I'm looking for a title to recommend to adults who have never read or possibly even heard of manga. These people would for the most part already be book readers, just of books without pictures.

My preferences are that it should be:
Short - no more than two volumes. I think that a long series commitment is too much to ask.
Licensed - so they can read a physical copy
Adult - so that means josei or seinen, or a more mature shoujo or shounen
Realistic storyline - I find that science fiction and fantasy are still big hurdles for a lot of people. Preferred genres would be mystery, historical, romance, slice-of-life, sports, comedy, etc.
Realistic art - no chibis, face faults, all that stuff that we tend to overlook but a reader new to manga might find off-putting
Non-problematic - needless to say, no ecchi, hentai, yuri, yaoi.

Essentially I'm looking for an adult novel with pictures. I guess a close approximation would be the Harlequins, only, you know, not a Harlequin.

Thanks for your help. I know we can come up with something!

Last edited by scarletrhodelia at 12:22 pm, Dec 19 2015

I set the unlicensed Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan and the licensed Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms in that section of my recommendations in the link below. It fits all criteria 100%!

I would further recommend Art Spiegelmann´s Maus if you want to prove with one self contained work that comics are capable of being high literature.

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I went through the licensed titles and here are my best bets:

The shortest are two Asano Inio works.
Solanin - 2 volumes of slice of life type thing.
Would fit a person who likes down to earth sort of fiction.

Nijigahara Holograph - 1 volume, would fit someone who's into psychology, philosophy or both. And a person who likes to think about what they read.

Now to the other titles, which are longer, but definitely worth it.
I think if the person likes sci-fi, they'll love those.

Pluto - A personal favorite of mine. The story is just so engaging.

Parasyte - Another favorite. This one is more action-packed and wacky at times. To me it's aliens done right. It's also really fast paced, so the length is less of an issue.

Akira - This might be stretching it, but I LOVE the film. You might even skip the manga, or just save it for later. The crazy was so perfect when I watched it for the first time, it made my body tingle. I was a teen back then, but I think it definitely qualifies as wholesome adult entertainment. : D
Find out if your adult has seen and enjoyed Chronicle, and if they had, tell them Akira is what they need in their life.

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If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

I second residentgrigo's suggestions and Solanin (actually, any of Asano's works).

Besides those, Yokokuhan may be interesting; is more of a action-mystery type of story, but I could see it as something people that are not into manga would enjoy.