Widely praised and regarded as an all-time great creator in the manga medium,Naoki Urasawahas been wowing readers for more than 40 years now. Best known for building intricate, long-form mystery epics, Urasawa is a versatile talent who has plied his craft on a variety of genres.
Starting work predominantly as an artist, Urasawa gradually began pulling double duty, writing his own scripts and quickly impressing critics, readers, and his fellow creators alike. His first major breakout success came with 1986’sYawara!, a popular series that ultimately proved to be a vast departure from the darker, more fantastical stories he has become best known for.
A master of sharp dialogue and smooth paneling, Urasawa is arguably without equal in the manga world as a colorful, grand-scale storyteller, stringing together diverse plots often spanning enormous amounts of time and events. With such a rich bibliography to boast of, there are plenty of standout masterpiecesfrom the seinen maestro. Let’s highlight thebest manga by Urasawa.
Updated June 16, 2025 by Mark Sammut:Naoki Urasawais right up there with the greatest long-form mangaka of all time, but the author has also penned his share of short stories. While not synonymous with these types of releases, Urasawa’s one-shots are worth seeking out, at least for people who enjoy his writing style and art.
11Damiyan! Is A Bizarre One-Shot That Gives The Yakuza Supernatural Twist
Original Magazine: Weekly Big Comic Spirits
Like most mangaka, Naoki Urasawa has written his share of one-shots over the years. While not held in the same esteem as his long-form stories or considered essential manga like, for example,Junji Ito’s shorts, Urasawa’s one-shots are nevertheless impressive. They generally do an amazing job of highlighting the creator’s fantastic art style and nuanced writing that often blends high drama with an element of the supernatural or mystery. Rather than tracking down individual volumes, anyone interested in checking out some of Urasawa’s best shorts should consider picking upSneeze: Naoki Urasawa Story Collection.
Damiyan!opens the collection, and it is amongSneeze’s stronger entries. Considering it lasts just over 25 pages, the manga manages to introduce a surprising number of characters, even shifting to a new protagonist about 1/3rd of the way through. The eponymous Damiyan is a mysterious person with an undefined power that almost comes across as god-like. The one-shot involves the mafia, multiple deaths, a high-stakes finish, and some pretty effective black comedy.
Damiyan!is set in the same universe as20th Century Boys, making it an extra fun read for fans of that manga.
The rest of the compilation is a mixed bag, but none of the stories are by any means bad.Henry and Charlesis particularly unique due to being a children’s manga about two mice, which is completely out of the norm for Urasawa. Honestly, it is nothing too special, but the art is unsurprisingly great.
Except forDamiyan,Throw Toward the Moon!andKaiju Kingdomare probablySneeze’s strongest stories, althoughIt’s a Beautiful Dayis also charming. Even though none of them are essential readings, they offer a fun way to spend an hour or two.
10Pineapple Army Is A War-Focused Thriller
Original Magazine: Big Comic Original
Urasawa served as the artist for this action-packed series from the ’80s.Pineapple Armyfocuses on Jed Goshi,a Vietnam War veteranof Japanese-American heritage who raises hell as a deadly Green Beret.
By the time readers meet Goshi, he’s retired from his special forces days and also has a back catalog of mercenary work to his name. Now sharing his extensive knowledge of combat and warfare with others as a highly paid trainer, Goshi makes for a compelling study and deconstruction of a traditional tough guy protagonist. With neat line work from Urasawa and globe-trotting storytelling from writer Kazuya Kudo, this underrated gem is a fine piece of old-school action manga.
9Master Keaton Sports A Compelling, Multi-Talented Protagonist
This mysterious piece of eclectic storytellingfollows the titular Taichi Hiraga-Keaton. An archeologist, SAS member, and insurance investigator, there’s never a dull moment with Hiraga-Keaton.
Urasawa created this colorful series in tandem with Takashi Nagasaki and Hokusai Katsushika. Its popularity saw it enjoy a six-year run as well as an anime courtesy of Madhouse. Balancing often heavy themes of family and adulthood with a thrilling sense of adventure and danger,Master Keatonis a fine exampleof the potential of the adventure genre in the manga medium. Most intriguing of all is the titular hero’s obsession with discovering a mythical ancient civilization in Egypt, adding a sense of intrigue to the lore and world-building of the series.
There are some questions about who actually wroteMaster Keaton, but Urasawa was undoubtedly involved.
8Mujirushi: The Sign Of Dreams Is An Eclectic Mystery Series
Urasawa’s love of mysteries is on full display in this frequently surreal tale. Beyond the mysterious aspects of the plot, though,Mujirushiis a curious break from Urasawa’s standard storytelling tropes.
Brimming with offbeat humor and satire, the series focuses on Kamoda, a factory owner whose life completely unravels after attempting to dodge his taxes. Kamoda gets a second chance when he joins the bizarre France Research Institute, a seemingly supernatural organization that gets him caught up in a dangerous heist. Overall, it’s a curious, colorful, and left-of-center piece from one of manga’s most esteemed creators.
7Happy! Is A Bleak Sports Drama
Original Magazine: Big Comic Spirits
This surprisingly gritty sports drama saw Urasawause tennis as a backdropfor all manner of troubling themes. The series zeroes in on Miyuki Umino, a prodigious tennis player.
