Best Josei Romance Manga

Key Takeaways

• Josei manga, aimed at adult women, explore mature themes like love, work, and relationships beyond typical high school romances.
• Josei romance manga offer diverse relationship dynamics, from age-gap to workplace romances, providing depth and realism.
• Josei stories like “Hana Wants This Flower to Bloom!” and “Dekinai Futari” delve into nuanced love stories that captivate readers with relatable themes.

As the name suggests, ‘Josei’ (‘women’) refers to manga aimed towards women, rather than shojo (‘girls’), which focuses on girls. Both are typically told from the female perspective, appearing in women’s magazines like Flowers and Petit Comic. While the latter largely tackles themes like high school and middle school life, first love, and occasionally something dark, Josei focuses on more mature themes like work life, university life, marriage, divorce, and intimacy.

The same goes for josei romance, which often examines different styles of relationships than the typical shojo fare, like the popular-guy-meets-shy-girl trope, etc. From age-gap relationships to workplace flings, and balancing friendship and romance to achieving one’s dreams, josei has fans covered, and these josei romance manga are the best of the bunch.

Updated on October 17 2024, by David Heath: Sometimes, the barrier between shojo stories and josei can seem skin deep. Ai Yazawa’s classic romance Nana covers mature themes like music business politics, relationship drama, and death, yet it’s considered a shojo series. In turn, Chihayafuru sounds like it would be a shojo story on paper, as its lead takes up karuta to find her old friend, but it’s a josei story. That’s not to mention Kazuo ‘Umezz’ Umezu and Hideshi Hino’s old-school horror comics, which are all gory, all horrifying, and nearly all shojo strips.

Still, once someone starts reading a josei story, they’ll usually see the big difference, as its own grounded takes on love and romance, and the perils within, can hit harder than a shojo story’s flights of fancy. That is, if they’re high caliber. So, this list has received more highly-rated josei romance manga that show off how tricky love can be between adults, from awkward situationships to societal discrimination.

20 Hana Wants This Flower To Bloom!

MyAnimeList Score: 6.74

• Creator: Haruna Ueno.
• Release Date: February 25, 2018.
• Volumes: 3.
• Fan Translations only.

Hana Wants This Flower to Bloom! is about Hana, a typical office worker whose parents see marriage in her near future. However, after she walks in on her boyfriend cheating, she’s back at square one. She had better support from her gardening blog’s readers than in the world of romance. Then Hana’s mom sets her up on a blind date with a man. Fortunately, she recognizes him as someone she bumped into at the train station once, and she thinks they really hit it off on their date.

Unfortunately, he says he doesn’t have any intention of getting married. He’s indifferent to relationships, but she suspects he’s one of the regular readers on her gardening blog. In fact, she thinks he’s one particularly attentive reader who she’s been talking through for the past 4 years on the site. But how can she know for sure? How can she reveal the truth if he is her most dedicated reader? And how will he react? Readers will have to check out the manga to find out.

19 Dekinai Futari

MyAnimeList Score: 7.02

• Creator: Satomura.
• Release Date: October 20, 2020.
• Volumes: 5.
• Fan Translations only.

Dekinai Futari starts with Nao and Takehito as office rivals, who “fight like cats and dogs,” according to their coworkers. But when Nao gets sick and accidentally texts Takehito instead of her sister, he comes to her aid despite their differences, reminding her of all the reasons she used to love him. It turns out the two used to date in high school, but nobody else knows about this.

When things start to heat up between the two, Touma, a fierce and worthy rival to Takehito, appears to shake things up. How will Takehito and Nao deal with their feelings while keeping things a secret? Their coworkers already think they’re enemies. Learning the truth could make things more uncomfortable than they should be. If seeing it in print isn’t enough, the strip hasn’t been adapted into an anime, but it did get a live-action series in 2022 for viewers to check out.

18 Date Of Marriage

Anime-Planet Score: 3.78/5 Stars

• Creator: Ito Nishihara (web novel), Muno (manga adaptation).
• Release Date: March 28, 2020.
• Volumes: 6+.
• Available in English via Mangamo.

When Yoshiko is unexpectedly dumped by her long-term boyfriend, she fears that her goal to be married by the age of 30 is out the window. When she voices this fear to her coworker, Yuuki, he casually suggests that, if she hasn’t found someone else by the time she hits that age, he’ll marry her instead. Which will turn her future birthday into a Date of Marriage.

