Been reading some good martial arts mangas lately. Holyland is actually really good so far. It’s a pretty realistic depiction of teenage punks streetfighting and follows a kid who’s looking for a place to belong. One thing leads to another, he learns more about fighting, makes friends, and tries to make his way in the mean streets of Japan. So far, I would recommend this one if you already like martial arts mangas.
Garouden is peak, and can be considered one of the OGs of martial arts mangas. It’s as brutal and exaggerated as Baki, the fights are amazing, and the story is great with many interesting characters. Originally a series of books that never got translated, it’s always been lesser known than other fight manga but its influence on the genre is massive. Netflix made a spinoff that was also really good, I love this series so much.
I recently started Tough, another one of the OGs that’s lesser known today. Again, reading this one you can see it’s genealogy in so many other works and it’s pretty brutal. It’s about a dude who likes to fight other dudes, I’m pretty early into it but liking it a lot so far.
I have a love of series where some kid trains martial arts and grows as a person through that, something like All Rounder Meguru or Holyland or take your pick of other classics. Holyland is one I’m about 50 chapters into and loving so far, I’m really interested to see how our main dude grows as he fights more.
