The practical application of clean energy conversion and storage technologies, such as fuel cells and metal-air batteries, have been significantly impeded by the high cost and scarcity of precious metal catalysts used for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Transitional metal/carbon compounds are a promising alternative to precious metal catalysts for the ORR. Herein, Mn nanoparticles encapsulated within mesoporous helical N-doped carbon nanotubes (Mn@HNCNTs) are developed as highly active ORR catalysts. In terms of the onset potential and half-wave potential for ORR, the optimized Mn@HNCNTs exhibit an excellent ORR performance, which is comparable to Pt/C. When the Mn@HNCNTs are assembled as air cathodes, with zinc foil as the anode in primary zinc-air cells, the obtained cell delivers a higher cell voltage and capacity than the zinc-air cell using Pt/C as the air cathode, as well as many reported cells using TM/ CNT-based air cathodes. The electrocatalytic performance in the zinc-air cell demonstrates that Mn@HNCNTs have great potential for use as ORR catalysts in metal-air batteries.