Comedy is one of those genres that can work for almost anyone. That said, I rarely seek out comedy manga on purpose. Most of my reading leans darker and more serious. Still, every so often I stumble upon something so sharp, absurd, or aggressively unhinged that I can’t ignore it.
That’s what this list is for. These are my favorite comedy manga, and they range from straightforward gag comedy to satire, parody, and full-on chaos. Some of these stories are more conventionally funny. Others are the kind of funny that feels like the author is trying to fit as many crazy ideas into one series as possible.
Asobi Asobase is the purest gag manga on this list, a deadpan school comedy that turns simple games and conversations into escalating nonsense. Dementia 21 and The Legend of Koizumi take serious setups and push them to ridiculous extremes, making them work through sheer commitment. Then there’s Rosen Garten Saga, an explicit, hentai-adjacent sex comedy that’s wildly over-the-top. It won’t be for everyone, but if you like edgy humor with no restraint, it’s a standout.
All of these series are funny in different ways, whether they’re satirizing popular tropes, parodying genre conventions, or simply committing to the bit with total confidence.
Mild spoiler warning: I will keep descriptions tight and avoid giving away major jokes, but some setup is unavoidable when comedy is the point.
With that out of the way, here are my 12 favorite comedy manga (last updated: January 2026).
12. The Mermaid Princess’ Guilty Meal
What a manga this is! The Mermaid Princess’ Guilty Meal takes one central idea and refuses to let you look away: what if a sweet, beloved mermaid princess mourned her fallen sea-creature friends by ordering them at a human restaurant, then accidentally discovers she loves the taste?
That’s the premise, and it’s a strong one. Era starts with sincere grief and ritual, then spirals into a weird mix of guilt, craving, and escalating commitment to paying her respects the only way she knows how. The humor comes from the disconnect. The series plays the situation straight just long enough for it to feel uncomfortable, then snaps back into deadpan absurdity before it becomes grim.
Structurally, it’s mostly episodic. You meet a new sea friend, get a quick glimpse of their personality and a hint of backstory, and then watch the punchline get served on a plate, sometimes with a surprisingly earnest aftertaste. That rhythm could’ve turned repetitive fast, but the manga keeps it moving with fresh creature concepts, a steady stream of small character bits, and a tone that’s silly without pretending the premise isn’t twisted. It even leans into the food manga angle with recipe-style extras, which somehow make the whole thing even funnier.
This core gag never changes, so if you binge it, the shock factor fades and you’ll notice the formula more. But as a short, complete comedy manga, it’s hard not to respect how confidently it commits to such a deranged hook, then finds room for warmth inside it.
If you want a comedy manga that leaves you laughing and wondering what you’re reading, this is a great pick.
Genres: Comedy, Gourmet, Fantasy
Status: Completed (Seinen)
11. Reiwa Hanamaru Gakuen
At first glance, Reiwa Hanamaru Gakuen looks like a gentle slice-of-life story set at an all-girls school. The chapters are short, the concerns are small, and the tone is deliberately sweet. Students fuss over outfits, chatter about crushes, and treat sports day like the most important event on Earth.
Then the series shows you its cast, and you instantly realize the joke. These girls are all action-manga bruisers, with wide shoulders, giant biceps, and square jaws. Nothing else changes. Nobody comments on it. The story never winks at the reader. It just keeps playing classic school comedy beats with a lineup that looks like it came straight from a testosterone-soaked 1980s tournament arc.
This commitment is the entire joke, and it works because the manga understands timing. It doesn’t explain the premise or justify it. It lets the contrast do the work, and the fun is watching familiar moments become surreal purely through visual dissonance. A shy blush hits differently when it’s drawn on a bodybuilder’s face. A simple hairstyle debate turns into a showdown. Even the cute paneling feels like performance art.
There’s a limit, though. The central gag is so dominant that your enjoyment will depend on how much you like watching the same gag get remixed. In small bursts, it stays sharp. If you binge, you’ll notice that it often leans into the same shock of mismatch.
