Manga About Tomboys That I Enjoy a Lot!

I am a woman who grew up as an overly tomboy girl and I still consider myself as a tomboy until now. I remember I jumped from around two stories tall stage just for an epic super hero landing when I was preparing for school festival back when I was in middle school. I still remember my teacher's face who scolded me for doing that extreme stunt. I am not afraid to be called first even to the length of volunteering if no one would like to take the leader spot. I liked doing activities outdoor and made my skin burn. Because of my personality, I grow fond of tomboy characters as they are very relatable for me. But sadly, I proof that it is very hard to find and read a manga about tomboys. So today, I will give you my manga recommendations about tomboys that I enjoy a lot! But before that, let's explain what is tomboy and why exactly I love them as a character.

Quoted from Wikipedia, Tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of a boy, including wearing masculine clothing and engaging in games and activities that are physical in nature and considered in many cultures to be unfeminine or the domain of boys. If we relate this to the anime or manga, tomboy (while not in most cases) came out as a childhood friend of the main male protagonist or a girl with some troubles and issues in one point or more of her life that caused her to be more rough than most of other girls in her age. Tomboy character usually lingered in an insecurity that she would love to keep that as a secret. The insecurity could vary depended on the plot of the story. A tomboy roughness and boyish attitude made her a bit more tsundere than most of other characters with easily getting flustered over romance move or some kind like that. And it made tomboys cuter than any other characters. With that done, let's start with our list of manga recommendation.

1. A Story About Treating A Female Knight Who Has Never Been Treated as A Woman

Let's start with a fantasy world tomboy with a female knight who has never been treated as a woman before even her parents. A Story About Treating A Female Knight Who Has Never Been Treated as A Woman is a manga sets in a fantasy world with the main character, Leo, who is a renowned knight called "Undefeated Sacred Sword" being confessed by a young mage, Fooly. The story in this manga consist of short stories of Fooly and Leo's everyday life after that confession. Leo, who has never been treated as a woman, easily flustered by Fooly's sweet actions from an everyday healing magic to a very first birthday present for the knight. And since Fooly's overwhelming kindness, his actions towards the others resulted in every women around him start to take an interest to him thus make rivals for Leo who seemed really like Fooly's attention even she usually denied it. But we all know for sure that Fooly's affection is only for Leo and as time flew by, hints were thrown everywhere that Leo actually likes him for make her feel like a woman, a feeling that she never felt since she was still a little girl warrior in training. 

Since Leo never felt that way before, Leo is more insecure than most other characters. She does not really know how to react about those feelings. This is why she is easily flustered and she is very easily get jealous over other girls' advances towards Fooly. She is a perfect example of fantasy world tomboy.

From fantasy world, let's jump into normal world with shoujo manga entries that certainly would make your heart flutter.

2. Kaichou wa Maid-sama

The story begins with a girl, Misaki Ayuzawa, who became the new student council president of all boys school that just changed into co-ed school recently thus making most of its student body boys. She was very strict towards the students especially the boys as she really hated boys for some obvious reasons (like how the boys in their school done some really shameful actions shamelessly) and one serious real reason regarding her background. Her strictness was very violent and deadly for the boys. What they do not know was Misa actually working part-time as a maid in a maid cafe called Maid Latte secretly. Of course, she would make this as a secret or else her image as a strict and violent student president council would be destroyed and no one would take her seriously anymore. Well, it is completely a secret until a certain boy from class next door, Usui, found her working at Maid Latte, followed by three idiots who found out about her job as a maid there, too. From then, Misa started to become the object of Usui's teasing because of her cuteness while Usui kept the secret of her job to himself. Eventually, Misa got tangled in Usui's past and tried her best to support him.

Misa's violent tendencies might be the reason why I really considered her as a good example of tomboy character. Because of her overwhelming strength, she forgot that she is a girl sometimes and tends to do things by herself thus pushing herself too far. She did not want to show her weakness to anyone else except herself and made everybody around her worried for her. This independent self of Misa came from her family backgrounds which made her feel responsible to support her family. It extended to the reason why she applied at Seika simply because the tuition fee is much cheaper.

Talk about an independent self, our next entry is really revolving around a girl that tried to be an independent girl but got tangled in some business after she was blackmailed with an accident caused by her carelessness. And that is...

3. Ouran High School Host Club

Listen guys. Do not ever carelessly brake a vase that is not yours because Haruhi did that and must face the consequences for the rest of her high school life. Ouran High School Host Club is a manga revolving around a girl with  a very boyish look named Haruhi Fujioka. She studied at a very prestigious school of Ouran since she could get a good education there with full scholarship. And since Ouran is a school for very rich people, Haruhi stood out as a mere commoner in that school. One day, like as I said before, she broke a vase in a club called Host Club so as a consequence, she forcefully entered the club as an errand boy. With her short hair, very untidy attire, and gender-ambiguous face, she was thought to be a male and she became a host. In the end, the club members finally realized about her real gender but decided to keep it a secret so Haruhi still could working as a host.

This manga is a very definition of reverse harem situation where instead of the boy who being surrounded by girls, it is the girl who being surrounded by boys. Not just that, Haruhi's kind and independent nature manage to capture boys and even girls hearts. If her looks not already give away her tomboyish flair, it is her determination to be an independent girl that will. She really determined to be a woman like her mother used to be and became a very independent girl in the process. She even registered the scholarship to Ouran by herself without any consent from her father as she did not want to burden her father further. Funnily, she always irritated by how the rich kids acts towards something that really common for a mere commoner like her, remarking "These damn rich people..." every time she got irritated. She thought that rich people do not know the struggle she passed through but eventually she knew that even rich people have their own problem. This manga is a must read for you who searching for an inspiration to be more confident and independent.

