Graphic Novels, Animation, and Manga at MSU

This futuristic sci-fi cyberpunk manga follows a cyborg named Alita who rebuilds her life after being found in suspended animation.

This long-running series is about a group of boys who form a childhood gang in 1969 and imagine an apocalyptic future they have to save and keep a journal based on their fanciful adventure. Years later, around the turn of the century, they find out that their youthful predictions in the journal are coming true, and must re-band to save humanity.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a landmark series about a group of teenagers who fight off an alien invasion piloting mecha—human-controlled robots. This series is renowned for its religious symbolism, postmodern elements, and deep character exploration.

Planetes is realistic, hard sci-fi about astronauts in the near future who operate a debris-collection spaceship. Haunted by a space flight accident that claimed his beloved wife, Yuri finds a job cleaning space debris from Earth's orbit. His team consists of Hachimaki, a hot shot debris-man with a sailor's affinity for the orbital ocean; Fee, a tomboy beauty with an abrasive edge and a penchant for smoking; and Pops, a veteran orbital mechanic whose avuncular presence soothes the stress of the job. Planetes follows the lives of Yuri and his fellow debris-men as they work and ruminate at the edge of the great empyrean sea.

Barefoot Gen is the story of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as seen through the eyes of six-year-old boy Gen. Drawing from Nakazawa’s own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, this comic combines anti-war drama with a comical coming-of-age story.

Weaves the story of the Buddha's birth with those of the slave Chapra, pretending to be a general s son, his long-suffering mother, the pariah Tatta who talks to animals, and the monk Naradatta trying to interpret the omens of the Buddha s birth.

Shigeru Mizuki’s epic, three volume history of Japan spans the Showa era during the reign of Emperor Hirohito from 1926-1989. Mizuki’s meticulous historical research shows a full picture of the development of modern Japan, which the author sets himself in as a bumbling narrator. Mizuki’s loyalty, confusion, and anger at his own country shows a complex relationship of a citizen to his country.

This series follows two boys at a European prep school as they experience the trials of youth and romance.

In Edo period Japan, a strange new disease called the Redface Pox has begun to prey on the country's men. Within eighty years of the first outbreak, the male population has fallen by seventy-five percent. Women have taken on all the roles traditionally granted to men, even that of the shogun. The men, precious providers of life, are carefully protected, and the most beautiful of the men are sent to serve in the shogun's Inner Chamber.