter @roarworthy and I’ll see what I can do.

Let’s get started.

Haikyu!! Vols. 1-4 by Haruichi Furudate

Content Warning: language

Age Group: Listed as 14 and up, but I wouldn’t have a problem with my 8-year-old reading it, so parental discretion under 14.

Hinata wants to play volleyball. Yeah, he short. Sure, his middle school doesn’t actually have a team. But he works hard, practices with anyone who will let him, and finally, right before graduation, convinces enough people to join him and gets to step on the court. They get their butts kicked by Tobio “King of the Court” Kageyama and his team, but that just pushes Hinata to practice harder and plan his revenge victory.

Which is why he’s more than a little surprised, and perturbed, when he shows up for his first practice at Karasuno High to find Kageyama already in the gym.

Because now, Hinata is going to have to learn how to play with Kageyama and his massive attitude problem.

Like a lot of sports manga, Haikyu!! uses athletics as a framework to explore larger stories about people: what they want, why they want it, what they’ll do to get it, and how different people with different goals relate to one another. In this case, the message is a really positive one we’re using to get our kids to prep for baseball season after a winter of enforced inactivity and confinement: if you want something, you’re going to have to work for it. You’re going to have to put in the time. It might be hard. It might suck sometimes. Do it anyway.

I also really enjoy the way Haikyu!! works with different relationship dynamics and the ways in which it takes the time to explore not only the connections between individuals but also the ways groups form bonds when not everyone thinks the same way. The way a good leader can bring a team together even when its members have vastly different personalities. The ways in which some people live their lives with their personality on the outside and some people are more reserved. The way some people feel they have to hide to be accepted and others trust those around them will find something to like. The way everyone in this Haikyu!! world does have redeeming qualities. Even Kageyama.

The anime follows the manga pretty closely so you can go either route, but I’m actually enjoying reading the manga. Possibly because my son doesn’t know how to watch anything without talking. Constantly. Every second.

SpyXFamily Vol. 4 by Tatsuya Endo

Content Warnings: brief death imagery, mention of explosives, dog attack, car crash, discussion of war

Age Group: All ages. My 8-year-old reads this one as well. There is usually some violent imagery, so I’d recommend flipping through and judging on individual kiddo’s tolerance.

SpyxFamily continues to be one of my all-time favorite comics. Not one of my all-time favorite manga – one of my all time favorite comics period. For those of you who have managed to avoid my screaming about it thus far, welcome.

A quick recap for the uninitiated: Twilight, the world’s best spy, has been ordered to infiltrate the prestigious Eden Academy to gain access to a Target. To do so, he definitely needs a kid, but to do so properly, he needs a family.

Step one: adopt child. Enter Anya, who is adorable, mischievous, and psychic (she doesn’t mention that last part).

Yor Briar is perfectly happy being an office worker by day and a deadly assassin by night, but she’s a lady of a certain age and that means her brother won’t get off her butt about getting married. When Twilight (using the alias Lloyd Forger) and Yor meet by accident, a fake marriage solves his problem of needing to wife someone to present the perfect family to Eden (he fails to mention the spy bit) and her overprotective brother issue (she keeps the assassin bit to herself).

And thus the Forger family is born.

The only one who knows everything is Anya. Who is interpreting all the shenanigans through a child’s lens.

So many shenanigans.

In this episode, a Forger Family Outing is interrupted by a terrorist plot, which necessitates Twilight’s activation. Yor and Anya continue on to a dog adoption fair without him. While there, Anya meets a psychic pooch who’s who’s been dognapped by the very terrorists her father is trying to track down and with whom she can share visions of the future.

The adults may be smart, but Anya and her new friend are clearly the only ones who can save this day.

Onward to adventure!

Best. Comic. Ever.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Vol. 2 by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court

Content Warnings: sci-fi violence, blood, language

Age Group: 14 and up. Yet again, 8-year-old has read, but they watch the MHA anime. Parental discretion.

Listen, I’m not going to lie; I’m in this one for the bonus Aizawa and Mic content, which has yet to really materialize and I’m not sure I’d be continuing if I didn’t know I’d be getting their backstories in upcoming volumes. I’m not connecting to the new heroes in this My Hero Academia spinoff series the way I did with those in the trunk story – with one extremely delightful exception: Tensei Iida.

Admittedly, I was already invested in his arc since we see the end of it, and the way it affects his brother, Tenya Iida, in the MHA main series and anime. (It’s Tensai’s severe injury that inspires Tenya, Tenya Class Rep, Get Your Feet Off the Desk, Don’t Run in the Corridor Iida, to break every hero rule in existence and go vigilante to avenge.) Tensei is just an absolute ass-kicking cinnamon roll and I adore him. Also the theory behind his agency and the way he chooses, and boosts, his sidekicks.

And The Crawler is starting to grow on me. So I’ll stick with it for a few more volumes and see what I see.