10 Best Shojo Horror Manga

Highlights

• Shojo horror manga offers a unique twist by blending romance with terrifying supernatural elements, creating engaging and disturbing stories.
• Legendary artists like Junji Ito have left a mark on the genre, showcasing beautiful artwork and compelling female protagonists in spine-chilling tales.
• From thought-provoking themes of justice and vengeance to exploring complex topics like gender dysphoria, shojo horror manga provides a diverse and captivating reading experience.

Shojo manga isn’t all sugar, spice, and everything nice. A diverse array of manga are aimed at the young female demographic, including some truly spine-chilling horror series. Legendary horror manga artist Junji Ito got his start writing for the shojo demographic, and that led to him becoming one of the most beloved and respected names in the medium.

These series often blend their horrific offerings with the romance genre and feature female protagonists. Despite seeming like two completely different worlds, shojo horror manga can be just as disturbing and engaging as their seinen counterparts, sometimes even more so, with their beautiful artwork and compelling characters.

1 Hell Girl

MyAnimeList Score: 7.08

• Release Date: November 2005
• Creator: Hiroshi Watanabe (story)
• No. of Volumes: 9

Adapted from the anime of the same name, Hell Girl follows a girl named Ai Enma, the titular Hell Girl. Ai Enma runs a website called Hell Correspondence, in which users can submit the name of anyone who’s wronged them so that they can be sent to Hell. Hell Girl then appears before the user, presenting them with a doll with a red string around its neck. If the string is pulled, the target of their vengeance will be sent to Hell.

There’s a catch, however. In return for fulfilling their revenge fantasy, the user’s soul will also be sent to Hell. Hell Girl is a thought-provoking series exploring themes of justice, vengeance, forgiveness, and redemption.

2 Zekkyou Gakkyuu

MyAnimeList Score: 7.73

• Release Date: September 2008
• Creator: Emi Ishikawa
• No. of Volumes: 20

The Best Children’s Manga Award winner at the 59th Shogakukan Manga Awards, Zekkyou Gakkyuu is a collection of standalone horror stories. Each story is presented by a ghost girl named Yomi, who observes and comments on the happenings of each tale.

The stories’ protagonists are school-aged children who deal with various supernatural phenomena and other terrifying situations, facing cruel twists and turns along the way. The series was adapted into a voiceover comic featuring the members of the J-pop group AKB48 in 2010 and a live-action film in 2013.

3 Trinity Blood

MyAnimeList Score: 7.80

• Release Date: March 2001
• Creator: Sunao Yoshida (story), Thores Shibamoto (art)
• No. of Volumes: 21

Adapted from a light novel, Trinity Blood is about Abel Nightroad, a Catholic priest who also happens to be a Crusnik, a vampire who feeds on other vampires. He’s a member of the AX (Arcanum Cella Ex Dono Dei), an organization that seeks to maintain peace between humans and vampires.

As the story progresses, Abel and his comrades become entrenched in various political intrigues and religious conflicts. Trinity Blood combines horror with the sci-fi and supernatural genres, with slick action scenes and gorgeous artwork.

4 Tomie

MyAnimeList Score: 7.78

• Release Date: July 1987
• Creator: Junji Ito
• No. of Volumes: 3

Tomie was Junji Ito’s first published manga and is one of his most well-known series. The titular Tomie is a hauntingly beautiful woman who can make any man fall madly in love with her, to the point of wanting to kill and dismember her. Most disturbingly, Tomie has regeneration abilities, meaning she can spread her reign of terror over and over again.

The series contains many of Ito’s trademarks, including highly detailed body horror, unexplained supernatural phenomena, and a dash of psychological horror as well. Tomie’s origins and powers are never explained, and that makes her all the more terrifying.

5 After School Nightmare

MyAnimeList Score: 7.86

• Release Date: June 2004
• Creator: Setona Mizushiro
• No. of Volumes: 10

After School Nightmare can be considered an example of queer horror, as it explores the concepts of gender dysphoria and sexuality. The protagonist is an intersex teenager named Mashiro Ichijou. Raised as a boy, he has deep insecurities about the fact that he’s female from the waist down.

He meets a mysterious nurse at the school clinic, who tells him he has to enroll in a special class if he wants to graduate. This “class” turns out to be a dream world, where everyone appears as their “true selves.” Along with getting caught up in a love triangle with a girl and a boy, Mashiro has deep tribulations about his identity, sexuality, and a need to find acceptance.

6 The Cain Saga

MyAnimeList Score: 7.88

• Release Date: October 1991
• Creator: Kaori Yuki
• No. of Volumes: 5

The prequel to Godchild and set in Victorian England, The Cain Saga follows a 17-year-old aristocrat named Earl Cain C. Hargreaves as he tries to unravel various dark and supernatural mysteries around him and the circumstances of his birth. Throughout the series, he deals with occult forces, family secrets, and complicated relationships.

The Cain Saga is rich in Gothic themes and offers a blend of psychological drama, horror, and the supernatural, with intricate mysteries and plotlines that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

7 Psychic Detective Yakumo

MyAnimeList Score: 7.95

• Release Date: November 2007
• Creator: Manabu Kaminaga
• No. of Volumes: 14

Psychic Detective Yakumo was originally a light novel series but has since been adapted into two manga series, an anime, and a live-action drama. The story follows a college student named Yakumo Saito, who was born with heterochromia. His red left eye gives him the power to see spirits.

Along with a fellow college student named Haruka Ozawa, he embarks on a mission to free these spirits tethered to the Earth. Together, they investigate various mysteries related to the supernatural with the help of Yakumo’s unique psychic abilities.

8 Godchild

MyAnimeList Score: 8.14

• Release Date: June 2001
• Creator: Kaori Yuki
• No. of Volumes: 8

The sequel to The Cain Saga, Godchild tells the story of Earl Cain as an adult as he continues to solve mysteries in Victorian England. This time, however, he’s accompanied by his loyal servant Riffael, his 10-year-old half-sister Mary Weather, and other characters from The Cain Saga.

Along with solving dark and supernatural mysteries in a Gothic setting, Earl Cain seeks to atone for his past sins, protect those he cares about, and uncover secrets about his lineage.

9 Ghost Hunt

MyAnimeList Score: 8.23

• Release Date: October 1998
• Creator: Fuyumi Ono
• No. of Volumes: 12

Readers who can’t get enough of the paranormal mystery genre have another series to add to their reading list. Ghost Hunt follows a group of paranormal investigators who work for Shibuya Psychic Research. Mai Taniyama, the teenage protagonist, has an encounter with the group’s president, a high school student named Kazuya Shibuya.

Mai is forced to work for Kazuya (nicknamed “Naru”) after breaking an SPR video camera and accidentally injuring Naru’s assistant in a separate incident. Along with a priestess, a former monk, a Catholic priest, and a medium, Mai and Kazuya solve a range of cases throughout the series.

10 7 Seeds

MyAnimeList Score: 8.22

• Release Date: November 2001
• Creator: Yumi Tamura
• No. of Volumes: 35

7 Seeds is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is faced with an imminent extinction event. To ensure humanity’s survival, the government launched the “7 Seeds Project,” where five groups of young, healthy individuals are cryogenically preserved.

The survivors of Team Summer B have woken up in a world dramatically different from the one they knew, and now must band together for survival and to rebuild society. A mishmash of a variety of different genres, 7 Seeds won the 52nd Shogakukan Manga Award for the shojo category in 2007 and was adapted into a Netflix original anime in 2019.