Next entry, let's talk about sports. Since sports usually involving physical activities, there should be many tomboys around this particular genre. But even with that, it is very rare to see the tomboy becoming the center of attention in sports manga. So, I will give you sports manga those actually have a tomboy as its center of attention. And let's start with a sport that usually played by men and that is boxing.

4. Saotome Senshu, Hitakakusu

The story begin with a confession by our female  featherweight boxer champion, Yae Saotome, to a male light flyweight boxer who apparently never wins, Satoru Tsukushima. Satoru turned down her confession since he thought that him dating with her could distract her in the next match. The next day, she have a training match with a college boxer who also an alumnus of her school. She beat the man easily with only three hits but she cried afterwards, something that ruined her cool beauty persona. Satoru who watched her crying gave his uniform jacket to her and made her smile. The coach realized this and confront both of them for what just happened. They told the coach about Satoru's "rejection" towards her but it was revealed that Satoru actually wanted to date Yae. And so, the coach made Satoru as Yae's personal trainer so both of them could date secretly. From there, the fluffy romance between two boxers began. With Satoru's unending love for boxing, he helped her by having her in a training regiment specially made for her based from her current ability and condition while developing a very cute relationship with Yae.

What makes this manga good is how fluffy the romance is. The pace was perfect for a pair of boxers whose never involved in some kind of romance. Yae, a boxer she is, always dubbed as a girl with no feminine qualities or whatsoever. It made her feel insecure about her relationship with Satoru as she really wanted him to see her not just as a fellow boxer but also a woman. While she is a tomboy from everywhere, she is rather a shy one. If it is not by many pushes from outside forces like the coach or the manager, Yae and Satoru's relationship would not grow even further. Both of them, while fierce in the ring, actually shy towards each other and that's why this manga is very charming on its own.

Still talking about sports, let's continue with our entries as the next in line is actually another sports related manga. One of sports that dubbed as a sport that could make you taller and that sport is volleyball!

5. Fujiyama-san wa Shishunki

Fujiyama is a 181 cm tall girl and she is the ace player of her school's female volleyball team while Kanba is a 160 cm tall boy who is a member of his school's under-performed volleyball team. Kanba already knew about Fujiyama since their preschool days and they were in the same school until now including the fact that they both were fellow volleyball players. Contrasted from how the girls volleyball team being a runner-up for the recent championship, the boys volleyball team failed at the first round thus making a bad morale inside the boys team. One day, Kanba with his fellow prankster classmate decided to peep the girls changing in one classroom below theirs.  In one same time, Fujiyama was undressing while blocking the view from the window and resulted Kanba to fall and never be able to take his mind off of Fujiyama when she was undressing. To solve this, Kanba decided to ask Fujiyama out and Fujiyama said yes as the answer. From there, we started to see their days as a secretive and naive couple.

Fujiyama's tall stature and lack of femininity actually made her bullied by the boys but she usually shoved away the thoughts and started to feel not bothered by those comments to the point she welcomed the comments and replied without any hurt feelings inside her words. Well, she may sometimes bothered by the comments of her being a giant and smacked anyone who said so but she often did that in a comical intent, not in an act of revenge. She is well aware of her condition and tries her best not to be bothered by that. It may not bother Fujiyama but those comments and bullies actually bothered the boyfriend, Kanba. He often thought Fujiyama is too forgiving and not rare, Kanba held his rage over the boys who bullied his girlfriend. With that, Kanba grew protective towards Fujiyama, something that Fujiyama did not really want but really need to establish herself as a woman.

I always save the best for the last. So, next and the final entry on this list is probably my best pick for tomboy manga. This manga is by far has the most definitive tomboy I have ever read with interesting roster of characters filled with great writing inside them. So, without further ado, here's my last entry on this list.

6. Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!

It is hard to be a tomboy childhood friend of the boy you like! On one particular day and in the first chapter (or the very first page) of this manga, Tomo confessed her feelings towards her childhood friend who also a rival of hers, Jun, only to be dismissed as he thought that confession as her saying of loving him as his faithful bro slash friend. Ouch. Friendzoned at the first page. From then, Tomo Aizawa started her efforts to make Jun realized her as a woman and noticed her feelings towards him. With the help of her best friend, Misuzu Gundou, and a doll looking cute friend who came out of nowhere, Carol Olston, Tomo tried her best to make it do come true while strengthening their relationship with each other along the way. From the simplest way of talking her way out to making her dressed cutely and womanly, it is all just for Jun to be snapped out of his dense self.

Tomo Aizawa is a heavy tomboy girl who do karate with grizzly hair and rough speech. If no one ever told her to act more girly, she will not do that. Even to the simplest thing like wearing a bra in the start of her middle school days which her mother needed to scold her first to make her do so as she was bandaging her chest to hide her cleavage this entire time. She have no fear nerve or some kind like that as she always ready for a fight and proofed to be stronger than most men including Jun himself. Those traits of her makes her efforts harder than ever. Eventually, she must face a conflict with her best friend, Misuzu, and even her own fear of not being able to see Jun as her rival or her best friend anymore if there is any change within their relationship.

This manga is the best tomboy manga I have ever read as it successfully conveys the conflict within a tomboy that also extends to other people and her surroundings without making her alienated. All character developments feel natural and in a very perfect pace and timing. And with a 4-koma format, it is a perfect read in a very little time you have.

For that, I concluded my manga recommendation list that focused on tomboys. Well, tomboys still rarely got attention within manga or anime and I really wish there will be more manga or anime focused at tomboys in the near future! Tomboy rules!