On Sunday (31/12), Indonesian book publisher m&c! posted the list of their best-selling comics in 2023. There are ten comics included in the list. They are:
- Hai, Miiko! volume 35
- Ito Junji Compilation 3: Souichi’s Convenient Curse
- Chainsaw Man volume 1
- Oshi no Ko: Anak Idola volume 1
- Uzumaki
- Death Note – New Edition volume 2
- Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku volume 11
- Monster volume 1
- Record of Ragnarok volume 6
- The Cold Sato is Only Sweet For Me volume 6
Written and illustrated by Eriko Ono, Hai, Miiko! tells the story of the life of a young girl named Miiko. Published in Japan since 1995 by Shogakukan, the manga also received an anime adaptation in 1999.
Ito Junji Compilation 3: Souichi’s Convenient Curse from Junji Ito is a story compilation of a character named Souichi Tsujii, the weird youngest son of the Tsujii family. He often curses people who pissed him off weirdly and hilariously but somehow the consequence of the curses always comes back to him.
Written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man tells the story of Denji, a poor young man who has a lot of debt. After an accident, his body is merged with a demon named Pochita, who granted him the ability to transform parts of his body into chainsaws. Later, Denji becomes a demon hunter who works under the Japanese government to fight the dangerous demon.
Initially, Chainsaw Man was serialized in Shueisha‘s Weekly Shonen Jump from December 2018 to December 2020. After several months of hiatus, the second serialization started in July 2022 on Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ online magazine. The second serialization focused on a new story with a new main character, Asa Mitaka, who forms a contract with the War Devil to hunt Chainsaw Man. Chainsaw Man is also available for the international audience on Shueisha’s digital comic platform Manga Plus in English, Spanish, Thai, Portuguese, and French Language.
First serialized in April 2020 in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump, Oshi no Ko: Anak Idola tells the story of an obstetrician who finds out that his favourite idol, Ai Hoshino, is secretly pregnant. Being a loyal fan, he promises to keep it secret from everyone. However, on the day Ai is supposed to give birth, the obstetrician is murdered by an unknown assailant. Surprisingly, he is reincarnated as one of Ai’s twin children, Aquamarine Hoshino. Now, Aquamarine spends his day together with his favourite idol while looking for the truth about his murderer, who probably has ties with Ai’s secret husband.
Written and illustrated by the horror manga artist Junji Ito, Uzumaki tells the story of a high school girl Kirie Goshimiya and her boyfriend Shuichi Saito. Both of them live in Kurozu-Cho, a town where the spiral curse affects the people around them. Kirie wants to escape from the town. But can she escape the curse that haunts her? What actually happened in the town?
Death Note manga tells the story of Light Yagami, a high school student who found Death Note, a book that could kill anyone whose name is written on it. After realizing its power, he started to punish criminals using the book.
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku tells the story of Narumi Momose, an office lady who happens to be a closet otaku. After breaking up with her boyfriend who works in the same office, Narumi applies for a job at another office. In her new workplace, she met Hirotaka Nifuji, her childhood friend who is also an otaku. Because being otaku was the reason Narumi broke up, she asks Hirotaka to keep her otaku hobby a secret. The manga was first posted as web manga on Pixiv in 2014 before getting serialized in 2015 on the digital manga platform Comic Pool. The anime adaptation aired in the spring of 2018, animated by A-1 Pictures.
Written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa, Monster tells a story about a genius surgeon Kenzo Tenma who is working in post-Cold War Germany. One day, when two patients in desperate need of emergency surgery are wheeled into his hospital, Tenma faces a terrible choice of saving the orphaned boy who came first or the mayor of Düsseldorf, whose recovery would raise the hospital’s profile and boost his own career. Against the demands of his superior, Tenma does what he believes is right and saves the child. However, his decision not only damages his prospects, but unleashes a chain of events so horrific that it might have come from the depths of his worst nightmares. Laden with guilt, Tenma begins a journey across Germany in search of a formidable young man who will challenge his morals, his love for life, and his very sanity. (Anime Planet)
Written by Shinya Umemura and illustrated by Ajichika, Record of Ragnarok tells the story of the fight between the gods and the strongest men in the world. In the story, the gods of the world have decided to end the human race due to their vice. However, Brunhild, one of the 13 demigod Valkyries, suggests an alternate proposal: rather than annihilating mankind, why not give them a fighting chance and enact Ragnarök, a one-on-one showdown between man and god? Now, Brunhild needs to assemble history’s greatest individuals or mankind will be destroyed.
The Cold Sato is Only Sweet to Me tells a story about Sato a popular highschool girl who is very cold to other people but sweet to the protagonist.
m&c! is an Indonesian comics publisher under the Kompas-Gramedia group. Other than publishing manga, the publisher also publishes Disney comics magazines, Hong Kong martial arts comics, as well as Indonesian comics under the KOLONI imprint. The publisher also has the Akasha imprint for mature comics and the Clover imprint for domestic and translated novels.
The Indonesian Anime Times
