Marusei - Recommendations

• Vol: 13
• 1996 - 2005

In the manga publication industry, there is a legend: If you leave a message on a bulletin board in the train station at Shibuya, you can obtain the services of a certain man: Comic Master J, an assistant mangaka who can instantly complete any publication manuscript in any art style for the price of 5 million Yen. However, he refuses to work on manga without a "soul." But what is J's true identity? Why does he wear an overcoat lined with pens and rulers? And for what reason does a man of such artistic talent choose to live in the shadows of the industry, rather than working on a manga of his own creation?

• Vol: 4; Ch: 28
• 2010 - 2013

As a manga author of a semi known series, Hirahara Daichi has the talent for coming up with stories, but is incredibly lazy and irresponsible. That leaves his two daughters, middle school student Ayumi and the even younger Sora, to pick up the slack. With the help of the assistant, Akane, the two kids are forced to draw and complete the series every month if they want an income for the household, a task no child should burden themselves with. On top of that, they must do this without people finding out because it will ruin the credibility of Daichi as an author and put a stop to the series. If being a teenager wasn’t hard enough, add to that the pressure of meeting deadlines for a national comic magazine.

• Vol: 13; Ch: 52
• 2001 - 2004

The super excited assistant and always alert. Fiercely editor. Endless deadlines. There was no day without any surprises in Moyoru Hono’s life as a comic artist. Quite often he had to choose between idealism or his editor demands. Everything finished in his pen strokes.

• Vol: 7; Ch: 73
• 2012 - 2014

For the entirety of his life, Yokoda Takashi has been drawing erotic drawings and it has been his way of expressing his sexuality. And now, he has managed to become a successful erotic comedy manga author for a monthly magazine. His series stars a character named Aimi who is actually based loosely on his niece with the same name. He keeps his job a secret, especially from his family from the fear that using Aimi’s name in such a perverted way would cause hatred from everyone. But his manga’s popularity rises and gets moved to a weekly magazine where there are vastly more readers and it seems like only a matter of time until the truth comes out. Takashi has to struggle between protecting his secret while keeping up with the production and erotic creativeness that comes with a weekly magazine series.

• Vol: 8; Ch: 50
• 2009 - 2017

A young, unemployed, seemingly unmotivated young man is moving through his life. As a teenager, he and some of his friends formed a "Boyz 4 Men" club, which was based on a hatred of sex and women. As arguably the most opinionated member, his view of sexuality as an adult is far from normal. After a highly sexual encounter in a park at night, he has decided to attempt to draw perverted fetish manga. This brings him once again to the presence of a woman from the park, Sawada Kazumi. She's a manga editor and single mother with a perverted and intense personality of her own. What will happen when their worlds collide?

• Vol: 5; Ch: 54
• 2015 - 2017

The days go on as 32-year-old Futaba Kiryu continues on working on her manga with her manga assistants, but soon, one of her assistants, Hiro Asakura, and the anime scriptwriter for the "Bottoku" anime, Kitamura Kyosuke grow an interest in her and eventually make a move on her. How will Futaba fare in this love triangle when her knowledge of romance is next to nothing?

• Vol: 1; Ch: 8
• 2017

In this realistic view into the manga industry, selling copies is the only thing that matters. So what if your first series just ended and you have no idea how to start the next one, your marriage is breaking up, your pure love of manga has been destroyed by the cruel reality of the industry and nothing seems to fill the sucking void inside you… Find the secret combo for a new hit manga series and everything will be okay. Right?

• Vol: 1+; Ch: 1+
• 2023 - ?

A manga editor finally freed himself from the exhausting work on shounen weekly magazines—or so he thought, when he starts working in a shoujo magazine's editorial department. But the mangaka there turn out to be truly one of a kind!

• Vol: 5; Ch: 36
• 2007 - 2012

Life begins at 40… even for pathetic losers. Shizuo Oguro is living his dreams… sort of. A complete waste of a human life until now, 40-year-old Shizuo breaks free from the corporate rat race and charts himself a fairly random and new career course: to become a published manga artist. Sure, he lacks the talent, discipline, or any other skill necessary to become a success in the manga industry—but that’s not enough to stop Shizuo!

• Vol: 4; Ch: 26
• 2010 - 2012

20-year-old Minoru Aihara has come to Tokyo to make his dreams of becoming an action manga artist come true. To his amazement, he lands a job as a live-in assistant of his favorite mangaka, Kenji Takakura, who writes a popular fighting manga called "Ultimate Banchou." Upon arriving at his new workplace, however, he discovers that his idol is not the tough guy he'd always imagined. The truth is, Kenji Takakura is the pen name of Ichiko Sekai, a girl his age who is basically a moe character (she looks and acts like a little kid). After Aihara's obvious disappointment starts them off on the wrong foot, it's going to be tough for him to prove to her that he has what it takes to be a manga artist!