While our aim is to reach out to readers of all faiths (or none at all) with articles about anime and Japanese culture that spark discussion about spiritual issues, we also want to serve as a resource particularly for Christian audiences. As such, we’ve developed recommendations pages for Christians interested in anime series and movies and in visual novels. And today, we’re proud to launch a new page providing manga recommendations for Christian readers:
Manga Recommendations
As always, our recommendations are not based on series that explicitly talk about the Christian faith, feature Christian characters, or even wholly support Christian values. We applaud series that point readers toward scriptural truths, even as they are presented apart from a Christian context. As such, these series feature topics like grace, sacrificial love, and humility. And with an understanding that many Christians are not as willing to dive into all sorts of manga as our writers are, we’re also cognizant of content that some may find offensive in this material, which helped guide our choices (and which we note in our recs).
Take a look at our page if you’re looking for recommendations, and please join in the discussion by mentioning your own recs for Christian readers in the comments section for future visitors to peruse through as well.
Here’s one: Yotsuba&!. Not only is it funny, it’s refreshing because it present’s a child’s view of the world entirely free of adult cynicism (an inescapable sickness for many of us). There is something here for all ages, young or old.
I also recommend Tezuka’s “Black Jack,” the adventures of a wandering surgeon. Aside from some mild language and graphic depictions of surgery, there’s not much to worry about in terms of content (at least not that I recall). This happens to be my favorite Tezuka series — great characters, great stories, great manga.
I’ve heard really great things about Black Jack. And Yotsuba was actually a series we discussed when deciding which manga to include. Thank you for the recs!
Trigun, not for anyone younger than 18 though, Due to the heavy gore and adult themes but it’s a stunning take on human nature, forgiveness, and the strength of compassion in a morally degraded world.
Trigun is definitely a good recommendation, and one that we were going to include on our list. We left it out because we have already recommended the anime!
I second Yotsuba&!
Yeah, I hope we’ll be able to add that one soon!