From among popular band-themed manga and comics that have been adapted into live-action and anime, our studio staff introduce 10 recommended music manga titles.
- A special feature on girls' band tracks and female-vocal study songs that help you focus
- [Anison × Rock] A compilation of anime songs performed by rock bands
- Recommended songs for beginner band members by instrument
- Cheer songs for girl bands: recommended masterpieces and popular tracks
- Girls' band youth songs: recommended masterpieces and popular tracks.
- A roundup of recommended band scores for beginners: introducing easy songs
- [Anison] A collection of anime theme songs by girls’ bands
- Tear-jerking motivational songs by Japanese bands: recommended classics and popular tracks
- Recommended songs for beginner bands: simple and crowd-pleasing tracks.
- Recommended Songs for Beginner Bands at School Culture Festivals
- [2026] For Band Beginners! Recommended Songs from Popular Bands That Get the Crowd Going at Live Shows
- Band-sound Vocaloid Song Special [Rock]
- Classic songs about school clubs. Recommended popular tracks.
a live-action adaptation
She Loves Lies Too Much (17 volumes published)
My girlfriend says I’m an honest person, even though I’m always telling lies.
Protagonist: Ogasawara Aki (hereafter: Aki)
A former member of Clerude Play (hereafter, 'Criple').
Although he is currently out of the band, Aki is the one who writes the songs for Cresp.
In short, I’m involved with the band as its sound creator.
However, it was officially released under the producer’s name, “Sōichirō Takagi,” effectively making him a ghostwriter.
The other main character, Riko Koeda (hereafter “Riko”), is a high school girl who loves Christmas presents.
An ordinary student who plays in a band with his classmates, Yuichi Kimishima and Sota Yamazaki.
One day, fed up with the fact that she was connected to Soichiro Takagi through music, Aki happened to meet a high school girl named Riko in town and asked her, "Do you believe in love at first sight?"
Aki, who had fallen into despair, didn’t care who it was.
When I’m feeling down, a new sound is born in my mind.
Humming to myself, I called out while playing the newly born sounds.
To a girl who reacts like a child.
When I tried to leave the scene as a joke
But I think I just fell in love at first sight...!
The story begins with an encounter that makes no sense.
However, Aki, who didn’t care who it was, didn’t like Riko or anything like that.
A famous work that was even made into a live-action film.
A setup typical of shoujo manga, with messy, tangled emotions between the boy and girl—and where one of them doesn’t even know that the other is the person composing songs for their favorite band.
After this, will the two of them properly grow to like each other?
From here on, please make sure to check it with your own eyes.
I need to hurry up and catch up to the latest volume too!
This is a work I especially recommend to girls in bands, particularly middle and high school students.
Waning Moon (Two-volume standalone edition / Two-volume collector’s and paperback editions)
A work by Ai Yazawa, the creator of NANA.
Although it’s a bit of an occult-style work, it really showcases Ai Yazawa’s sensibilities in the manga, and personally, it’s a piece I love very much.
One characteristic of this work is that it starts from a point where the developments escalate rapidly.
The story begins with the protagonist, Mizuki Mochizuki (hereafter, Mizuki), meeting Adam Lang (hereafter, Adam) in the city at night.
Mizuki, who had left her estranged family, met Adam, a foreigner playing guitar in the city at night.
Mizuki, irresistibly drawn to Adam’s blue eyes and sorrowful melodies, begins living with him.
As Mizuki gradually gets to know Adam, she finds herself increasingly drawn to his kindness.
When I laughed and talked about how my then-lover, Tomoki Anzai (hereafter, Tomoki), betrayed me,
Why does Mizuki talk about all the painful things with a smile?
I think it’s okay to cry.
I think forcing yourself to smile is even more miserable.
Relieved by those words, Mizuki ended up crying all night.
But that kindness was not directed at Mizuki; it was meant for his deceased lover, and Adam was merely seeing an illusion in Mizuki.
And then the story suddenly moves forward, and Adam abruptly tells Mizuki that he wants to break up.
I have to go now.
Makes me want to take you with me
I'll be waiting at the place where we first met until dawn.
