10 Books/Manga Like Assassination Classroom
Assassination Classroom is a sci-fi comedy manga with a decently-sized fanbase. It was written and illustrated by Yuusei Matsuri. The manga follows a group of delinquent students who are tasked with assassinating their alien teacher Koro-sensei before he inevitably destroys the world. It was serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine between July 2012 to March 2016 and spawned 22 volumes. This manga’s cherished for having a fun cast and emotional storytelling.
If you’re in the mood for more sci-fi, comedy, or action books/manga that offers a similar vibe, fear not! We’ve gathered together 10 books/manga to check out when you’ve caught up with Assassination Classroom. Of course, if you feel we’ve missed any of your favorites, do comment below and let us know!
Great Teacher Onizuka – Tohru Fujisawa
Similarities – School Life, Comedy, Action
Great Teacher Onizuka is another manga featuring a whimsical teacher who must teach a class of delinquents. Koro-sensei and Great Teacher Onizuka’s Eikichi are flamboyant instructors with their own unique way of teaching their kids about life and academics. These teachers can be as raunchy and wholesome as they choose to be and have great athleticism.
Obviously, Koro-sensei is leagues above Eikichi regarding strength and power, though. Furthermore, the students they teach have excellent personalities and great skill sets. They aren’t willing to back down from a challenge. You’ll adore seeing the students interact with Eikichi and get him roped into situations that are immature and downright hilarious.
For those needing another humorous action series that takes place in a school environment, check out Great Teacher Onizuka.
Kamen Teacher – Tooru Fujisawa
Similarities – Comedy & Action
Kamen Teacher is a short action-comedy that won’t take you long to read. It only has 4 volumes worth of content for you to binge and offers hilarious teacher protagonists like Koro-sensei. In Kamen Teacher, we follow a high school teacher named Gouta, who loves staying fit and clipping pictures from adult magazines. Unbeknownst to his students, he hides a secret identity.
This is another manga where we follow a teacher with unique abilities and a secret identity. The story doesn’t get as complex or emotional as Assassination Classroom does, but it offers some fun action and humorous bits to keep you invested. Gouta will struggle to keep his secret hidden from his students and teach them.
Tooru Fujisawa’s artwork is immaculate. You’ll love how characters are depicted in the action scenes the most since they all appear expressive and fluid with their movements. The students in both works receive great development and harbor interesting personalities that will leave a lasting impression on you. Give Kamen Teacher a read if you want something that’s short.
Gintama – Hideaki Sorachi
Similarities – Action, Comedy, Shonen
Gintama is the parody king of Shonen Jump. It’s up there with South Park, Mr. Osomatsu, and other works with varied humor and charming characters. While it offers more comedy variety than Assassination Classroom, Gintama can get dark and serious when its author Hideaki Sorachi wants it to feel that way. Furthermore, Gintama delivers delightful action scenes that will get you pumped.
In it, we follow Gintoki, a man who likes carrying his wooden sword around while looking for odd jobs to tackle. He’ll be accompanied by a strange boy and girl named Shimura and Kagura, who’ll lend Gintoki a helping hand. Expect to see our characters tackle all types of jobs ranging from otherworldly aliens to human evildoers.
Sorachi knows how to balance his manga’s dramatic and comedic elements well. Everything transitions smoothly and there’s never a moment where one overtakes the other out of thin air. It’s natural and fans will appreciate Sorachi for making his tale feel that way. The relationship between Gintoki and his friends resembles that of Koro-sensei and his students. If interested, expect to bawl your eyes out whenever Sorachi turns up the heat for Gintama’s dramatic bits.
My Hero Academia – Kohei Horikoshi
Similarities – Action, School-life, Themes
My Hero Academia is a popular Shonen Jump manga series with an emphasis on superheroes. In it, we follow the young Izuku who grows up in a world filled with superheroes and supervillains. Everyone receives a power (Quirk) when they’re born, but Izuku’s one of the unlucky few who didn’t receive one. That all changes after his world’s number one hero, All Might, sees Izuku save his friend’s life.
All Might grants Izuku his Quirk, All For One, and trains him. After several days pass, Izuku enrolls in the esteemed hero academy U.A., where his new life of heroism begins. This manga tackles many shonen themes like Assassination Classroom does. Unlike Assassination Classroom, My Hero Academia offers a slew of likable teachers who’ll help Izuku reach his goals.
These teachers harbor incredible Quirks and personalities that’ll help them stand out. Izuku’s classmates fall under the same category. The villains are incredibly powerful and harbor evil intent. On the other hand, there will be some enemies that have ideals that’ll make readers question if they’re right in their villainous approaches or not. Although one manga favors superheroes over the other, you’ll be in for a similar experience with My Hero Academia.
Demon Detective Nougami Neuro – Yuusei Matsui
Similarities – Comedy
Demon Detective Nougami Neuro was a work Yuusei Matsui created before working on Assassination Classroom. Although one is a quirky supernatural detective series and the other is a comedic assassin-themed manga, they both tackle similar themes. In Demon Detective, we follow Neuro, a demon who travels to the human world because he’s tired of living in hell.
In this world, he stumbles upon a murder case involving someone’s father. This kickstarts Neuro’s fascination for solving mysteries, which is what you can expect from this manga. Like Assassination Classroom, Demon Detective delivers on its impressive artistry, storytelling, and characters. Demon Detective can feel a bit more horrific than Assassination Classroom, though.
