Manga-wise the situation is more longevity-leaning than with anime. The best anime seems to be over or nearly over, but lots of manga are still ongoing.
Saki: Saki and all of its offshoots are still going strong. Though any particular brand of Saki only comes out sporadically, because there are so many spinoffs it actually comes out quite often.
Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest doesn't look like it will be ending any time soon. This sequel series is almost as good as the original, and why shouldn't it be? It's still written by Hiro Mashima.
Edens Zero: Also by Hiro Mashima, and also looking to be a long epic, we'll be reading Edens Zero for many years to come. Only a heart attack could stop this work.
Akatsuki no Yona: This series has the chance to wrap up soon, but it could also extend for quite a while, based on how tough the author wants to make this latest war arc to be. Especially since there's only one chapter a month, we could be reading Yona for years yet.
100 Kanojo: I doubt the author will actually make it to all 100 girlfriends, but if he does I will tip my hat to him. We're currently at 20 which is already impressive. Of course, not as impressive as my '100 Waifus' novel, which really did include 100 female protagonists.
Sousou no Frieren: This manga has been losing its momentum ever since it introduced a bunch of new characters I honestly don't care about. But with the introduction of so many new characters it could keep going indefinitely.
Berserk: Under new management the Berserk manga might actually be released in a timely fashion. I could even see it reaching its ending in a couple years.
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun: This comedy series is still funny so I don't want it to end per se, but I do wish it would wrap things up romance-wise. There are two worries about this manga though, how long it will run is one question, but the other is how long it will be scanlated so that people in the west can read it. It seems to always be precariously behind in translation compared to Japan's releases.
Shadows House: Most of the mysteries of Shadows House have been cleared up. The only question now is how a bunch of kids can somehow outwit their more powerful soot-using elders and free the land of their tyrannical rule. That seems to me to be impossible. One soot-using elder could probably defeat 10 or 100 kids. And there are more adult soot users than child soot users. . .
Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido arc is nice, but it isn't as good as the old Kenshin. It feels like it could go indefinitely, there are so many enemies to beat. The real question is how long the readership will want to stick around for these nonstop sword fights. Will this series end up like Hinowa ga Yuku?
Broken Blade: Just one more chapter! One more chapter! I doubt this one extra chapter will resolve all the outstanding issues in the plot, but at least it would give some sort of closure. I can't wait to see the ending. How long can one extra chapter take to draw?
Railgun/Mental Out: Railgun and its spinoff look like they could keep going for a long time. But in the long run, this manga is doomed. Almost all Mikoto and Misaki activity is accounted for in the Index books after this, so anything they put in the manga would only be a retread of stuff we've already seen. I don't see the need for a Railgun manga at that point.
Mao: Rumiko Takahashi has a unique capability to drag stories out via episodic short stories interspersed between the main plot. As a result Mao could last forever. The only real question is whether the author will want to retire or die of old age first.
Sakura, Saku: This romance manga has only just begun. On the other hand, the previous manga by Io Sakisaka didn't last forever either. So it might still end before, say, Mao or Railgun.
Mikakunin de Shinkoukei: This story is so laid back that it could serialize indefinitely. It actually outlived the magazine it was published in and moved to a new distributor. But at some point the author will run out of motivation, it's approaching 15 years now. . .
Vinland Saga: I could see this story wrapping up soon. But it only comes out monthly, so a few chapters still takes a long time to release. This story is approaching 20 years old now, it's about time to wrap things up I think.
K-On! Shuffle: I wish this story would end. A spinoff about all new girls isn't the same.
Chihayafuru: Only one more chapter to go. The author can take a well deserved bow one month from now. The karuta part of the story is already over, only the romance question remains. My bet is she won't get with Arata or Taichi. Girls of the current age just aren't interested in romance at all.
Card Captor Sakura Clear Card-hen: This story keeps saying it's ending soon, but it's been saying that for a year. I could see it lasting well into 2023 at this rate.
Kanojo mo Kanojo: I could see this story ending soon or taking quite a while. If the author wants to add more complications and romances he could do so, or if he wants to clear the way and make things simple he could do that too. I have no idea what will happen next each week this manga comes out, which makes it always the highlight of the manga week. Last week we got to see Naoya and Nagisa's first kiss. So great!
Yuru Yuri: This is a long running, laid back series, so it really depends on the author's mood whether it will end. You can always write more jokes, until you run out of ideas.