Far from a standard sports success tale, though, Umino’s life is one of hardship and loss. After her parents’ deaths, she must balance taking care of her siblings and dealing with an enormousfamily debt to the Yakuza. Her situation with the infamous organized crime syndicate constantly sees her on the cusp of being forced into a harrowing life of prostitution if her tennis victories don’t make up the numbers. A sad, thoughtful series sporting compelling character arcs and mature themes,Happy!sees Urasawa in dark form.
6Yawara! Is A Good-Natured, Slice Of Life Sports Comedy
A humorous coming-of-age take on the sports genre, Yawara! follows the complicated judo journey of titular high schooler Yawara Inokuma. Despite her longing to enjoy a more run-of-the-mill high school experience, her legendary judoka grandfather is determined to send her all the way to Olympic glory.
A naturally gifted judo practitioner, Inokuma’s grandfather is training her with success at the 1992 Olympic Games in mind. The story touches on several tropes of the sports genre but does so in a light-hearted, thoughtful manner. Urasawa takes great care in developing the psyches of his two lead characters, ensuring their dysfunctional bond remains engaging and often moving. A curious subplot involving Inokuma’s parents provides the series with some missing person mystery as well, ensuring the colorful series has a little something for everyone. One of Urasawa’s most comedic efforts,Yawara!is a likable tale of competition and maturationthat readers can enjoy in its entirety.
5Billy Bat Manages To Give An Apocalyptic Look At The Comics And Manga Industries
Original Magazine: Morning
This unconventional murder mystery series is as much about the trials and tribulations of work in the comic book industry as it is about an all-important ancient scroll that can lead to world domination. Set in 1949, this engaging mystery thriller follows a comic book artist who discovers his belovedBilly Batseries may have been ripped off from artwork he saw in Japan.
Needless to say, his decision to head over to Japan to receive permission to continue using the image from the original artist leads to all manner of increasingly fantastical situations. The lighter, more eccentric tone of the series initially proved to be a bit jarring with longtime fans of Urasawa’s typically darker, more sinister narrative tone and style. Embracing an old-school comic strip style for scenes with the titular Billy Bat character, the series blends high-concept conspiracy theories with thoughtful meditations on pop art and storytelling. Throughout the series' eight-year run, it never failed to dizzy readers with its near-endless number of twists and turns, earning high praise in the long run for its thrillingly unpredictable storytelling and character arcs.
4Asadora! Mixes History With Kaiju Terror For A Thrilling Epic
As is so often the case with Urasawa’s finest efforts,Asadora!dives head-on into the realms of mystery. Along the way, the series also provides readers with a full biopic of the titular character Asa Adora from her post-WWII formative years up to the present day.
In 2020, Tokyo isbesieged by an enormous monster. In 1959, young Adora is kidnapped and later caught up in the infamous Typhoon Vera, the worst tropical storm in Japanese history. The science fiction elements of the story take a backseat for the most part, with Urasawa focusing heavily on historical drama as the mysterious monster looms large in the background. In Adora, the series boasts a fiery, likable lead protagonist whose life story plays out in an effective, thoughtful fashion. Along the way, the budding mystery of the kaiju threat to Japan simmers below the radar, building a suspenseful sense of dread. Overall, this grand-scale sci-fi mystery is Urasawa at his genre-blending best.
3Pluto Provides A Revolutionary Reimagining Of Astro Boy
Urasawa’s penchant for twisted murder mysteries was applied with startling effect to the iconicAstro Boyseries with the thrillingPluto. Named after one of Astro Boy’s big bads, the series follows a robotic Europol investigator on the case of a series of grim human and robot homicides.
In an increasingly high-stakes race to catch the killer, it becomes apparent that the world’s top seven most elite robots are the top targets. The blend of compelling themes regarding robotic rights and the dynamic between humans and machines, as well as a police investigation, makes for an absorbing piece of mystery fiction. As a reimagining of an earlier, classic work,Plutois an incredibly original,somewhat under-the-radar effort, completely breaking away from the style of the original whilst managing to maintain many of its key sci-fi tropes and concepts.
Unsurprisingly, the series racked up plentiful acclaim, with both fans and critics still unpacking its countless references, symbolism, and character traits two decades after it first arrived on the seinen scene.With an anime confirmed to be on the way, now is the perfect time to give this one a go.
220th Century Boys Is A Wild, Multi-Generational Thriller
Another multi-decade-spanning mystery thriller from the top-selling manga master here as childhood memories from the ’60s play into defeating a deadly menace at the turn of the 21st century. A seinen thriller livened up with apocalyptic sci-fi themes,20th Century Boysquickly proved to be a hit upon its debut in October 1999.
Giant robots, plots to assassinate the Pope, and the Triads all come into play in an increasingly chaotic storyline that sees four childhood friends attempt to take a stand against a cult leader with a mysterious connection to them. The antagonistic Friend has since become an icon of manga villainy with uncovering his true identity proving to be an obsession both for protagonists such as Kenji Endo and for the reader. The series' popularity sparked the aptly titled21st Century Boyssequel in 2006. While not quite as enormous in scope and plotting as the original,the sequel remains a must-readfor fans of the series. A modern manga classic,20th Century Boysis a thrillingly imaginative effort.