Yoshiko thinks that Yuuki is just being nice at first, but when he runs into her at work the next day, he tells her he was being serious. There’s something about the proposal that gets Yoshiko’s heartbeat racing, yet she can’t help but wonder if he has any ulterior motives. The manga is an adaptation of Nishihara’s original web novel, and its unique premise was enough to receive a live-action drama series in 2023 as well.

17 Perfect World

MyAnimeList Score: 7.57

• Creator: Rie Aruga.
• Release Date: March 24, 2014.
• Volumes: 12.
• Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA.

In Perfect World, Tsugumi had dreams of becoming a painter in high school, only to become a normal 26-year-old woman working for an interior design firm, while Itsuki is an architect who became disabled after getting in an accident shortly after he graduated. Though the two were friends back in the day, with Tsugumi even crushing on Itsuki, they never got together and went their separate ways after their last days at school.

Then the two unexpectedly come across each other at a business dinner, where she discovers what happened to him since graduation. Itsuki is reluctant to start anything with her due to his wavering health and fears of bringing her down. Being disabled is difficult enough without adding more heartbreak on top. In turn, Tsugumi doesn’t want to spoil their friendship. Yet being with him brings back her old feelings. It sets the two on the path to a romantic clash where they’ll have to face their feelings as well as the facts, and see which one wins out.

16 Haru’s Curse

MyAnimeList Score: 7.60

• Creator: Asuka Konishi.
• Release Date: November 28, 2015.
• Volumes: 2.
• Available in English via Kodansha USA’s Vertical Comics imprint.

Haru’s Curse showcases how josei can be more complex, with its tale about love and grief. Before she died, Haru asked her sister Natsumi to bury her with a photo of herself with her boyfriend Tougo. It was a simple enough request, but after the funeral, Tougo approaches Natsumi about taking Haru’s place by going out with him. Although Haru truly loved Tougo, they were in an arranged marriage in order to preserve Tougo’s bloodline.

This meant either sister would have fit the bill for the arrangement, though his family much preferred Haru. She agreed only if he’d take her to the places he took Haru. But the grief over the loss of her beloved sister and the guilt of taking her partner drives her to the edge. She isn’t alone, however. Through this unusual arrangement, she and Tougo find solace in their loss and learn to live again day by day.

15 Strawberry Love

MyAnimeList Score: 7.68

• Creator: Irono.
• Release Date: August 16, 2018.
• Volumes: 4.
• Available in English via Square Enix’s Manga UP digital platform.

Can love be found on a strawberry farm? Yes, if Strawberry Love has anything to say about it. When Sara’s grandfather is hospitalized, she needs to take care of his strawberry farm for him until he gets better. This is where she meets Minori, a veteran strawberry farmer who’s tasked with showing her the ropes. The two are awkward at first but slowly open up to each other, both harboring feelings that they’re too afraid to reveal. How come? Because there’s a 13-year age gap between the two.

She’s a 20-year-old college student, and he’s a 33-year-old guy from the sticks. They’re both adults, albeit ones who are too worried about that gap to express themselves. It’s a wholesome take on a trope that puts the two on an even footing, avoiding the awkwardness other age-gap stories (often intentionally) build upon for titillation. Which is likely why it managed to successfully make the leap from being a Pixiv webcomic to becoming a regular strip in PFantapy magazine.

14 Please Love The Useless Me

MyAnimeList Score: 7.79

• Creator: Aya Nakahara.
• Release Date: April 15, 2013.
• Volumes: 10.
• Fan Translations only.

Please Love the Useless Me sees Michiko Shibata down on her luck. She had just lost her job, was barely surviving on her meager savings, and spent the last of a sketchy loan she took out on a ‘boyfriend’ who turned out to be scamming her. It’s at her lowest ebb that she finds herself reconnecting with her old boss, Kurosawa.

He treats her to a meal, and the two discuss her working for him again via a restaurant he inherited from his grandmother. Michiko is tentative because she remembers him as a horrible boss, but she takes the offer as there’s something about this new line of work that suits him better. They make for a nice odd couple, where they start off bickering but gradually find out they’re on more common ground than they think.

13 I.S: Intersexuality

MyAnimeList Score: 7.83

• Creator: Chiyo Rokuhana.
• Release Date: July 8th, 2003.
• Volumes: 17.
• Fan Translations only.