Hunter x Hunter: Believe it or not some new chapters are slated for release soon. This joke of a series that refuses to end or continue.
Nichijou: After a long hiatus Nichijou is back. It's still funny, so I have no complaints. But what an aimless series. It could end tomorrow and no one would notice.
Dragon Ball Super: Dragon Ball Super is a monthly release involving ever-higher power levels and transformations. The formula has been worked to death. I'd like to see this series be given a merciful conclusion already. But alternatively, Goku and Vegeta could always get yet stronger, meet yet stronger opponents, and fight eternally onwards. . .
In addition, there are some series that can be seen as still coming out, from a certain point of view.
New Prince of Tennis: New chapters in Japan are released regularly, but in America the translators have long given up.
Kimi ni Todoke - Soulmate: It's not unreasonable to believe we'll get to see the last few chapters of this manga eventually. It took a long time, but scanlators did translate the first half of this series, so why not the 2nd half?
Zettai Karen Children: Translators are slowly releasing new chapters of this series, and there are tons of chapters left to translate, so it may as well be still coming out even though it ended last year in Japan.
Remote Possibilities:
Guyver, Lucky Star, MIX and Futari Ecchi could always be picked up by kind translators someday. That would give us tons of new content. (So would Major for that matter.)
So 31/75 of manga is alive from an optimistic perspective. From a pessimistic perspective 22/75, with two of those series ending in one more chapter. It's basically 1/3 of manga left to look forward to.
Manga is interesting -- there's a lot more of it, and it lasts a lot longer than anime (which tends to cut off after one season), but it lacks so many features of anime -- voice acting, color, motion, music -- that it ends up being a junior partner. I'd rather stop reading manga than stop watching anime.
But there isn't actually a lot of manga that isn't based off of a previous work and isn't fully adapted by an anime. A top 75 list with those restrictions is very hard to conjure. When it comes to what we have to look forward to in terms of ranked manga, the answer is -- not much. 20 or 30 series, and most of them have already outlived their welcome.
Once the original wave of popular manga authors dies out -- Mitsuru Adachi, Rumiko Takahashi, Eichiro Oda, Hiro Mashima, Akira Toriyama, CLAMP, no one is going to replace them. The art form they invented is only really suited to them. I think nowadays most art starts as novels. Manga will dwindle in importance as these long-lasting series like Fairy Tail and One Piece finish up and then it will disappear.
Visual Novels are in an even worse position. The best visual novel authors, like Jun Maeda, have already moved on to video games or original anime. The public has become more censorious and the sexual aspect of visual novels is more frowned upon, even in freewheeling Japan. There are fewer translators interested in translating acknowledged masterpieces like Da Capo into English, so even if there are good visual novels it never avails us. I still hold out hope for the rest of Aiyoku no Eustia, Kud Wafter, Rewrite Harvest Festa, Hoshizora Memoria Eternal and Majikoi A-5, but that's about it. This industry is also drying up.
Light novels are also in a horrible position. The good ones tend to be adapted into anime, making the novels superfluous. The remainder are a lot less likely to be translated into English than anime or manga. And for some reason every novelist in Japan is some sort of unhealthy neurotic who can only write one book in a long running series per decade. They're completely unreliable.
This is why video games are becoming the premiere entertainment. They have voice acting, color, music and motion just like anime. They have large companies who reliably churn them out instead of weird geniuses regularly on hiatus like manga/books have to deal with. They don't include sex so there's no pressure to censor them like with visual novels. And they properly reach conclusions unlike anime. Good video game franchises, like Final Fantasy and Tales, never die. They just reinvent themselves continuously. So there's never anything to worry about when you come to the end of a video game. It's probably true that video games are more profitable than the other mediums too, which makes for a more solid business model that producers will be happy to continue indefinitely.
Video games actually do have one healthy competitor -- American television. Between live sports like the Olympics, March Madness, the NFL, college football and the World Cup, and streaming platforms with new Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and Marvel and Star Wars etc., American television is quite entertaining in its own right. The trailer for the Rings of Power looked amazing. A billion dollar television series. So basically a movie budget for something that lasts way longer than a movie. That's a mighty combo right there.
If I had to compare the mediums' future prospects, it would stack up like this:
Video Games
Anime
American Live Action
Manga
Visual Novels
Light Novels
Anime used to be on top but we've reached an inflection point. Eventually I could see it dipping below sports as well.
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