Manga (Anime) series info?

[goddess47]

I'm writing a story where my main character stops his friend, a dad to a 13-ish year old boy, from purchasing some anime manga books because the main character knows the book series is too adult (sex, violence, both) for a 13 year old. The main character then recommends a different series because the story line is more appropriate for the age of the teen.

The story is the relationship between the main character and the dad, so this is a small piece of the larger story. But I know absolutely nothing about anime (or manga, obviously!) and would appreciate some recommendations of titles that would fit those categories.

Thanks!


ETA: I'm looking for currently available titles and perhaps where they are best purchased (a bookstore, a comic book store, a specialty shop, online?)


ETA2: I'm looking US-centric here.

Comments

[rugessnome]

I'm not super knowledgeable about manga but besides Fullmetal Alchemist, another classic-ish 2000s series I'm aware of with somewhat wide age appeal is Death Note, which seems to be classed as shonen, but does involve murder so might or might not be considered appropriate for a young teen. I got into it--though I haven't yet finished it--because someone pointed out that the story reflects on police corruption. It's not super long, at 12 volumes. (quick rundown on the premise: shinigami, which iirc are referred to as "death gods" and are very roughly analogous to grim reapers, have notebooks that give humans the power to kill, when a name and optionally some other stuff is written in there. A high school student (and son of a police chief) named Light Yagami obtains one of the Death Notes and engages on a secret crusade to eliminate crime ...by killing criminals, only for this killer/"Kira" (Japanese transliteration of "killer", I believe) to become the most wanted criminal of all, and a specialized young and very private detective known as L to take up the case...)

Some of my fellow USian online friends, although around 30 so rather older than teens, are currently into the shonen manga/anime Mob Psycho 100 (I have not gleaned a ton, beyond the central character being a young ~psychic, the involvement of a con-man, some sort of spirit, and one storyline involving broccoli, but you should be aware that apparently the title is meant to suggest something more like "common-man psychic" due to meaning-migration in Japanese use of the English words in the title. It is not supposed to suggest psychopath leading a mob.) and Dungeon Meishi/Delicious in Dungeon, which got an anime last year. Dungeon Meishi, which is apparently seinen/intended for a slightly older audience than shonen (I'm guessing mostly for moderate violence/fantasy butchering reasons but not totally sure), is influenced by stuff like Dungeons & Dragons and the rogue-like game genre, and has a party venturing back into a dungeon to try to rescue one of their former comrades, resorting to foraging/hunting the local monsters and flora due to the urgency of the situation and their lack of supplies/funds.

I technically haven't looked for the latter two, but my Barnes and Noble has a decent manga selection and I bet they'd have them; the secondhand bookstores I tend to frequent more, like Half Price Books, don't necessarily have popular manga in stock at any given time, although they do usually have some manga. I have actually seen My Hero Academia and a few other random manga in the book section at Meijer, a supermarket chain in the Midwest, and I think I've seen a small selection of manga at some Walmarts, too. At least some public libraries have manga; I've found Death Note and several others in a small county library.

[goddess47]

Excellent information! That helps flesh out what I have and gives me more to work with.

Thank you for the summaries, that is helpful...