Josei romance can cover complicated situations, like love during grief in Haru’s Curse, and how being disabled can make romance a thorny prospect in Perfect World. There’s also plenty of LGBTQ-themed josei strips too, though few of them are like I.S: Intersexuality. Intersex people are rarely mentioned in the media, and when they are, it’s often derogatory, where they’re dismissed as being too small of a demographic to count.

I.S: Intersexuality goes into that from the perspective of 3 intersex people: Hiromi, Ryoma, and Haru. It goes into their troubles dealing with their physical characteristics and how they affect their gender, how society uses it against them, and how it affects their attempts to find someone to love them. Hiromi and Ryoma’s tales are fairly short, with Haru, an intersex man trapped in a female puberty, making up the bulk of the manga’s run. Its drama earned it a Kodansha Manga Award in 2007, and a TV series adaptation with Yatterman‘s Saki Fukuda as Haru.

12 Black Sesame Salt And Custard Pudding

MyAnimeList Score: 7.87

• Creator: Yufuko Suzuki.
• Release Date: July 27, 2018.
• Volumes: 3.
• Available in English via Renta!

Haruhi gets herself in a sticky situation when her dad suddenly demands she move back home to work for his construction company. Instead of talking it out with her father, Haruhi drunkenly decides that her best option is to marry the closest man at the izakaya (traditional Japanese bar) and finds herself bringing home a man 20 years her senior after signing marriage papers.

While this could be a set-up for something unsavory, the story takes a sweeter turn as her now-husband, Nagato, works with her to help her father accept that her dreams lie in the big city rather than a small town business. Then, in the process, it tells a story about two people meant for each other, despite their appearances. Hence, the title “Black Sesame Salt and Custard Pudding,” an unlikely pairing of a salty seasoning with a sweet dessert.

11 Tramps Like Us

MyAnimeList Score: 7.95

• Creator: Yayoi Ogawa.
• Release Date: May 8th, 2000.
• Volumes: 14.
• Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA.

People usually see love in solid terms, like friends to lovers, lovers to engaged, engaged to married, etc. But it’s not always as neat as that. People can end up in situationships where they’re more than friends but less than lovers. The term is relatively new, but it’s a bond that people have found themselves in since time immemorial. It was certainly around in 2000 when Tramps Like Us came out in Kiss magazine. It follows Sumire, a depressed journalist who, after being demoted at work and losing her fiancée, finds an injured homeless man outside her condo.

She takes him in to help him out and develops a connection with him. She jokes that she’d rather have him as a pet than a partner, and he agrees! So, she names him ‘Momo’, gives him a place to stay, and loves him like he was a dog or cat. But even when she does find a potential lover, an old uni friend called Hasumi, she can’t let go of ‘Momo’, who’s stuck on her too. It only gets more difficult when he befriends ‘Momo’, unaware of his unique connection to Sumire. It’s an awkward situation that only gets more difficult as it goes on.

10 The Embalmer

MyAnimeList Score: 7.99

• Creator: Mitsukazu Mihara.
• Release Date: May 8th, 2002.
• Volumes: 7.
• Formerly available in English via Tokyopop.

The Embalmer isn’t strictly about romance, but romance plays a big part in its plot. It follows Shinjuro, a man who followed in his American father’s footsteps as an embalmer. While embalming is a common practice in the West, it’s a thornier prospect in Japan and East Asia, where cremation is the preferred way to handle the deceased. As such, he and other embalmers often face discrimination for their job. But for Shinjuro, it helps him understand humanity and death. That even the dead deserve respect for their last goodbye to their living loved ones.

It also helps him understand his late father, who he always thought was aloof, and understand himself. After his work, he often finds himself desperate for warmth, sleeping with multiple women. All except his landlady, Azuki. He loves her, but can’t bring himself to make a move on her. Likewise, Azuki grows closer to him, understanding why people embalm the dead, though she has her own complications that keep her from connecting to Shinjuro. As far as workplace romance goes, The Embalmer is one of the more unique examples out there.

9 Run Away With Me, Girl

MyAnimeList Score: 8.01

• Creator: Battan.
• Release Date: October 25th, 2018.
• Volumes: 3.
• Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA.

