As the name suggests, ‘Josei’ (‘women’) refers to manga aimed towards women, rather than their younger ‘shojo’ (‘girls’) counterpart. Both largely follow women and girls, and usually turn up in women’s magazines likeFlowersandPetit Comic. While the latter largely tackles themes like high school and middle school life, first love, andoccasionally something dark, Josei focuses onmore mature themeslike work life, university life, marriage, divorce, and intimacy.
The same goes forjosei romance, which often examines different styles of relationships than the typical shojo fare, like the popular-guy-meets-shy-girl trope, etc. From age-gap relationships to workplace flings, and balancing friendship and romance to achieving one’s dreams, josei has fans covered, and thesejosei romance mangaare the best of the bunch.
Updated by David Heath on June 30, 2025:Sometimes, the barrier between shojo stories and josei can seem skin deep. Ai Yazawa’s classic romance Nana covers mature themes like music business politics, relationship drama, and death, yet it’s considered a shojo series. In turn, Chihayafuru sounds like it would be a shojo story on paper, as its lead takes up karuta to find her old friend, but it’s a josei story. That’s not to mention Kazuo ‘Umezz’ Umezu and Hideshi Hino’s old-school horror comics, which are all gory, all horrifying, and nearly all shojo strips. Still, once someone starts reading a josei story, they’ll usually see the big difference, as its own grounded takes on love and romance, and the perils within, can hit harder than a shojo story’s flights of fancy. That is, if they’re high caliber. So, alongside some sprucing up, this list has received more highly-rated josei romance manga that show off how tricky love can be between adults, from love that transcends lifetimes, to forcing a shut-in to explore the outside world.
MyAnimeList Score: 6.75
Hana Wants This Flower to Bloom!is about Hana, a typical office worker whose parents see marriage in her near future. However, after she walks in on her boyfriend cheating, she’s back at square one. She had better support from her gardening blog’s readers than in the world of romance. Then Hana’s mom sets her up on a blind date with a man. Fortunately, she recognizes him as someone she bumped into at the train station once, and she thinks they really hit it off on their date.
Unfortunately, he says he doesn’t have any intention of getting married. He’s indifferent to relationships, but she suspects he’s one of the regular readers on her gardening blog. In fact, she thinks he’s one particularly attentive reader who she’s been talking through for the past 4 years on the site. But how can she know for sure? How can she reveal the truth if he is her most dedicated reader? And how will he react? Readers will have to check out the manga to find out.
23Dekinai Futari
MyAnimeList Score: 6.99
Dekinai Futaristarts with Nao and Takehitoas office rivals, who “fight like cats and dogs,” according to their coworkers. But when Nao gets sick and accidentally texts Takehito instead of her sister, he comes to her aid despite their differences, reminding her of all the reasons she used to love him. It turns out the two used to date in high school, but nobody else knows about this.
When things start to heat up between the two, Touma, a fierce and worthy rival to Takehito, appears to shake things up. How will Takehito and Nao deal with their feelings while keeping things a secret? Their coworkers already think they’re enemies. Learning the truth could make things more uncomfortable than they should be. If seeing it in print isn’t enough, the strip hasn’t been adapted into an anime, but it did get a live-action series in 2022 for viewers to check out.
MyAnimelist Score: N/A
When Yoshiko is unexpectedly dumped by her long-term boyfriend, she fears that her goal to be married by the age of 30 is out the window. When she voices this fear to her coworker, Yuuki, he casually suggests that, if she hasn’t found someone else by the time she hits that age, he’ll marry her instead. Which will turn her future birthday into aDate of Marriage.
Yoshiko thinks that Yuuki is just being nice at first, but when he runs into herat work the next day, he tells her he was being serious. There’s something about the proposal that gets Yoshiko’s heartbeat racing, yet she can’t help but wonder if he has any ulterior motives. The manga is an adaptation of Nishihara’s original web novel, and its unique premise was enough to receive a live-action drama series in 2023 as well.
MyAnimeList Score: 7.58
InPerfect World, Tsugumi had dreams of becoming a painter in high school, only to become a normal 26-year-old woman working for an interior design firm, while Itsuki is an architect who became disabled after getting in an accident shortly after he graduated. Though the two were friends back in the day, with Tsugumi even crushing on Itsuki, they never got together and went their separate ways after their last days at school.
Then the two unexpectedly come across each other at a business dinner, where she discovers what happened to him since graduation. Itsuki is reluctant to start anything with her due to his wavering health and fears of bringing her down. Being disabled is difficult enough without adding more heartbreak on top. In turn, Tsugumi doesn’t want tospoil their friendship. Yet being with him brings back her old feelings. It sets the two on the path to a romantic clash where they’ll have to face their feelings as well as the facts, and see which one wins out.
