15 Best GL Manga With Official English Translations

Highlights

• English licensors have responded to fan demand for girls love manga, offering a wide genre and art style selection.
• Stories beyond school settings in girls love manga explore love and growth in various stages of life and different worlds.
• Unique titles like “The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All” offer fresh takes on budding romances with strong visual presentation.

The best girls love manga have official English translations now, thanks to English licensors taking notice of fan demand. Yuri fans have a wide breadth of genres and art styles to choose from. Shoujo ai aficionados can also easily choose between one-shots, one to three volume hits, and longer works.

More importantly, officially licensed, English-translated girls love manga have stories beyond the school yard. Office ladies, older adults, and college-age gals find love and self-growth across worlds. Schoolgirl love also goes beyond the “will-they, won’t-they” and “I can’t like girls because I’m a girl”. Some even go the distance and follow the girls as they grow up and grow older.

15

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All

Gyaru Unkowingly Falls In Love With Androgynous Classmate

Aya is your typical gal, full of energy, sociable, and fashion-loving. She’s also completely smitten with the cool guy who mans the record store she frequents. Problem is, that guy is Mitsuki Koga, her quiet, glasses-wearing classmate who’d much prefer to remain anonymous.

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All is immediately distinct thanks to its green-backed panels and strong lines. Aya and Kouga’s development’s made vibrant by its presentation and the artist’s strength in crafting expressions. In addition to these, the webcomic-turned-manga’s quick-and-punchy chapters make it easy to get hooked on Aya and Kouga’s budding romance.

14

The Summer You Were There

Loner Girl Pursued By Popular Girl After Writing Novel

Shizuku Hoshikawa is not the most sociable person, nor has she recovered from her tragic writing past enough to love her own writing again. But when she goes out of her way to destroy her first and last novel, popular girl Kaori Asaka finds and reads it. The next day, Kaori tells Shizuku how much she loved it, and begs her to base her next novel on their love story.

Utterly confused, Shizuku spends the summer playing a game of “pretend love”, as Kaori called it. Shizuku’s confusion and slow unfreezing is as sweet as Kaori’s true intentions are intriguing. Their chemistry hooks enough to keep readers’ attention and distract them from The SUmmer You Were There’s ominous title and intro.

13

Throw Away the Suit Together

Living The Fantasy Of Running Away To A Tropical Island

Who hasn’t joked about dropping their job or school, apartment, and life to run away, much less with someone they love? For Haru and Hii-chan, it’s not a joke. Just as the start of their adult life after college threatens to change their life, the lovebirds run off to live together at Hii-chan’s aunt’s beach villa.

Haru and Hii-chan frolic under the sun, restore the villa, and live as a lovey-dovey couple. But soon enough, the reality of living in a country where same-sex marriage isn’t recognized nationally, plus rigid gender norms, sink in. Although short, Throw Away The Suit Together packs a punch.

12

Asumi-chan Is Interested in Lesbian Brothels!

Rare Adult Lesbian Harem Manga About Self-Discovery

There are dozens of English-licensed mangas, and likely hundreds of Japanese-only titles, that have protagonists visit brothels. But not a lot of them have a female protagonist who drops trou at a lesbian brothel. Asumi is built different though, as she’s lured to one by the promise of finding a girl who looks like her childhood crush.

Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! follows Asumi’s quest to find her childhood crush Mai by going through a brothel’s cast of cute girls. In-between non-explicit sex, Asumi finds out more about herself, her sexual preferences, and lesbian-only spaces.

11

A Witch’s Love at the End of the World

Prodigy Discovers Love And Life Outside School

Alice Keating is a prodigy of witchcraft and surrounded by faculty and fans excited about her potential. But Mari Muguruma, a seemingly mundane student, catches her eye after she performs a rare feat of resurrection magic. Under her tutelage, Mari learns more about a world that seeks revenge on humanity, while Alice’s love for her blooms.

A Witch’s Love at the End of the World revolves around Alice and Mari, but its world and lore are deep enough to hold fascination. The art style is also fairly simple, which makes pages with detailed work a delight to come across. As a finished work, Alice and Mari’s story is also fairly paced and dotted with a unique canon about witchcraft.

10

Pulse

Thai Webtoon Between Heart Surgeon & Heart Patient

Doctor Mel does something regularly that real doctors normally have to schedule: sex. But sex to Mel is release, and any kind of emotion doesn’t figure into her life. That is until she meets Lynn, a heart patient determined to live lively days despite being at death’s door.

Lynn’s refusal to sign papers for a heart transfer, her personality, and dogged energy makes Mel’s heart beat faster for the first time in years. Pulse follows Mel and Lynn as they grapple with Lynn’s decisions and inevitable fate through a webcomic with simple and effective layouts. Art gets better with every ten chapters, and the writer’s capacity to carry tragedy definitely grows at every arc.

9

Riddle Story of Devil

Bodyguard Romance But With Teen Assassin

Bodyguard romance Riddle Story of Devil starts with Azuma Tokaku transferring to Myojo Academy for the sole purpose of killing Haru Ichinose. Azuma’s determined to kill Haru first as part of Class Black, a class formed for the sole purpose of pitting child assassins against each other.

But when Azuma gets to know Haru, who was raised to be a target for assassins, she decides to keep her safe instead. So goes Akuma no Riddle, a work that highlights the charm of its cast full of girls with simple and recognizable silhouettes. The cast full of lesbians also get their ship teases in, and the main couple of Azuma and Haru have notable progress outside of teasing.