Japanese people are often seen as being reserved, and not given to making public displays of affection. But that doesn’t mean ice water runs through their veins. If their media is anything to go by, their friendships can often be more passionate than romantic relationships elsewhere. That is, if they are just friendships. Run Away With Me, Girl shows the downside to this, as Momo ‘Maki’ Makimura really loved her friend Midori in high school.

But once they graduated, Midori felt they were “too old to be fooling around dating girls”. Like they were just friends being affectionate than full-on lovers. Years later, they meet again by chance, where Maki learns Midori is pregnant and due to be married. Usually she would congratulate her, but the more she learns about her fiancée, the more red flags she notices. With her old feelings flaring, and her worries growing, she tries to convince Midori to run away with her, and show women can never be too old to love each other.

8 Josee, The Tiger And The Fish

MyAnimeList Score: 8.01

• Creators: Seiko Tanabe (original novel), Nao Emoto (manga adaptation).
• Release Date: January 6th, 2020.
• Volumes: 2.
• Available in English via Yen Press.

Josee, The Tiger and the Fish was the title story of a compilation of Seiko Tanabe’s short stories published in 1985 and was adapted as a live-action movie in 2003. It took another 17 years for it to get another live-action movie via Korea, an animated movie via Japan, and this manga by the movie’s character designer Nao Emoto. Like Perfect World, it’s about a disabled person finding love.

This time the guy, Tsuneo, saves Kumiko ‘Josee’ Yamamura from a near-death experience and, as a token of gratitude, receives a job offer to become her caretaker. At first, things don’t go well, until he’s able to take her out to see the sea. As she gets to see more of the world, she learns to express herself artistically. The two bond, but the path to love isn’t as easy as it seems.

7 Gokusen

MyAnimeList Score: 8.06

• Creator: Kozueko Morimoto.
• Release Date: December 15th, 1999.
• Volumes: 15.
• Fan Translations only.

Gokusen hasn’t received an official English translation, though its 13-episode anime adaptation did get an English dub in 2004 if people are keen to track it down. It’s a josei story with a twist, as it combines a hot-for-teacher tale with the yakuza. It sees Kumiko ‘Yankumi’ Yamaguchi become the homeroom and math teacher for Class 3D, the most unruly class of characters at the all-boys Shirokin Academy.

She’s able to bring them to heel with her stern ways and curious behavior. It earns their respect and 18-year-old Shin’s interest. He wonders why she works better with his class of delinquents than the more well-behaved ones. Then he discovers her secret: she’s the heir to the Kuroda Ikka yakuza family, and they want her back as their leader. The result is a romcom where, despite his best efforts to help, Shin is often bailed out by Yankumi. But each time he tries, he earns that extra bit of respect.

6 Honey and Clover

MyAnimeList Score: 8.26

• Creator: Chica Umino.
• Release Date: April 24th, 2000.
• Volumes: 10.
• Available in English via Viz Media.

Honey and Clover is a unique case, as it’s both a shojo strip and a josei one. It started life in Cutie Comic, a shojo magazine. Then, when it ceased publication, it was moved to Young You, before finishing off in Chorus, both of which were josei magazines. Though while things get more complicated for its leads, the strip doesn’t get as heavy as The Embalmer or Run Away With Me, Girl. It’s more easygoing as it follows Takemoto, Mayama, and Morita, three art students who live in the same apartment complex.

Dealing with classes and trying to afford food becomes the least of their worries when they get a new classmate: Hagumi, the daughter of the art professor’s cousin. Takemoto and Morita fall in love with her, though Takemoto tries to keep his cool. Then Hagumi’s friend Ayumi, ‘the Iron Lady’ develops feelings for Mayama. Except he’s more interested in Rika, an older woman who runs an architecture studio she founded with her late husband. Through these tricky situations, they end up learning more about themselves and grow as people.

5 Paradise Kiss

MyAnimeList Score: 8.29

• Creator: Ai Yazawa.
• Release Date: March 23rd, 1999.
• Volumes: 5.
• Available in English via Vertical Inc.

Nana may be a particularly mature shojo than a josei tale, but her earlier work Paradise Kiss was definitely aimed at the josei crowd. Instead of Nana‘s music industry shenanigans, it’s about the ins and outs of a high school fashion club. Yukari is a strait-laced, if arrogant, student aiming to do the proper thing and get into a good university via the entrance exams, yet she feels she’s living someone else’s life and not her own. Then fate takes a turn when she’s ambushed by Paradise Kiss, the school’s eclectic fashion design club.