Let's go together.
With those words, Mizuki goes to meet Adam.
I'll give you the rest of my life. Do whatever you want with it.
A lot of shocking content follows.
If you're interested, please pick it up and take a look.
In the live-action adaptation, HYDE was cast as Adam, and the overall vibe of the world felt essentially unchanged.
This is definitely a work I want adults to read.
animated adaptation
The Piano Forest (25 volumes published)
This manga depicts the struggles of two pianists and the way their talents blossom.
The protagonist, Kai Ichinose (hereafter referred to as Kai), grew up playing a piano that had been abandoned in a nearby forest since he was a child.
One day, I met a boy pianist named Shuhei Amemiya (hereafter, Amemiya) who had come from Tokyo.
Sosuke Ajino, who worked as an elementary school music teacher for two people (hereafter referred to as Ajino), was in fact once a genius pianist.
Because of a traffic accident, I lost my beloved fiancée and the freedom of my left hand, which is the very life of a pianist.
One day, he discovers Kai’s talent as a pianist—and realizes that this talent was nurtured on the very piano he had abandoned in the forest—and after many twists and turns, he becomes Kai’s mentor.
Amemiya recognizes Kai’s talent, starts seeing him as a rival and becomes overly fixated, which creates a rift between them.
Honestly, I think this is a work whose appeal you only understand once you read it.
Kai’s inner conflict and Amemiya’s feelings toward Kai.
Their growth is both joyful and sorrowful, and somehow, it feels a little redeeming.
Since there’s also an animated film adaptation, it’s fine to watch it in video form.
Please take a look first.
Kids on the Slope (9 volumes + 1 extra volume)
A work that ranked first in the women’s category of “Kono Manga ga Sugoi! 2009.”
The setting is a little earlier than the present day, early summer of 1966.
The protagonist, Kaoru Nishimi (hereafter, “Kaoru”), moves from Yokosuka to Sasebo in Nagasaki due to his seafaring father’s work.
Having moved to the countryside, my classmates whisper and gossip about me.
Because I have a habit of vomiting when I feel stressed, I start to feel nauseous while the class representative, Ritsuko Mukae (hereafter, Ritsuko), is showing me around the school building, overwhelmed by my classmates’ stares and the unfamiliar dialect.
In that stress-filled school, the only place where I can regain myself, where I can take a deep breath.
--- Rooftop ---
The man sleeping at the entrance to the rooftop when I tried to take refuge there.
Meet Sentaro Kawabuchi (hereafter, Sentaro).
Kaoru originally played the piano and specialized in classical music, but after meeting Sentaro, who plays jazz drums, he began to take on the challenge of jazz.
The Showa-era jazz atmosphere and the intertwined relationships among Kaoru, Sentaro, and Ritsuko create a unique worldview.
There are some great jazz pieces featured in the work, and since the original soundtrack is also available, I recommend that as well.
Boy's Notebook (8-volume set)
There’s no rule that says a man can’t sing soprano, right?
The protagonist, Yutaka Aoi, who has an angelic voice—a boy soprano—hears the choir of the school he transferred to and decides to join.
Though a crybaby, he is delicate and highly sensitive, and this weaves together the youthful days of the boys and girls around him.
Isn’t this the first work to spotlight the choir club—an extracurricular activity that hasn’t been featured much—so extensively?
Please understand both the fragility of the boy soprano voice—one that can only be produced for a limited time—and the struggles of those who possess it.
This work was also selected as a Jury Selections entry in the Manga Division of the 17th Japan Media Arts Festival.
Sialoa (Complete in 1 Volume)
Sentimental Vector = Hybrid Rock Circle
A unit consisting of Shoichi Taguchi and Misaki Harukawa.
A child of the digital-native generation who builds a worldview through the duality of music and manga.
They’ve released a manga with the same title as their own song, making it a groundbreaking work unlike their past bands—one that invites listeners to experience the song through this kind of imagery.
You can read the manga itself on the web, and you can also listen to the song itself.
In a way, might this be a new form of manga and music?
