New Year, New World: The Best New Fantasy Manga to Start 2023

A lone human warrior slays the Demon Lord. While the humans rejoice, an intense tournament takes place, with many fighting to be crowned the next demon lord. The leading contestant is Helck, a human hero who claims to hate his own kind. Vermilio the Red is determined to prove Helck is NOT worthy, even if she has to rig the competition to do it. This one is good dumb fun with an air of wackiness. I’m already cheering for the demons to win.

Anyone who knows the original Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid series will love this spin-off. Fafnir is a dark brooding curse dragon from the same world as Tohru, Kanna, and the others. Fafnir is an otaku whose main obsessions are gold, jewels, and destroying humans. He is also easily distracted by games, merch and doujinshi. It’s a great fantasy world with a beautiful bromance at its heart between Fafnir and his flatmate, Takiya.

Yokai Parks are all the rage, and Toritsuki Hiyori feels lucky enough to work at one. She works under the guidance of Dr Mutsu Goro, taking care of a variety of yokai (supernatural entities from Japanese folklore). The first chapter is adorable, reading like a fun documentary-style through a caretaker’s eyes. I love how it captures the duality of yokai – neither good nor evil. They are what they are, and their nature fits the situation. I mean, really. Who can stay mad at cute little sunekosuri shin-snugglers?

I honestly don’t know what I loved more: the beautiful character growth, the deep research into Ancient Japanese folklore, or the extra information in the afterword about snake and sparrow genitalia. Plus, it’s so darn beautiful! It’s an unusual boys love title in a fantasy world with anthropomorphic animals. Komazu is a sparrow who knows snakes eat small birds. When he encounters Shiratō, the white snake, he expects the worse. Instead, Shiratō saves him from a boar. The story is their journey through understanding, friendship, and love across different species and social castes. Warning: explicit sex scenes, so NSFW/NSFK

Yakou Shizuka works at a detective agency. Tounome is her boss, a charming gentleman who happens to also be invisible. Naturally, this makes him perfect for detective work, but he quickly finds it has no effect on Yakou. She’s blind (and uses her other senses to note when he is around). Charmed, Tounome is determined to get her to date him and isn’t against using his many skills. Yakou’s quirky coworkers, a contrarian man and a sisterly beast woman, watch out for her as the two lovebirds stumble their way through their office romance. This is so adorable, and you can’t help cheering them on.

Adapted from the light novel of the same name, this new fantasy manga has a lot of fun with the usual fantasy-game tropes. Broke and desperate, Souya signs up for a gig to warp to a fantasy world and ascend a dungeon tower to claim the treasure inside. However, an accident in the transfer process separates him from his teammates, leaving him stranded. All he has is a defective AI companion. Will his adventure end before it even begins? A fun combination of fantasy and sci-fi. This is an adaptation of the light novel of the same name, currently published in Nov 2021 by Yen On.