They want Yukari to model their wares, which she outright refuses at first. But after some coercing from their leader, George, she takes up their offer. Over time, she sees the group’s dedication to their craft and gradually grows to admire their passion for fashion, compared to her studies where she was just going through the motions. But their passions can also make things more complicated, as they all have their own issues, from inferiority complexes, to bad luck in love.

4 Nodame Cantabile

MyAnimeList Score: 8.40

• Creator: Tomoko Ninomiya.
• Release Date: July 10th, 2001.
• Volumes: 25.
• Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA.

Nodame Cantabile likely needs no introduction, as it’s a classic romance manga that has had multiple adaptations to a variety of different media, from anime to live-action series, which won awards in their own right. But for anyone who hasn’t checked out the original manga, it follows Shinichi, the son of a famous pianist who has his own talent for music. He wants to travel the world and make a name for himself as a conductor, but his intense fear of flying and the ocean keeps him grounded in Japan.

He’s a stickler for order, and his status as a musical prodigy made him arrogant. So, when he meets his new neighbor, Megumi ‘Nodame’ Noda, he’s dismayed. She’s just as talented at music as she is, but she plays by ear, often performing as sloppily and freeform as she is in life. However, their contrasting feelings and approach to music gradually help the two form a proper bond, as Shinichi learns to lighten up, open his mind, and tackle his fears through his growing affection for Nodame’s quirky attitude.

3 Hirano and Kagiura

MyAnimeList Score: 8.43

• Creator: Shou Harusono.
• Release Date: March 15th, 2019.
• Volumes: 4+.
• Available in English via Yen Press.

If Run Away With Me, Girl seems too intense (it’s mature in its content as well as its themes), readers might prefer the more easygoing pace of Hirano and Kagiura. Only instead of being a yuri, it’s a Boys’ Love story about two high school dorm mates who gradually become something more. Kagiura enters the dorms as he lives too far from school to commute and, despite initially being intimidated by the more outgoing Hirano, soon warms up to him when he helps him out with his studies and lends a listening ear.

It’s a spin-off from Harusono’s other BL story, Sasaki and Miyano, sharing some of the same characters and events. For example, the fight that brings Sasaki and Miyano‘s leads together also sees Kagiura comfort Hirano back after he gets caught up in it. But they’ll only be together for the school year, and as Kagiura grows closer to Hirano over that time, he wants to express his true feelings to him before the holidays come. The manga is still ongoing as of this writing, so only time will tell how it’ll turn out.

2 Kids On The Slope

MyAnimeList Score: 8.50

• Creator: Yuki Kodama.
• Release Date: September 28th, 2007.
• Volumes: 9.
• Fan Translations only.

Sakamichi no Apollon, aka Kids on the Slope, hasn’t had an official English translation yet, but it did receive an anime directed by Cowboy Bebop‘s Shinichiro Watanabe of all people. It was his next big work after Samurai Champloo and a host of rejected projects. Perhaps there was something to the story about a trio of students bonding and finding love through jazz that he found appealing.

Set in the 1960s, Kaoru has trouble making friends because his father’s work keeps his family moving every few years. But it’s while going to school in Sasebo that he meets Sentarou, the most feared delinquent at his school. Despite their different backgrounds, the two become friends over a shared interest in jazz music and befriend their classmate Ritsuko when they visit her family’s record shop. It’s only when romance enters the picture that things get more complicated between the three.

1 Chihayafuru

MyAnimeList Score: 8.57

• Creator: Yuki Suetsugu.
• Release Date: December 28th, 2007.
• Volumes: 50.
• Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA.

Josei romance often sees love bloom for office ladies, college students, teachers, etc. Chihayafuru sees it spring up in the world of competitive karuta. It sees the aimless Chihaya and insecure Taichi introduced to Uta-garuta, a card game where players have to complete a classical poem with cards before their opponent, new student Arata.

His skill at the game inspires Chihaya to partake, while Taichi takes part in order to beat Arata. They played it all the time as kids until fate split them apart. But Chihaya’s love for the game and her friends never went away. Now in high school, she enters karuta’s competitive scene in order to be the best and see Arata again, unaware that she’s already got an admirer in her life.