10+ Best Short Manga with less than 10 Chapters

Are you looking for a manga to read, but don’t want to invest much time reading a complete story? Then Look no further! Today I have gathered a list of my favourite completed manga with 10 or less than 10 Chapters filled with compact and engaging stories. These manga offer a perfect balance of depth and brevity, allowing you to enjoy a full narrative in a shorter amount of time. So Enjoy:

11 Completed short manga with less than 10 chapters:

1. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

• Author and Artist: Sumino Yoru, Kirihara Idumi
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 10

Synopsis:

“I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” is a Japanese novel by Yoru Sumino, first published in 2014 which was later adapted into a manga, anime film and live-action movie which all received critical appreciation. The series is praised for exploring the themes of life, death, and relationships in a way never seen before.

The story is told through the first-person view of a high school boy who finds the diary of his very popular classmate Sakura Yamauchi, only to discover that she’s dying. Sakura Yamauchi has been silently suffering from a pancreatic disease, and now exactly one person outside her family knows and intends to maintain a normal school life. He swears to her that he won’t tell anyone what he learned, and the shared secret brings them closer together. The story traces their developing relationship in Sakura’s final months of life.

2. Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

• Author and Artist: Fumiyo Kono
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 3

Synopsis:

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is a critically acclaimed and award-winning manga by Fumiyo Kono which tells a multi-generational story about of a family of survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The manga has received international praise for its simple but beautiful artwork and its quiet but “humane” anti-war message.

The manga is divided into two parts with the first part set in Hiroshima, in 1955, ten years after the dropping of the atomic bomb. Minami is a young seamstress who lives in the Atomic Slum. Like most people in the city, she is still haunted by the events of ten years ago. Her survivor’s guilt is so intense that refuses to let herself be happy. This is a story about how she’s going on with her life and trying to be at peace with herself.

The two-part Country of Cherry Blossoms is about how the effects of tragedy cross generations. This story features Nanami, the niece of Minami. In the first part, Nanami is a happy-go-lucky fifth grader. In contrast to her childhood innocence, the second part picks up about a decade later. Nanami is now a slightly jaded adult who worries about the mental health of her ageing father. Her father has been disappearing for days at a time recently, and she follows him on one of his excursions to Hiroshima. This gives her a chance to reconnect with her family’s history and her own childhood.

3. The God’s Lie

• Author and Artist: Ozaki Kaori
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 5

Synopsis:

Natsuru is an 11 year old boy who every girl in his class wants to date due to his good looks. On valentines day he turns down chocolates given to him by a classmate which initiates speculation from the rest of the class causing him to become ignored and alienated.

Just before the summer break Natsuru speaks with Rio Suzumura, the tallest girl in class who has suffered similar treatment and becomes becomes interested in her.

After he saves an abandoned cat, he runs into the girl and her younger brother Yuuta on their way to the supermarket and asks if they can take care of it, to which they agree. But when Natsuru arrives at their home, he is shocked to discover that the siblings have been living alone in a dirty house, a secret which Rio absolutely wants to keep. As Natsuru spends more time with them, their circumstances and reason for secrecy are slowly brought to light.

4. Memories of Emanon

• Author and Artist: Kajio Shinji, Tsuruta Kenji
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 9

Synopsis:

Based on the award-winning novel by Shinji Kajio the series Memories of Emanon follows the travels of Emanon (“No Name” backwards), a mysterious young woman who possesses a three-billion-year-old memory, dating back to the creation of life. Emanon has been reborn countless times, retaining all the memories and experiences from all her past lives. She wanders around the world with no clear destination in mind, and will continue to do so again and again many times in the future.

The year is1967 where a young Japanese man is thinking about the future. On one side of the water, the war is raging in Vietnam; far away on the other side, the Apollo Project has just met with disaster as three astronauts die in a capsule fire. And here and now, on a long nighttime ferry ride back home, he will meet and fall in love with a mysterious young woman who carries a past deeper and more profound than his dreams and fears of tomorrow. 

5. Sahara the Flower Samurai: Hana Samurai no Sahara

• Author and Artist: Shibata Yuusaku
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 4

Synopsis:

Coming frrom the creator of Zipman, Sahara the Flower Samurai takes places in a post-war world where all kinds of plants has became very rare and giants humanoid machines from the Great War wandersthrough wastelands. Our protagonist Sahara is a mysterious samurai wielding a flower sword who travels from place to place to find the key which will be able to return the world back to how it was.

6. Afro Samurai

• Author and Artist: Okazaki Takashi
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 10

Synopsis:

Afro Samurai is a pop culture icon and here is why:Afro Samurai is a pop culture icon and here is why: First the main character is an Afro-haired samurai and the antagonist is a cowboy gunman. The series also has an anime adaptation and guess who produced it. “Samuel L. Jackson”. No-way you saw this coming right. Moreover he also voices the main character Afro.