A new-sensation hybrid circle that simultaneously develops music and manga!
I’m the Beatles (all 8 volumes)
I've tried playing all sorts of things, but I always end up coming back to the Beatles.
Sho Hachiya, the protagonist—who loves the Beatles and is confident that, in terms of technique, he surpasses the band members themselves (hereafter: Sho).
In charge of the guitar.
Makoto Hatoumura (hereafter, Makoto), who worships Paul as a god and even retrained herself to be left-handed so she can play together, is in charge of the bass.
Rei Takatsu (hereafter, Rei), the leader of a four-person band, is in charge of rhythm guitar.
Konta Tsuruno (hereafter, Konta), who was originally in the same band as Rei, is the drummer.
The story begins with the final live performance of this four-member band.
Sho absolutely cannot even consider disbanding.
Amid all this, the four suddenly time-slip to an era when the Beatles are not yet known to the world.
In this world, we play Beatles songs, and we become the Beatles.
This is one of Kaiji Kawaguchi’s specialty time-slip stories.
What if you went to a world where your favorite band didn’t exist yet, played that person’s songs first, and tried to become that person yourself?
It’s a slightly unusual music manga where you can experience that kind of paradox.
DESPERADO (4 volumes in total)
I’d be really happy if anyone knows.
Or rather, I think people around my age or a little older would know this work.
“A battered Les Paul”—that phrase made my heart race back then.
A manga serialized by Kodansha during a time when music-themed manga were hard to get recognition and there weren't many of them.
『DESPERADO』
The protagonist, Shiina, and Kurosu, who is teaching Shiina to play the guitar.
While it has the kind of violent elements typical of boys’ manga from that era, each volume has a clear theme and the overall flow makes it easy to read.
The part I personally like is when Kurozu, enraged after a yakuza he bumped into in the street scratched up the Les Paul his friend treasured, goes to take revenge.
It’s the kind of revenge that would probably be quite problematic in today’s manga, but perhaps it’s because he’s thinking of his friend.
This manga is such a nostalgic work that I’d like to feature it in a separate post, so I’m planning to write about it in the near future.
If you happen to find it at a used bookstore, be sure to pick it up.
It’s probably a rare work that’s no longer being reprinted.
Piano no Mushi (6 volumes published)
Arrogant and unfit, with a terrible personality.
However, the piano tuner Atsushi Hiruta (hereafter, “Hiruta”), whose tuning skills are first-rate.
No matter how unusual the piano, once it’s in Hiruta’s hands it will once again sing a beautiful melody.
The special pianos that appear in the story, and how tuners work for the benefit of the performers.
Conflicts with major musical instrument manufacturers and fellow tuning technicians from the same cohort.
In a sense, you could say this work offers a glimpse into the hidden side of the music industry—no, of the Japanese classical music world.
Music, Manga, and People (Complete in 1 Volume)
This is a work I want everyone involved in music to read at least once.
A volume compiling the stories serialized in Ongaku to Hito by Seiji Toda, the master of short manga.
Music, Manga, and People
An ultra-short collection that portrays the connection between music and people across a two-page spread.
Why I make music.
Everyone has their own reason for starting music, but I realize that each person has some kind of story.
I want to stay by your side because you're always giving it your all, but I won't be with you, since I'd just get in the way.
But music is always by your side, isn’t it?
I'm pretty sure there was a story like that.
I want to support the person I love so much, but I just get in the way.
But you, doing your best while listening to music on your music player.
Maybe that woman is a little jealous of the music.
This is the first work that made me feel jealous of music.
Since it's a two-page spread, there are an astonishing number of stories, even though it's just one book.
Doesn't at least one of these apply to you?
Performers, listeners, engineers, and sellers alike.
Even people who say they're not interested in music still listen to it as background music or when it plays on TV.
Enjoying with sound (performing) is music, and enjoying through sound (films and anime) is also music.
I honestly want everyone to read this manga.
Lastly
I don’t think I can fully convey its appeal through words alone.
However, they are all recommended works that the author has personally read.
I think it would be interesting if the connections between music and manga continue to grow in the future.