Still, if you like deadpan absurdity, parody that never breaks character, and a comedy manga that feels almost wholesome while looking completely wrong, this one’s an easy recommendation.
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life, School, Parody
Status: Completed (Seinen)
10. Mob Psycho 100
Before ONE became a household name through One Punch Man, he wrote Mob Psycho 100, a series that shares the same overpowered-protagonist setup but aims it at a very different punchline. Mob is a middle schooler with overwhelming psychic power who wants, more than anything, to be normal. To keep his abilities in check, he takes exorcism jobs under Arataka Reigen, a self-proclaimed esper with no powers, endless confidence, and a talent for talking his way through disasters.
The comedy here runs on the contrast: Mob’s quiet, restrained sincerity colliding with Reigen’s charisma, plus the constant whiplash between everyday self-improvement and supernatural chaos.
What makes it stand out as a comedy manga is how often it lets character dynamics do the work. The best jokes come from people overreacting, rationalizing, or clinging to pride in situations where pride should be impossible. It’s deadpan, it’s absurd, and it’s sharp about status, ego, and the little lies people tell themselves. At the same time, it has a surprisingly warm core. The series keeps pushing Mob toward growth that has nothing to do with being special, which gives the humor a grounded, human texture.
The main caveat is presentation. ONE’s art is expressive and effective, but it’s also rough. The balance also shifts over time toward bigger conflicts, so if you only want gags, it won’t stay purely episodic.
Still, Mob Psycho is a psychic spectacle with a mentor-student dynamic that never stops being funny, and it has a surprising amount of heart.
Genres: Comedy, Action, Supernatural
Status: Completed (Shonen)
9. Ranma 1/2
Ranma 1/2 looks like a classic martial arts series at first glance, but the fights are only half the point. Rumiko Takahashi uses martial arts to deliver comedy, rivalry, and romance, and the best jokes land because they’re built right into the action.
Ranma Saotome comes home from training. When he and his father arrive at the Tendo household, the key premise takes shape. Ranma is pushed into an engagement with Akane Tendo. Even worse, he’s suffering from a curse that turns him into a girl when splashed with cold water and back again with hot water. That single switch turns conversations into misunderstandings, turns pride into panic, and pushes every conflict into escalation comedy. The series doesn’t have to force jokes because the premise does most of the work.
A lot of laughs come from the cast. Nearly everyone is a dialed-up personality trait created to collide with each other. Ryoga’s famously terrible sense of direction is a prime example. He’s not just getting lost sometimes, he disappears across the country for days or even weeks at a time. Add in increasingly ridiculous martial arts styles, and you get a comedy that treats combat as both spectacle and vehicle for jealousy, insecurity, and one-upmanship.
Ranma 1/2’s main issue is repetition. The episodic chaos has appeal, but it can also keep the romance and the character dynamics stuck in place, and some of the era’s tsundere behavior can be grating. Still, when Takahashi wants to land something sincere, the series can be surprisingly heartfelt without losing its momentum.
If you’re looking for a martial arts series that’s readable, inventive, and consistently funny, Ranma 1/2 still holds up.
Genres: Action, Comedy, Romance, Martial Arts
Status: Completed (Shonen)
8. One Punch Man
One Punch Man is a rare action-comedy that works because it’s both a parody and the thing it’s parodying. ONE’s core joke is simple: Saitama is so absurdly strong that he defeats every enemy with a single punch. The punchline is not just that he wins. It’s that he wins without even trying, while doing chores, shopping for groceries, or worrying about rent.
