It's been awhile since I did a recommendation and I have just the one. I might have talked about this one a long time ago but so maybe you've read it but if not, I definitely recommend it.
Orenji Yane no Chiisana Ie (The Little Home with the Orange Roof)
A seinen manga by Noriyuki Yamahana, His most famous work is Yume de Aetara (if I see you in my dreams) which ran 17 volumes and received a 3 episode OVA and a 16 episode TV series (8-10 min eps). Most of his works have run in Business Jump or Young Jump. However, his art style is soft and much more in-line with styles associated with shoujo manga.
This manga is essentially a Japanese version of the Brady Bunch. Two families end up buying the same house when a real estate scams them both. That guy then decides to make a run for it leaving the families high and dry.. So they decide to move in together and to make the best of a bad situation. From there, the manga tells the story of how these families deal with this, how the parents have to change as people, how close the families become, and the budding romance between the parents.
It manages to be this very wonderful fusion of family comedy and slice of life that isn't really seen often in manga, IMO. The characters are fantastic and interesting. Their interactions really make the manga shine and the author does an amazing job of building their relationships. You can really feel them becoming closer and closer as the manga goes on. It, of course, has a bit of that classic anime and manga humor but because of the way the author writes, it's really cute and refreshing despite the situations being the usual stuff.
This page is a pretty good example of how Yamahana handles the comedy in the series. Natchi is pretty cute when she's a bit annoyed and angry, heh.
I highly recommend this series if you're in the mood for something that's light and a little bit wholesome to offset all the insanity and smut that comes at us in manga. It's only 8 volumes long and a pretty fast and enjoyable read. The only thing is the translations are older now and the quality of that work as a whole is a bit lacking. It's not enough to take away from how enjoyable it is though.
The author is Christian, pretty rare in Japan, so a lot of his manga after 2004, including this one, has influences from that here and there. Nothing very strong but I thought I'd mention it if anyone started wondering.
Bonus: Here's some Pop art that Yamahana has done recently for other projects.
