The Best Stories To Read Online at Viz Manga | Screen Rant
Viz Manga offers manga in virtually any genre – from Sailor Moon, to Attack on Titan, to Dragon Ball Super. Here are our top picks.
Whether you’re a fantasy, superhero, or horror fan, you’re more than likely to find something worth reading among the wide variety of Japanese manga out there. Manga comics offer stories in virtually every genre, including science-fiction, mystery, romance, and even sports drama. Plus, these days, it’s easier than ever to find translations of the top manga stories thanks to online resources like Viz Manga.
Even so, it’s tough for newcomers to sort through the massive amount of manga chapters available online (Viz’s Shonen Jump offers well over 10,000 manga chapters in its archive!). With this in mind, here are our picks for the best comics to read online at Viz Manga.
A Japanese superhero manga series created by Kōhei Horikoshi, My Hero Academia is about a world full of superheroes and superpowered beings with amazing abilities called “Quirks.” While the manga’s protagonist Izuku Midoriya is one of the few people born without a superpower, he later gains a great gift when Japan’s greatest hero All Might passes his “One For All” quirk to Midoriya. Now capable of manifesting the quirks of the previous users of All Might’s Quirk, Midoriya attends UA High School, a prestigious hero academy. However, when a group of villains show up, Midoriya and the other heroes-in-training must step up sooner than expected. Along the way, they struggle with pride, doubt, and living up to a legacy.
Originally a manga in the comic anthology magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, My Hero Academia has since made the move to a very popular anime series. Similar in some respects to Marvel Comics’ X-Men, My Hero Academia is unique in that the characters “quirks” have not only become accepted by society but celebrated (largely since 80% of the world’s population has them).
Originally a popular video game, The Legend of Zelda was later adapted into a popular manga series as well. Like the game, the manga follows the adventures of Link, a Hylian boy (or adult) traveling through the land of Hyrule taking down creatures and thwarting the demonic Ganondorf to help Princess Zelda. Equal parts action-adventure and fantasy, The Legend of Zelda bridges video game and manga narratives.
A unique spin on the superhero story, One-Punch Man is the story of a self-made hero, Saitama, who gained an invincible physique thanks to doing 100 push-ups, sit-ups, and squats a day (plus a 10-kilometer run). Unfortunately, his training worked so well that he can now defeat any opponent with just one punch. Now likening fighting crime to just swatting mosquitos, Saitama finds a new reason to go on when he befriends a cyborg – Genos – and joins the Hero Association with him. Along with fighting villains, Saitama also finds meaning for his life through the friendships he develops.
A dark-fantasy manga that also made the jump to a well-received anime series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (or “Blade of Demon Destruction”) is the tale of Tanjiro Kamado, a boy from Japan’s Taishō-era. When his family is slaughtered by demons and his sister Nezuko is transformed into a demon herself (albeit one who retains some of her humanity), Tanjiro becomes a demon slayer to help his sister become human again and get revenge for the death of his family. It's a good choice for those who like adventure, horror, and martial arts manga adventures.
A continuation of the also-popular Dragon Ball manga, Dragon Ball Super continues the tale of Goku, a monkey-tailed young man based on the Monkey King from Chinese mythology. Constantly training to take on more powerful beings and greater challenges, Goku ends up acquiring god-level abilities and begins traveling to other universes to take on even more powerful opponents. Like Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Super acquired its own anime series based on the manga, which saw Goku take on new threats like Beerus, the God of Destruction.
A shōjo manga series aimed at female readers (in contrast to the shonen manga aimed at boys), Fruits Basket is about Tohru Honda, a girl who loses her mother in a car crash. Forced to live on her own in a tent, she soon meets up with the Sohma family who are all possessed by the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Thanks to this, the family members will turn into a dog, cat, or rat when under stress or embarrassment. Tohru decides to help break the curse and ends up having a powerful, positive effect on the Sohma clan.
A popular anime series, Sailor Moon is also a best-selling manga series in Japan’s “magical girl” genre. Following the adventures of Usagi Tsukino (renamed “Serena” in the English-dub anime), a Japanese schoolgirl who can transform into the superpowered Sailor Moon to fight the Dark Kingdom and other evil forces. She’s aided by the other Sailor Scouts (or Sailor Soldiers) named after different planets (i.e. Sailor Venus, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mercury).
Fans of the anime series may find the manga version somewhat darker in subject matter. On the other hand, Sailor Moon manga fans have also noted that Usagi becomes considerably more mature in the manga in contrast to her anime counterpart.
Both a post-apocalyptic thriller and dark fantasy, Attack on Titan takes place in a world being attacked by human-eating “Titans” – gigantic beings outside the giant Walls of humanity’s cities. When a Titan destroys the home town of Eren Yeager, a strong-willed and impulsive boy, he joins the Scout Regiment, a military force created to battle the Titans. Things take an unusual twist, however, when Eren gets eaten by a Titan, only to discover he can transform into a giant Titan himself. Now, a potential weapon against the Titans – or possibly a more dangerous threat to humanity – Eren must discover who and what he is in this violent world.
Viz Manga has many more unique stories to read online on their website. While the selections above provide a good starting point for those interested in getting into manga, it encompasses a great many more genres and subject matters than the ones offered by these titles – and new readers should take advantage of Viz Manga’s wide selection to see which manga genres appeal to them the most.