MyAnimeList Score: 7.59
Haru’s Curseshowcases how josei can be more complex, with its tale about love and grief. Before she died, Haru asked her sister Natsumi to bury her with a photo of herself with her boyfriend Tougo. It was a simple enough request, but after the funeral, Tougo approaches Natsumi about taking Haru’s place by going out with him. Although Haru truly loved Tougo, they were in an arranged marriage in order to preserve Tougo’s bloodline.
This meant either sister would have fit the bill for the arrangement, though his family much preferred Haru. She agreed only if he’d take her to the places he took Haru. But thegrief over the lossof her beloved sister and the guilt of taking her partner drives her to the edge. She isn’t alone, however. Through this unusual arrangement, she and Tougo find solace in their loss and learn to live again day by day.
MyAnimeList Score: 7.68
Can love be found on a strawberry farm? Yes, ifStrawberry Lovehas anything to say about it. When Sara’s grandfather is hospitalized, she needs to take care ofhis strawberry farmfor him until he gets better. This is where she meets Minori, a veteran strawberry farmer who’s tasked with showing her the ropes. The two are awkward at first but slowly open up to each other, both harboring feelings that they’re too afraid to reveal. How come? Because there’s a 13-year age gap between the two.
She’s a 20-year-old college student, and he’s a 33-year-old guy from the sticks. They’re both adults, albeit ones who are too worried about that gap to express themselves. It’s a wholesome take on a trope that puts the two on an even footing, avoiding the awkwardness other age-gap stories (often intentionally) build upon for titillation. Which is likely why it managed to successfully make the leap from being a Pixiv webcomic to becoming a regular strip inPFantapymagazine.
MyAnimeList Score: 7.78
Please Love the Useless Mesees Michiko Shibata down on her luck. She had just lost her job, was barely surviving on her meager savings, and spent the last of a sketchy loan she took out on a ‘boyfriend’ who turned out to be scamming her. It’s at her lowest ebb that she finds herself reconnecting with her old boss, Kurosawa.
He treats her to a meal, and the two discuss her working for him again via a restaurant he inherited from his grandmother. Michiko is tentative because she remembers him as a horrible boss, but she takes the offer as there’s something about this new line of work that suits him better. They make for a nice odd couple, where they start off bickering but gradually find out they’re on more common ground than they think.
17Nina The Starry Bride
MyAnimeList Score: 7.81
Workplace and school romances are par for the course in manga. Though what if readers wanted a fairy tale? Not just some standard fantasy story with orcs and elves, but a medieval tale with conspiracies, intrigue, and an unfortunate lead stuck at their heart?Nina the Starry Bridefits that specific request to a tee, as its titular orphaned girl goes from stealing from the rich to survive, to being one of the richest people in Fortna, and it all started when she’s grabbed off the street by Fortna’s second-born prince, Azure Seth Fortna.
He explains that his late half-sister Alisha was betrothed to the prince of Galgada — until she died in an accident. With the marriage being too important to give up, and with no other suitors left, Azure needed someone who looked like Alisha enough to get married in her place. Nina, the only other girl in Fortna with Alisha’s deep-blue eyes, fit the bill entirely. With her approval, Azure shows Nina how to carry herself in a royal court, but in the long run, she can only hope the stars remain on her side.
16I.S: Intersexuality
MyAnimeList Score: 7.83
Josei romance can cover complicated situations, like love during grief inHaru’s Curse, and how being disabled can make romance a thorny prospect inPerfect World. There’s also plenty of LGBTQ-themed josei strips too, though few of them are likeI.S: Intersexuality. Intersex people are rarely mentioned in the media, and when they are, it’s often derogatory, where they’re dismissed as being too small of a demographic to count.
I.S: Intersexualitygoes into that from the perspective of 3 intersex people: Hiromi, Ryoma, and Haru. It goes into their troubles dealing with their physical characteristics and how they affect their gender, how society uses it against them, and how it affects their attempts to find someone to love them. Hiromi and Ryoma’s tales are fairly short, with Haru, an intersex man trapped in a female puberty, making up the bulk of the manga’s run. Its drama earned it a Kodansha Manga Award in 2007, and a TV series adaptation withYatterman’s Saki Fukuda as Haru.
MyAnimeList Score: 7.86
Haruhi gets herself in a sticky situation when her dad suddenly demands she move back home to work for his construction company. Instead of talking it out with her father, Haruhi drunkenly decides that her best option is to marry the closest man at the izakaya (traditional Japanese bar) and finds herself bringing home a man 20 years her senior aftersigning marriage papers.
While this could be a set-up for something unsavory, the story takes a sweeter turn as her now-husband, Nagato, works with her to help her father accept that her dreams lie in the big city rather than a small town business. Then, in the process, it tells a story about two people meant for each other, despite their appearances. Hence, the title “Black Sesame Salt and Custard Pudding,” an unlikely pairing of a salty seasoning with a sweet dessert.
