Winter Sports Manga, or Olympic Brainrot Edition
With the 2026 Winter Olympics getting started, my brain went down a very specific rabbit hole: Are there actually manga about winter sports?
At first, it felt like an impossible mission. Ski jumping, skiing, curling, ice hockey… surely manga sticks to football and baseball, right? Well. Not quite.
There are winter sports manga. Not many, but enough to make the search surprisingly fun. Some are older, some are hard to find, and some are… a little questionable if you know how the sport actually works. Still, digging through ski jumps, ice rinks, and frozen stadiums turned out to be far more rewarding than expected.
Then comes the tricky part: finding winter sports manga that are actually available in English. That’s… a lot harder. Many titles never made it past the Japanese market. But it does feel like things are slowly changing. Bit by bit, more sports manga are finding their way into English releases. And unsurprisingly, figure skating seems to be leading the way. Japan is one of the strongest nations in the sport, and that passion clearly shows on the page.
So while winter sports manga might still be a niche, they’re no longer an impossible mission. And with the Olympics approaching, it feels like the perfect moment to introduce you to a few that really stood out to me.
Medalist
One of my current favourite reads, by far.❤️
Medalist follows a young girl who dreams of becoming a figure skater, and an adult coach who once had to give up on that same dream himself. What starts as a simple setup quickly becomes something much more layered and emotional. This isn’t just about competitions and scores. It’s about timing, missed chances, and what it means to keep going when you feel like you’re already too late.
What I love most is how honestly it portrays the sport. Figure skating here isn’t just beautiful, it’s exhausting. Physically demanding, emotionally intense, and full of pressure. The manga takes its time to show training, failure, fear, and those rare moments when everything suddenly clicks. You can feel how deeply it loves skating, without ever romanticizing how hard it is.
Even if sports manga usually aren’t your thing, this one is absolutely worth your time. It’s thoughtful, sincere, and quietly powerful.
Dogsred
Before it even gets to hockey, Dogsred takes a sharp left turn through figure skating. Because of course it does.
Rou Shirakawa starts out as a figure skater on the brink of something big, trained and supported by his mother, who designs his costumes and choreographs his routines. After her sudden death in a car accident, Rou performs a record-breaking routine and then completely snaps. He trashes the arena and walks away from figure skating for good.
After moving to Hokkaido with his sister, the ice still calls to him. Skates feel inevitable. When he joins a group skating on a frozen pond, he’s warned to stay away from the hockey net. Apparently, crossing that line means someone will use his blood to redraw the goal line.
Naturally, Rou ignores this.😬
Enter Keiichi Genma, hockey fanatic and self-appointed guardian of the ice. Rou’s elegance clashes head-on with Keiichi’s brute force, things escalate, the ice gets wrecked, the net is destroyed, and Rou’s solution is simple: find a new one. Which somehow lands him on his high school hockey team, a scrappy group that feels like rejected Mighty Ducks extras.
To make things worse, the school itself is about to shut down due to the town’s declining birth rate.
Once the hockey really kicks in, Dogsred doesn’t slow down. It’s fast, loud, physical, and emotionally charged. Every mistake is visible, every hit hurts. Beneath all that chaos, though, is a story about grief, anger, and learning how to belong to a team when you’ve spent your whole life skating alone.
With sharp pacing, explosive art, and a slightly unhinged sense of humour (very Golden Kamuy-coded), this is not a cozy winter read.
If you like your sports manga raw, energetic, and a little feral, this one is absolutely worth checking out.
Knight of the Ice (Yes, Another One)
Surprise, surprise, another figure skating manga (is this the Hanyu-Effect?🤔)
If Medalist is soft and introspective and Dogsred is chaos on ice, this one sits comfortably somewhere in between. Think of it as a rom-com on ice, perfect for fans of Princess Jellyfish or Wotakoi. What really surprised me about Knight of the Ice, though, is how grounded it feels despite that setup. It's a manga that’s charming, funny, and sincere, balancing sports drama with romantic comedy.
What You Loved Lately
Let’s end this newsletter by taking a quick look at the current bestsellers.
I genuinely love these lists. Sometimes they surprise you. And sometimes they’re more of a… yes, of course moment. This time, it’s mostly the latter.
Seeing The Climber on the list isn’t really a surprise. It’s been one of the most wished-for series for years, so honestly, this feels very well deserved. Same goes for Vinland Saga. At this point, who doesn’t love it? Okay, correction: I still have one friend I’m trying to convince to finally pick it up. It’s proving harder than expected, but I’m not giving up.
And of course, what would a bestseller list be without Heaven Official’s Blessing. I’ll admit, I’m still trying to find my own starting point with this one. Danmei isn’t exactly my strongest area of expertise, but I’m genuinely curious.
And finally, Nana 25th Anniversary Edition. What can I even say. This series needs no introduction, and this edition is just beautiful. If you already love Nana, you probably know exactly why this belongs on your shelf. All that said… sometimes I do wish other shojo series were treated with the same level of care and respect. Just saying 😉
And while I’m fully embracing my Olympic winter sports phase, I wish you all a month full of great manga finds.
Kerstin