This is due to Matsui giving characters more horrid expressions and dedicating panels to instill fear in readers’ minds. Nonetheless, the comedy is the same in both works. Expect numerous jokes and gags that’ll make you chuckle. If you loved Assassination Classroom, then you’ll love Matsui’s work in Demon Detective Nougami Neuro.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn – Akira Amano
Similarities – Shonen, Characters, Action
Katekyo Hitman Reborn is a compelling Shonen Jump title with great characters, nice action, and charming humor. Our story revolves around the troubled boy Tsuna, who wants to live a fulfilling life. One day, he meets a small hitman named Reborn who’d like to recruit him as the new boss for the esteemed Vongolla Mafia Family. Tsuna accepts the offer and receives incredible fire powers.
We examine Tsuna’s journey of growth and friendship as he battles many people to safeguard the Vongolla Family’s legacy. Both series evoke strong assassin-like energy and follow school students being trained by professionals at the craft. Katekyo Hitman Reborn feels more explorative and adventurous than Assassination Classroom.
There’s even a point where Tsuna must fight to save future versions of his friends and himself. The comedy is the same between Assassination Classroom and Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Expect a lot of facial humor and witty jokes to crop up in these manga. Lastly, they’re both Shonen Jump titles, so expect tropes from that magazine’s catalog of stories to wind up in Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Denpa Kyoushi – Takeshi Azuma
Similarities – Action, Comedy, Drama
Denpa Kyoushi can be as intense and funny as Assassination Classroom. It follows Kagami, a physics genius who lost all in interest in science after college. He devotes his life to his anime blog and feels he suffers from an illness that convinces him to be lazy. His little sister gets him a job at an old high school to teach physics to students.
Although he’s not the best teacher he can be, his interactions with his students will influence him to move in that direction. Denpai Kyoushi offers a great emphasis on education like Assassination Classroom. Both series highlights the lives of teachers and students, and how they interact with each other on daily basis.
Koro-sensei and Kagami’s different teaching methods will make things interesting and refreshing when transitioning from one work to the other. Where Koro-sensei focuses on teaching his students proper assassination techniques along with the usual academics, Kagami favors teaching his students things that lean more toward traditional topics like science. The comedy is great in Denpa Kyoushi and the characters receive enough character development that’s compelling enough for people to follow.
Pandora Hearts – Jun Mochizuki
Similarities – Characters & Themes
Pandora Hearts is a great adventure manga with great tension, countless mysteries, and compelling action. After hearing rumors spread about terrifying creatures (Chains) inhabiting his world’s abyss, our protagonist, Oz heir to the Vassalius Family, would rather ignore the commotion and focus on other things. He’d regret this decision when he’s condemned to the abyss by the Baskerville Clan.
They say he’s imprisoned there due to committing a sin, however, Oz doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Later, he meets a Chain named Alice who is willing to guide him out of the abyss. As her journies with Alice, he’ll learn of the sin he committed many years ago. Both series have slight mythical elements with Koro-sensei being an alien teacher and Oz traversing a world with fantastical creatures.
The characters in both works receive great development and personalities people can resonate with. You’ll learn more about each cast’s background and see how they’ll overcome their problems throughout the course of the story. Both series harbor dark themes pertaining to life and the future. If you’re looking for a story with more adventurous aspects, Pandora Hearts is worth reading.
Akame Ga Kill – Takehiro
Similarities – Assassins & Action
Akame Ga Kill is one of those series that received bad press due to its rushed anime adaptation. This series harbors nice characters, a chilling plot, and epic fights. It features a great mix of lighthearted scenarios to give readers a moment to breathe after an intense story-related sequence. Like Assassination Classroom, we follow a cast who are bent on murdering specific individuals.
Each assassin has an intriguing backstory and reason for joining their respective faction. Their abilities differ significantly to allow readers to remember and grow attached to them. Both worlds feel slightly grounded despite having humans and entities that can utilize incredible supernatural powers. Assassination Classroom takes place in a modern setting compared to Akame Ga Kill’s fantasy-themed towns and kingdoms, though. If you’re looking for darker work with brutal action sequences, you can’t go wrong with Akame Ga Kill.
Ruroni Kenshin – Nobuhiro Watsuki
Similarities – Action, Themes, Characters
Ruroni Kenshin is a great manga with a gritty, semi-realistic take on samurais and assassins. It follows a man named Himura Kenshin, who used to be known as Hitokiri Battousai. He changed his name because he doesn’t want anything to do with it. Kenshin was once a fierce murderer, so now he wants to focus on saving people’s lives and living peacefully.
Eventually, Kenshin bumps into a woman named Kaoru who offers him a place to stay after he saves her. He also overhears that a person has been using his former name to commit deadly crimes. Despite not wanting to kill again, Kenshin’s determined to put this Battousai faker in his or her place. This story can get touching and intense in a heartbeat.
It offers slight humor to lighten the mood, but many people will appreciate this work more for its well-drawn battles and excellent character development. Both stories offer enough characters with incredible backstories that it will be hard for folks not to empathize with each character’s problems. You’ll find yourself cheering them on and smiling after they’ve accomplished their mission. The author isn’t the most pleasing person, but Ruroni Kenshin left a massive impact on many people’s lives and shouldn’t be overlooked.
So there we have it, our 10 books/manga to read after you’re caught up with Assassination Classroom.
What do you think of our picks? Do you agree? Are there any notable omissions? Let us know in the comments below!