Pick Up These 5 Manga Just for the Gorgeous Art

Blame!, by Tsutomu Nihei
In this science fiction manga by the author of Knights of Sidonia, Kyrii, a stoic loner armed with a rare and powerful weapon, travels through the sprawling ruins of a massive multi-layered city in search of the Net Terminal Gene. Blame! is not so much about the characters—Kyrii is the silent type—nor is it about the plot, which is primarily as an excuse to keep Kyrii on the go. Rather, the appeal of Blame! is experiencing the environment that Nihei has created for Kyrii to move through, a landscape of bleak cyberpunk ruins splattered with brief bursts of intense violence as Kyrii clashes with human (and humanoid) enemies. The incredible scale of the crumbling architecture looms large on the page as the humans, minuscule in contrast, make their way through the decaying city, always in danger of being swallowed up by the world they traverse.

Land of the Lustrous, by Haruko Ichikawa
In the land of the Lustrous, the gem-like inhabitants must be constantly watchful for invaders from the nearby moons, who wish to capture the crystalline warriors and turn them into jewelry. Haruko Ichikawa’s fantasy battle manga is elevated by stunning, surreal imagery and heavily stylized combat set against an austere landscape. The way Ichikawa visualizes the qualities of each gemstone in her jewel box world is fascinating and often very lovely: Diamond is almost too brilliant to look at, Cinnabar bleeds deadly quicksilver; when injured, all the Lustrous shatter into glittering shards. Ichikawa’s long-limbed, androgynous characters are sometimes hard to tell apart when on the page together, but the strange beauty of this manga is worth a little puzzling out.

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, by Nagabe
Manga takes on the character of a dark fairy tale in Nagabe’s quiet fantasy about a young girl and her caretaker. In a world split between the Inside and the Outside, children are told never to cross over to the other side, lest they be cursed. A young girl named Shiva lives on the Outside, in a vacant village with an otherworldly guardian. Nagabe’s art is a study in shadow and light, embodied in his two protagonists: the stark white of Shiva’s simple dress set against the feathered, inky blackness of Teacher. Other pages layer black on textured black as Teacher’s dark silhouette moves across the lesser blacks and grays of dimly lit forests. In concert with the vaguely Celtic flavor of the world (the subtitle of the manga is the name of an Irish song), the effect is an atmospheric, twilit fantasy as engrossing as it is beautiful.

Kigurumi Guardians, by Lily Hoshino
Penned by Lily Hoshino, best known as the character designer of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s Mawaru Penguindrum, Kigurumi Guardians is a quirky magical girl story in the tradition of Naoko Takeuchi and CLAMP. The manga is a spun sugar confection of Hoshino’s sweet shojo art: her style is dreamy, delicate, and soft, populated by girls with fluffy hair and doll-like clothes and sleek, handsome boys in immaculate suits. Hoshino isn’t always the strongest writer, but the magical girl genre seems to suit her perfectly; the familiar structure and genre trappings become a pretty playground for her art and characters. Like a decadent dessert, Kigurumi Guardians is indulgent and little sinful—a beautifully drawn magical girl romp with the slightest edge to cut the sweetness.

A Bride’s Story, by Kaoru Mori
There’s probably some kind of unwritten law that you can’t put together a list of manga with beautiful art without including Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story, and I certainly won’t try. Chronicling the experiences of Amir Halgal, a young woman from a nomadic tribe living in nineteenth-century Central Asia, A Bride’s Story is a gorgeously drawn historical romance portraying the lives of women and girls living along the famed Silk Road. Mori renders her historical setting in incredible, rich detail, from the architecture and decor to weapons and jewelry. Of special note are the textiles—Mori hand draws the lavishly embroidered patterns on clothing, rugs, and hangings, which are often works of art in their own right. Beyond the sumptuous art, Mori’s manga is a fascinating and tender look at the relationships of women and their husbands in a part of the world rarely depicted with such care.
What manga did you read just for the art?