All Knowledge Exists to Make Manga More Fun: Staff Soul Picks by Kana
Kana
I have a habit of collecting trivia. People often ask me, “What’s the point of memorizing something you could just look up?” or “How is knowing that ever going to help you?” I have plenty of answers, but the first one I’d give is this: It makes manga even more fun.
Literature, history, the rules of a game—whatever the subject, the moment something you know connects with a story, your enjoyment kicks into high gear. Of course, there’s something wonderful about diving in knowing absolutely nothing, then tumbling down the rabbit hole because you suddenly need to learn everything about that world.
The five titles I’ve chosen here all spark that hunger to know more. Sometimes, they even turn worlds I thought I understood completely upside down. I love manga that makes me think—but in the end, it’s usually my heart that gets carried away.
If Only I’d Found This When I Was in School...!
Bungo Stray Dogs
If you were introducing Bungo Stray Dogs, you would probably start with its premise: characters bearing the names of famous literary authors battle one another with supernatural abilities, all against the backdrop of Yokohama.
But you don’t need to know anything about literature to enjoy it. At its heart, this is a story about people who had nowhere to belong, meeting someone who changes that, and choosing how they want to live. The raw urgency of those struggles—and the relationships tangled up in trust and conflict—will grab you even if you’ve never read a single novel that inspired the series.
Above all, the character banter is phenomenal. There are so many pairings that make me think, Could these two please just keep talking forever? And the stories underpinning those relationships are every bit as good. The more you learn about the characters’ pasts and the choices they’ve made, the more weight even a casual remark begins to carry. It makes me want to reread everything, right down to the scenes where they’re simply trading wisecracks.
In Japanese schools, students spend time memorizing authors and their major works as part of literary history. If this manga had existed when I was a student, imagine how much more fun that would have been! Memorizing something for a test may not sound appealing, but give it the name and ability of a favorite character and you’ll learn it without anyone even asking.
You start out thinking you’re studying, and before you know it, you’re following your fave down a rabbit hole.
Oh, how I envy students today.
Need a Reason to Learn? This Manga Will Give You One
HUNTER×HUNTER
All knowledge exists to help us enjoy this manga. That may sound like a grand claim, but when it comes to HUNTER×HUNTER, I mean it almost entirely seriously. The more you know about psychology, politics, religion, games, and all kinds of other subjects, the more angles you gain for understanding its characters and plot.
The series is sometimes jokingly called a novel because its dialogue and internal monologues can be so long. Misread a single word, and your entire theory may go careening off in the wrong direction. At one point, a character says, “I wouldn’t think anyone with ordinary comprehension would need to confirm that, would they?” I can never shake the feeling that the line is aimed directly at me, the reader.
Your reading comprehension is being tested.
And just when you think you’re focused on following the logic, a single choice by one of the characters comes along and steals your heart. Your brain was running at full capacity, but your emotions were left completely defenseless.
That’s just unfair.
You don’t need some lofty reason to learn something. “I want to get even more out of this manga” is more than enough motivation for me.
Every reread brings another realization: Wait, that was foreshadowing? And as my own knowledge grows, I begin to notice layers of the story I couldn’t see before. It’s like a piece of gum I’ve been chewing for nearly thirty years that somehow keeps producing new flavors.
How Does This World Work?
Hyakumanjou Labyrinth
When I was a student, I had a part-time job debugging video games. To find glitches, I had to repeat the same actions over and over again.
I found it excruciating.
I know, I know—that was the job. But I just wanted to play the game normally...
The protagonist of Hyakumanjou Labyrinth also hunts for bugs in video games for a living. Unlike me, though, she enjoys the work itself, treating it like a strategy game where the goal is to uncover treasure no one else has found.
She discovered fun in the very task I only wanted to finish as quickly as possible. Is she a genius?
I was already in awe of her.
Then she becomes stranded in another world riddled with bugs. Watching her piece together its logic and figure out how to beat the world itself is irresistibly fun. Faced with inexplicable phenomena, she observes, thinks, and experiments. Precisely because something strange is happening, it must contain a clue to the system beneath it all. Before long, I was just as absorbed in her bug-hunting perspective as she was.
Is there a bad ending waiting ahead—or the true ending? I had to know, so I read the whole thing in one sitting. The story is complete in two volumes, but the experience is so satisfying that it hardly feels like you’ve read only two books.
Then again, reality is a game where we only get one life. Deciphering the rules of the world the way she does seems a little beyond me, so I suppose I’ll just keep grinding away and leveling up.
A Beautiful Village Where It’s Hard to Breathe
Apple Children of Aeon
A friend recommended this manga to me during a period when I was deeply immersed in folklore studies. A village’s traditional beliefs. Taboos that must never be broken.
Yes, my friend clearly knew my tastes.
But the subject matter alone wasn’t what captured my heart.
The artwork is quiet and beautiful—and within that stillness lurks a cold, bone-deep terror. The beauty doesn’t soften the fear. The two simply occupy the same image at once.
I absolutely love that feeling.
Think of warnings like “If you whistle at night, snakes will come.” Superstitions don’t exist only in some distant, isolated village. They are connected to our own everyday lives. In this story, too, beliefs and taboos aren’t foreign objects inserted merely to frighten us. They are part of the villagers’ daily existence.
At the center of it all is the bond between a married couple struggling against a fate that seems impossible to resist. The desperate desire to protect someone you love—and the awe and fear inspired by forces that refuse to bend to human convenience—quietly close in around you.
Within the beautiful landscape dwell taboos that must never be touched. I don’t want to look away because it frightens me. I want to keep looking because it is beautiful—even knowing that once I come into contact with its horrors, I can never again be an innocent traveler.
The Thrill of “You’re Doing That in Pictures?”
The Decagon House Murders
Among Japanese mystery fans, the question “Have you read The Decagon House Murders?” feels almost like a secret code for finding one of your own. Once you meet someone who knows just how good it is, you can’t help wanting to talk about it.
And yet, around anyone who hasn’t read it, you hardly dare say a word.
And now we can read that story as manga!
This is a novel long considered extremely difficult to adapt visually—and someone actually decided to tell it through drawings. Readers familiar with the original will understand just how ambitious that challenge is.
How are they possibly going to depict that?
Even when you already know the truth, the question is thrilling.
Mystery novels also contain a formidable adversary entirely separate from the mystery itself: the floor plan of an elaborate mansion. Which side was that room on again? Where does this hallway lead? I’m liable to get lost in the house before I even begin pursuing the killer.
That’s one of the great advantages of manga: you can follow the characters’ movements and positions visually. At last, I can concentrate on the mystery.
Whether I can actually solve it is another matter.
Now, I would love to tell you exactly what makes this adaptation so fascinating—but I’m afraid anything specific might diminish the surprise of its central trick. I start to say, “There’s this one scene...” and stop myself. I begin typing, “The way they depict...” and immediately delete it.
I have so much I want to say, but all I can do is transform into a bot that repeats:
Please. Just read it.
The Detours Aren’t Over Yet
Looking at these five titles together, I can see how experiences from every corner of my life have found their way back to manga. I certainly never expected to discover a story that could transform the misery of my old debugging job into something meaningful.
I want to keep finding manga that can sweep me away like that.
So I’ll keep looking things up. I’ll keep learning. And I’ll keep reading manga.
“What good is knowing that ever going to do you?”
Well, at the very least, it’s helped me have a wonderfully good time being alive.