The comedy is built on contrast. The world treats heroism like an escalating hierarchy of titles, rankings, and hype, while Saitama is utterly bored by it all. Early on, that plays as tight, episodic humor, with massive, powerful monsters showing up at the worst time and being killed off in a single panel. As the series expands, it gets even funnier, but in a different way. Once Saitama joins the Hero Association as a low-ranking member, the focus shifts to a huge cast of heroes and villains. That broader focus builds tension but keeps the plot from staying static. Fights are pure spectacle, brutal and varied, showcasing different heroes’ abilities and techniques. That is, until Saitama arrives, often half-paying attention, accidentally saving the day, and nobody even noticing.
That broader perspective also introduces some of the best character-based comedy in One Punch Man. King is the standout example, a supposed legend whose reputation does all the work for him. Watching everyone misread his fear as intimidation is one of the series’ sharpest running gags.
The manga’s most glaring issue is pacing. Once the arcs get bigger, the story can spend long stretches away from Saitama, and the release schedule has a reputation for slowing down when revisions and redraws happen. Still, when this comedy manga hits its stride, the blend of spectacle and timing is hard to beat.
One Punch Man mixes superhero-spectacle with deadpan jokes, and it’s one of the easiest recommendations if you want comedy with real action.
Genres: Action, Comedy, Superhero
Status: Ongoing (Seinen)
7. Gintama
Gintama is the kind of comedy that can do anything and still feel like itself. It’s long, messy in the best way, and constantly shifting gears between slapstick nonsense, sharp parody, and surprisingly sincere drama. If you only know it by reputation, the real appeal is how confidently it commits to extremes.
The manga is set in an alternate version of Japan’s Edo period under alien occupation. In this world, washed-up samurai Gintoki makes a living taking odd jobs with his crew, the Yorozuya. That framework allows the series to do whatever Sorachi wants that week. One chapter is built around a stupid misunderstanding. The next is a full parody of shonen tropes, pop culture, or the manga industry itself, complete with fourth-wall breaks and shameless running jokes.
What makes it work is the cast. Gintoki’s deadpan laziness, Shinpachi’s straight-man frustration, and Kagura’s feral chaos form the comedic core, but the supporting characters give the series its depth. Nearly everyone gets their own patterns, quirks, and callbacks, so the humor always feels fresh rather than repetitive. When the story leans into longer, more serious arcs, the stakes land because you actually care about the characters involved.
Still, Gintama is a vast series, and the humor is often reference-heavy, so not every gag will land cleanly if you’re not immersed in Japanese media. The tonal shifts can surprise new readers, even though they usually work.
Gintama is in a class of its own because it switches effortlessly between shonen chaos, heartfelt drama, and ridiculous comedy, sometimes all in a single chapter.
Genres: Comedy, Action, Sci-Fi, Samurai
Status: Completed (Shonen)
6. GTO
Great Teacher Onizuka is a 1990s school comedy manga with a premise that feels tailor-made for chaos: a former biker delinquent decides he wants to be a teacher, then gets assigned to a class famous for driving off every teacher who steps up in front of them. Onizuka is loud, crude, impulsive, and wildly unqualified on paper, which is exactly why the series works.
The comedy runs on escalation. Class 3-4 comes up with elaborate traps, humiliation campaigns, and social sabotage, while Onizuka responds with brute force, ridiculous stunts, and an instinct for turning any confrontation into a spectacle. The humor isn’t subtle. It’s full of reaction faces, public disasters, and problems solved in ways that shouldn’t be legal. At the same time, Tooru Fujisawa understands why this setup keeps readers hooked. Onizuka isn’t just a walking gag. He genuinely cares, and he will embarrass himself, take a beating, or even risk his job to protect a kid. Those sudden pivots into sincerity give the series heart and keep it from feeling empty.
The manga’s biggest issue is its age. GTO is very much a product of its time, and some of the sexual humor and voyeuristic gags haven’t aged well. If you have a low tolerance for sleazy jokes or borderline material played for laughs, it might take away from your enjoyment.
Still, if you want a comedy that’s over-the-top, surprisingly heartfelt, and built around an iconic main character, GTO more than deserves its reputation. It’s a story full of delinquent energy but with real mentorship at its core.
