One of the most delightful is The Metalhead Next Door by Mamita. Two neighbors meet when Kento's apartment heater breaks down. Soshi takes him in and feeds him.
They bond when the more extroverted young man, Kento, learns that Soshi loves metal music. They don't share the interest, but Kento embraces Soshi's interest and learns more about Soshi through his interest.
The hobby here is perfect for several reasons:
(1) The metal music loving neighbor, Soshi, is quite shy and diffident. He isn't loud and crass and drug-using. That is, he isn't the cliche. In fact, he struggles to communicate, thinking at one point, "I'm not acting. I'm really bad at expressing my thoughts through words."
(2) The manga exhibits knowledge of sub-cultures within metal music, including the Heavy Metal Knitting Competition, which I am not making up!
The sub-cultures also address that there are different forms of metal music, which I knew from watching Bones. As I will say about classical music and romances and mysteries and, well, everything: the further one gets into a genre, the more differences and strongly held stances one will find. Two people WITHIN a field will have louder arguments than an insider with an outsider.
(3) Most of the main sequences take place in winter, which I find quite captivating. Many of my favorite manga, including Snow Fairy, take place in a winter environment. Kento and Soshi get to know each other over three winters. Primary scenes take place during cold weather, in snowfalls, at the tail end of winter. The emphasis is on indoor scenes with a few seminal outdoor moments, and the atmosphere is quite lovely.
