Ciguatera Vol. 1 (Kodansha, 2021)

This coming-of-age tale from contemporary master Minoru Furuya centers on seventeen-year-old Yusuke Ogino, a self-described loser whose only refuge from the bullying hell he experiences at school is his dream of freedom on a motorcycle. But the unexpected entrance of a beautiful young woman into his life threatens to upend his whole world, forcing him to re-evaluate his relationships and even his sense of self. Instantly relatable and painfully honest, Furuya's manga blends pitch-black humor with pathos and the awkward realities of everyday life to produce a quintessential tale of youth. The meticulous yet uninhibited art swings from stark realism to laugh-out-loud caricature, while nuanced characters and complex emotions help Ciguatera transcend the bounds of genre to take its rightful place as one of the great masterpieces of graphic storytelling.