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life, School, Drama
Status: Completed (Shonen)
5. Asobi Asobase
Asobi Asobase is what happens when a cute middle-school club setup turns unhinged without warning. It follows three girls in the Pastimers Club, where the official purpose is to kill time with small games and dumb activities. The real purpose is watching every harmless moment spiral into chaos.
The comedy comes from character contrast. Kasumi is the reluctant straight man who wants peace and quiet, Hanako is a polite-looking menace who switches from sweet to unhinged in seconds, and Olivia plays the foreign transfer student angle with a commitment that keeps generating misunderstandings. The chapters start with something small, like a playground game or a clubroom argument, then build momentum through escalating reactions, broken logic, and a level of emotional intensity that feels completely disproportionate to what is happening.
What makes it land is timing and expression. The art style is clean and cute, which only makes the sudden contortions, screaming faces, and sharp mood flips even funnier. It’s deadpan when it needs to be, loud when it should be, and it has a gift for turning throwaway dialogue into a punchline by pushing one beat further than you expect. Even when it dips into surreal side bits, it still feels like the same series because the core dynamic stays readable.
The manga’s at its best when it focuses on the central trio and the clubroom format. Later in the series, it keeps widening the cast and drifting into side tangents. As a result, the pacing gets muddled, and the ending might not hit as clearly if you’re attached to the original trio.
Asobi Asobase is a relentlessly silly comedy manga that keeps escalating even the simplest games, and it’s exactly the right kind of chaos.
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life, School, Surreal
Status: Completed (Seinen)
4. Dementia 21
Dementia 21 takes a premise that sounds wholesome on paper, before you realize this is a manga by Shintaro Kago. Framed as a story about elderly care and home visits, Kago turns it into a series of increasingly surreal escapades. It may be a comedy manga, but it makes you wonder just how bizarre comedy can become, and what it can get away with.
Each chapter follows Yukie Sakai, an aggressively upbeat caregiver who treats every assignment like a normal day at work, even when the situations are clearly absurd. This straight-faced professionalism is the joke. Kago keeps handing her patients and institutions that feel slightly off at first, then pushes them into outright derangement, often in ways that double as satire. You get the sense that this time his motive isn’t to gross people out to shock them. Instead, he’s taking today’s anxieties about aging, loneliness, bureaucracy, and modern technology and twisting them into jokes that land because they’re uncomfortably plausible.
The humor is deadpan and unhinged. One chapter reads like a workplace gag, the next becomes a dystopian scenario, and the one after feels like a deranged social experiment. Kago’s art helps a lot here. His details and panel control make the absurdity grounded, like you’re watching a nightmare presented as routine.
Still, this is a work by Shintaro Kago after all. Compared to his harsher works, Dementia 21 may be more accessible, but it still has his familiar edge, including occasional sexual undertones, cruelty played for laughs, and a lot of scenes that make you wonder just what you’re reading. If you want comfort comedy, this isn’t it.
As a surreal gag manga, however, Dementia 21 is one of the strangest and funniest I’ve read.
Genres: Comedy, Satire, Surreal
Status: Completed (Seinen)
3. Rosen Garten Saga
Rosen Garten Saga reads like a battle manga built from the worst possible idea and executed with far more craft than it has any right to. It’s essentially a tournament story that remixes the Nibelungenlied and other legends into a fantasy brawl, except nearly every heroic figure has been rewritten as a walking fetish. The result is a comedy manga that treats prestige myths like raw material for shameless parody.
The comedy comes from the clash between presentation and content. In other manga, characters give grand speeches about honor, destiny, and legacy, but here they’re about sexual preference and getting laid. The fights, while genuinely gripping and well-choreographed, are almost entirely centered around sexual humiliation, fetish logic, and the kind of escalation that will make you wonder how any of this is supposed to be serious. Rosen Garten Saga is also full of nudity, but it’s not trying to be seductive. The explicit content is used almost entirely to make the reader uncomfortable, which is exactly why it lands so well as a black comedy instead of straightforward eroticism.
