Grand Blue Dreaming, written by Kenji Inoue and drawn by Kimitake Yoshioka, has run in Kodanshaโs good! Afternoon since April 2014. Iori Kitahara moves to a seaside university and lives above his uncleโs diving shop. He expected a shining campus life. What he found was a diving club that drinks heavily and wears very little while doing it.
The comedy runs on contrast. The straighter the faces, the dumber the situation, and the art turns suddenly serious the moment alcohol enters the room. Sustaining that rhythm for more than a decade is the real feat here.
It is not only jokes, though. Certification courses, the rules you follow underwater, and the procedures that keep people from dying are all in the book with a surprising amount of care, so reading it feels a bit like reading an introduction to scuba. Characters like Chisa Kotegawa, who take the sea seriously, anchor that side of the story.
Cumulative print run has passed ten million copies. The anime ran in 2018 and again in 2025, and a third season has been airing since July 2026, taking the cast abroad to Palau for the first time.