8

Assorted Entanglements

Anthology Of Women Falling In Love In Various Ages

Iori Tanaka has a complicated habit of hooking up with married men and drowning her sorrows at a bar. She’s forced to reconsider her life when, after one drunken binge, she wakes up naked beside bar worker Minami Sendou.

Iori and Minami are just one of Assorted Entanglement’s many lesbian couples wrapped up in complicated circumstances. Whether it’s their feelings for each other, family situation, past love lives, or current life state, these ladies cut through life’s many knots to find each other.

Assorted Entanglements is worth reading for its assortment of love stories. Its couples are also diverse in terms of age, life situation, and complications. Soft curves and sweetness in character designs and an eye-pleasing palette also make it a breeze to read through.

7

Roll Over and Die

Girl Left To Die Embarks On A Revenge Quest

Roll Over and Die: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword!is a mouthful of a title for a manga adaptation, but it’s all thanks to its light novel roots. Either way, the title’s a concise summary for protagonist Flum Apricot’s life mission after her party sells her to slavery.

Flum uses her second chance at life, taken after awakening her secret power, to survive in spite of her corrupted world. Serving as her light, unknowingly at first, is her fellow ex-slave Milkit who catches on to their developing relationship way ahead of Flum.

As a series, Roll Over and Die is grimdark and unabashed in how it explores the implications of a dark fantasy world. The setting highlights how precious Flum and Milkit’s connection is, and how important it is that their love keeps them sane.

6

Run Away With Me, Girl

Second Chance At High School Romance

Midori broke up with Maki in high school on graduation day after declaring they’re both too old to date girls. Flash forward ten years later, and Midori’s pregnant and engaged to a man like a “proper” adult. Yet she couldn’t help but reconnect with Maki, who she meets at the clinic Maki works at.

Run Away With Me, Girl is a cute yet sober exploration of regrets, buried sexuality, and second chances. The manga doesn’t shy away from showing Maki’s vulnerability and inability to get over Midori. Midori Stepford smiling through her fiance’s abuse and misogyny is also taken seriously. Their way back to each other is tough, yet Maki never stops asking Midori to run away with her.

5

After Hours

Femme Club Girl Winds Up In Love With Older Girl DJ

Emi isn’t a club girl per se, but that doesn’t stop her friends from inviting her to a club. But she learns to like the nightlife when Kei saves her from a creep. A night together leads to Emi learning how to DJ, thinking about her future for the first time, and what she and Kei could be.

What makes After Hours unique among this list of girls love manga is its night scenes. Nightlife for 20 to 30-somethings feels effervescent and erases the line between day and night. Living in this uncertain timezone changes Emi and Kei’s circumstances, and makes the story feel fresh and uniquely adult.

4

Even Though We’re Adults

Single And Married Women Fall In Love & Navigate Adulthood

Akari thinks she’s about to start something with Ayano Ookubo, a woman she met at her usual bar. There’s just one problem: Ayano is married, and yet the two can’t stop thinking about each other. Their complicated relationship never gets easier, and nor does their attempt to navigate new normals in their mid-thirties.

Even Though We’re Adults’ artstyle evokes 80’s shoujo art with its wide eyes, simple blocking, hatching, and effects. At the same time, its paneling is modern and focuses on conveying distance and emotion. Ayano and Akari’s turmoil is more palpable, even sadder, this way.

3

Goodbye, My Rose Garden

Victorian Girls Love Between Reclusive Author & Fan

Her love of writing and dream of meeting reclusive author Victor Franks compels the young teacher Hanako to sail from Japan to England. Hanako’s journey unexpectedly puts her in the employ of Alice Douglas, who promises a meeting with Victor if Hanako kills her. Instead, Hanako sticks with Alice through thick and thin, and uncovers the roots of Alice’s desperation.

Mangaka Dr. Pepperco does a fine job rendering lavish architectural and costuming details expected of Goodbye, My Rose Garden’s very specific tropes. And although there are only three volumes, Hanako and Alice’s slow burn romance plays off like a good old Victorian romance.

2

Whisper Me a Love Song

Freshman Falls In Love With Cool Senior In Band

Like any other girl who hasn’t realized they’re lesbian yet, freshman Himari Kino thinks she merely admires her senior Yori Asanagi. But because of how she conveys her admiration to Yori, her upperclassman mistakes it for love. Although Himari clears this up quickly, they nevertheless spark a life-making romance.

Himawari and Yori are the main focus of Whisper Me a Love Song, but they’re not the only girls who have romantic problems. The manga’s cast is full of teens sorting through the complications of early love. Shiho Izumi in particular serves as the third protagonist, and her love story serves the bitter to Himawari and Yori’s sweet.

1

Bloom Into You

Love That Persists From School To Adulthood (And Side Characters)

Yuu Koito never would have thought that the perfect shoujo manga confession she always wanted would come. Student council president and perfect girl Touko Nanami’s confession to her was also completely unexpected. Yet she couldn’t help thinking about it or agreeing to run with her for the student council.

Bloom Into You chronicles Yuu and Touko’s evolving feelings toward each other. Although their school life is not extraordinary, the grounded approach draws a new dimension for Yuu and Touko. Their slow burn romance doesn’t drag out any point unnecessarily and covers the emotional, mental, and physical aspects of their connection.

Aside from having a thrill-worthy love story, Bloom Into You also goes beyond its initial school trappings. Readers get to see Yuu and Touko after high school within the story. Other characters also get their time in the limelight through anthologies and light novels that flesh their story out further.