What makes it surprisingly readable is how straight-faced it stays. The story is coherent enough to keep momentum, the cast is varied enough to keep the gags from feeling one-note, and the artwork is genuinely strong, with clean action staging and high-energy paneling that sells the absurdity rather than hiding it.
Rosen Garten Saga is an extreme, explicit comedy manga that depicts sexual violence and other adult content that will drive readers away almost instantly. But if you can handle the filth and want an unhinged fantasy parody that never breaks character, it is unforgettable.
Genres: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Erotica
Status: Ongoing (Seinen)
2. The Way of the Househusband
The Way of the Househusband is built on a single joke, but somehow never gets repetitive. Tatsu is a retired yakuza legend who now treats domestic life as his full-time job. Cooking, cleaning, and neighborhood small talk all get framed with the intensity of an underworld showdown, right down to the posture, the glare, and the constant sense that violence is about to erupt.
It works because the manga commits fully to this tonal contrast. Tatsu never breaks character. He approaches the supermarket as if it’s hostile territory, speaks in an intimidating yakuza cadence while discussing meal prep, and turns basic etiquette into a code of honor. The punchline lands because the series plays everything straight. It’s not trying to convince you that the situation is normal. It insists that, to Tatsu, it’s life and death.
The episodic structure helps, too. Each chapter is a tight scenario with a clear setup and payoff, and the supporting cast keeps the jokes flexible. Other ex-yakuza drift in and out, and they all react to daily life as if they’re still stuck in that old world, which gives the series a steady supply of misunderstandings and overreactions.
Still, it’s a formula-driven series, so if you’re hoping for story progression or an overarching plot, The Way of the Househusband isn’t aiming for that. It’s about consistency, timing, and the pleasure of watching the same person collide with new everyday problems.
If you want a comedy manga that’s sharp, deadpan, and weirdly cozy without ever dropping its intimidating facade, this is as reliable as it gets.
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life
Status: Ongoing (Seinen)
1. The Legend of Koizumi
The Legend of Koizumi is an unhinged political satire that never stops escalating. It starts with a ridiculous premise and treats it as gospel: international disputes aren’t settled through diplomacy, but through high-stakes mahjong matches.
The comedy comes from how aggressively serious it’s about something that shouldn’t be serious. Each match is staged like a shonen battle, complete with signature moves, dramatic narration, and power-ups that have no business being attached to mahjong. The manga also leans hard into caricature, turning recognizable public figures into larger-than-life characters with an almost mythic presence, and asks you to take it as fact.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sits at the center, but the real hook is the cast and the melodrama around the table. George W. Bush shows up with named techniques like the Bush Doctrine Riichi, or Vladimir Putin with his signature move, the Siberian Express. The table turns into a battlefield with an intensity that rivals other series’ final arcs.
After a short introduction, the series completely loses its mind. Koizumi is recruited for a Vatican-led counterattack against a new threat. In the manga’s world, the Nazis fled to the Moon and built the Fourth Reich. Now, the fate of the Earth is decided by a life-or-death mahjong tournament that goes completely off the rails. Figures like Mengele, Wagner, and Skorzeny enter the tournament. The Pope reenacts the first seven days of Genesis on the table. Hitler transforms into the Legendary Super Aryan. The key is that the manga never breaks character. It commits so hard to the straight-faced seriousness that it becomes the punchline.
Obviously, this might not be for everyone. This comedy manga uses real people as inspiration, including Nazis and Hitler, so it’s intentionally provocative. The humor can also feel one-note if you don’t like stereotypes, references, and constant escalation.
Still, The Legend of Koizumi is unforgettable as one of the greatest straight-faced, unhinged satires in manga.
Genres: Comedy, Parody, Political, Sports
Status: Completed (Seinen)