Afro is an incredibly talented swordsman whose father was decapitated in front of his own eyes as a child. That traumatic experience caused an innocent little boy to have a mind flustered with revenge and, with that, Afro grew into a cold-blooded killer, willing to kill anyone in his pursuit of the number one. As the number two, Afro has killed many in defense and revenge for the ultimate goal of avenging his father.

7. Downfall

• Author and Artist: Inio Asano
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 8

Synopsis:

Downfall is a manga series created by Inio Asano, the artistic genius behind Goodnight Punpu, Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction and Solanin. It is a dark and thought-provoking work that explores themes such as mental illness, societal pressure, and personal relationships. The series is known for its unique art style and Asano’s ability to captivate readers with his character-driven, realist storytelling.

Downfall tells the story of a manga author whose only aim in life is to create a series that will sell better than his previous hit. In a quest to attain this, he ends up ignoring his already broken marriage and his degrading mental health.

Downfall by Inio Asano sheds light on the darker side of the manga industry and the terrible pressure that mangaka’s have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. A rise in sales means more fame and appreciation but that often comes at the cost of one’s mental and physical health, interpersonal relationship, and the love for manga that started as nothing but pure passion and genuine excitement. 

Whether you are a fan of manga or simply enjoy a good story, Downfall by Inio Asano is worth checking out. Also, the series is inspiring a live-action film adaptation set to premiere in March 2023.

8. Our Happy Hours

• Author and Artist: Gong Ji-Young, Sahara Mizu
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 8

Synopsis:

Our Happy Hours is an adaptation of the novel Our Happy Time by South Korea’s most popular female novelist, Gong Ji-Young.

The story follows Juri Mutou, a beautiful, wealthy, and bright girl who is lying in her hospital bed, recovering from her third suicide attempt, when she receives a life-changing visit. Her no-nonsense aunt, a nun, appears by her side and suggests Yu-Jung accompany her on a charitable visit to death row. At her lowest ebb, Yu-Jung is resistant. But something compels her to go to prison. There she meets Yuu, a convicted murderer who will soon be put to death. Though she is repulsed by his crimes, something about the depth of his suffering strikes a chord in her. Shaken by their encounter, she returns to visit him the next week and the next week too.

Through their weekly, hour-long meetings, Yu-Jung and Yun-Soo slowly reveal to each other the dark secrets of their pasts and the hidden traumas that have shaped their lives. In doing so they form a deep, unbreakable bond, helping one another overcome their demons. But Yun-Soo’s hands are always in cuffs, the prison officers are always in the background, and they can never lose sight of the fact that their happy time together is tragically brief.

9. Ne Ne Ne

• Author and Artist: Otousan, Hagiwara Daisuke
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 7

Synopsis:

Ne Ne Ne is a age-gap romance manga from the artist of Horimiya which tells the story of a mature man and a young girl who wants him to see her as an adult, with both of them being inexperienced and shy when it comes to love.

In order to benefit their families, Koyuki (Age 16) is wed to Shin (Age 37). Despite the large age gap, both are exceedingly inexperienced in the matters of love, so they never quite know how to act around each other. To make matters worse, Shin is forbidden from being physically involved with Koyuki until she turns 20.

Now Married off to a man more than twenty years her senior, Koyuki has no idea what her new life has in store for her. She’s so in the dark, in fact, that she hasn’t even seen her husband’s face! But Koyuki isn’t alone in fumbling through the intricacies of wedded bliss. Mask-donning Shin might have many years on his young wife, but as it turns out, he’s just as naive as she is! Will this pair of innocents ever get past their awkwardness and the age gap, lets find out

10. My Broken Mariko

• Author and Artist: Waka Hirako
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 4 + Epilogue

Synopsis:

My Broken Mariko is a award-winning short manga which deals with suicide of a close one and all kinds of abuses that preceded it.

Dealing with abuse and depression since she was young, Mariko Ikagawa sought solace in Tomoyo Shiino—the start of a friendship that continued until adulthood. Now a 26-year-old office worker, Shiino is baffled when she hears a newscaster report that Mariko has killed herself. Though Shiino doubts the news at first, she accepts the truth after being unable to contact Mariko and begins to wonder the reason behind her suicide.

Looking to free her from her despicable father, Shiino impulsively steals Mariko’s remains from him. Reunited with her dear friend, Shiino travels to a certain location Mariko wanted to visit, all while remembering their happy memories together.

11. I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up

• Author and Artist: Kodama Naoko
• Status: Completed
• Chapters: 3 + Epilogue

Synopsis:

Machi Morimoto is a girl who is expected to settle down, get married, and become a stay-at-home mother. Her parents nag her about finding a suitor but she is neither interested in nor understands love. In an attempt to stop her parents from controlling her life any more than they do, she marries her best friend Hana Agaya, who lost her job and needed a place to crash.

Hana is into girls, and she’s had a crush on Machi since high school. Machi though, has never experienced the tender feeling of loving or being loved, while Hana is charismatic and outgoing, always doing what she loves and having fun.

As the short manga comes to a swift end, only time will tell if their fake marriage will allow true love to flourish or end up driving them apart.