Kyou kara Ore wa!!

Delinquents aren’t something we really see much of in anime nowadays, well not in the truest sense at least. Every now and then you may come across a series which has a delinquent type character feature, such as Yu Yu Hakusho and Beelzebub to name two, but neither of these series are actually about delinquents as they are both supernatural action series that just happen to have a delinquent as the main character. I, for one, think that this is a bit of a shame since season after season we are constantly being flooded with series set in high school, some will revolve around aclub where cute girls are doing cute things and in others we will see our lead character climb aboard a giant robot in order to save the world but never do we see any series about groups of students, with a few screws loose, playing pranks on one another and getting into fights over the pettiest of things, surely it is not too much to ask for one or two new anime focused around delinquents... But apparently it is too much to ask for, and so if you are going to find yourself some good series featuring high school delinquents then you’re going to have to turn your attention towards manga and I think I may have found the best of the bunch right here with Kyou Kara Ore Wa!! Story - “Hmph picking on him makes me feel much better. Bullying the weak is the only meaning of life after all.” The story of KKOW is completely and utterly aimless. It simply follows the misadventures of Mitsuhashi and Itou, two delinquents that both transferred to the same school on the same day and both of them decide that this is the perfect opportunity to change their self-image in order to stand out in their new school and gain both popularity and respect. One thing leads to another and the two form the terrifying duo of Nan High attracting other delinquents towards them and from here many shenanigans ensue. The story more or less falls under the category of slice of life since this series just follows the day to day lives of Mitsuhashi, Itou and a handful of other delinquents that we meet along the way but that doesn’t mean that this story is lackluster at all. It is impossible to be bored when reading this manga since it is just about the most hilarious thing in all of existence, as a matter of fact, it is so funny that you will end up laughing so much that it will make the orange juice you were drinking shoot out of your nose and damage your keyboard. You should probably watch out for that. But this series is not all comedy; there are a number of arcs where more fierce rivals appear before Mitsuhashi and Itou and the manga becomes a little more serious (Mitsuhashi often runs away at this point though) and these arcs are actually surprisingly good. They are actually well executed and can be rather dramatic and even emotional in a very manly kind of way. When push comes to shove, this story isn’t really anything original or innovative but it will never fail to put a smile on your face. But the reason for why you will constantly be smiling from start to finish is undoubtedly because of the wonderful characters. Characters – “The main character never takes a shit!!” While the two main characters are both categorised as being delinquents on account of the way they look their personalities are vastly different from each other. We have Itou with his ridiculously spiky hair which has earned him the nickname of Kappa. Despite being a delinquent, he is very noble and righteous and he is often compared to a hero of justice but all he really does is beat up other delinquents because the way they behave annoys him. Then we have the self-proclaimed Lord Mitsuhashi who is completely egotistical and self-centered and is personified by his repeated use of cheapshots to win fights because to him it doesn’t matter how a fight is won because who ever wins is the strongest. Mitsuhashi is really what makes this series so entertaining because the things he does to the other characters are hilariously evil. He simply wanders around looking for ways to make cash and one day take over the world, all the while bullying those who are in his way. In particular the one person who he probably picks on the most is Imai who is the head delinquent of one of the rival schools and is a rival of Mitsuhashi, as well as the one person that Mitsuhashi will absolutely not permit to be happier than him. Throughout this series Mitsuhashi abuses Imai time and time again and so at one point Imai, being the absolute fool that he is, decides to get his own back by playing a little practical joke on him and so what does Mitsuhashi do, he gets revenge on him Mitsuhashi-style. This entails locking Imai in an abandoned apartment for several days and laughing at all the ridiculous stuff he does in order to survive, the delight spread all across Mitsuhasi’s little face as Imai has to survive by eating a lone banana peel is one of the most hauntingly hilarious things I have ever seen. This is just one such example of the dastardly Mitsuhashi’s malevolence. Other than trying to get himself a girlfriend (because Itou has one and he’s jealous) Mitsuhashi enjoys reading manga and inventing sports to play against Itou. This being a comedy series you wouldn’t exactly expect there to be all that much character development since that isn’t ever going to be the focus of a comedy manga. But the two main characters are rather well fleshed out and over time you will learn a lot about their personalities and their habits, which just goes to show you that characters do not need to have some sort of existential crisis every ten minutes in order to be considered a good character. The two main characters develop slightly over time, for example Itou has to confront the loss of his beloved Dio-kun and Mitsuhashi learns to have more respect for the environment when he joins the gardening club, but the surprising and more substantial development can be seen in the side characters that encounter Itou and Mitsuhashi. Usually you would expect those who lose fights to just disappear into the background but in this series that is not the case, we get to see a lot of the characters reappear frequently and it is quite interesting to see how some characters like Nakano who you wouldn’t expect to see again show up regularly and you will also see surprising amounts of developments of people like Tanigawa who would have normally been nothing more than a lackey in any other series. Art - “Never heard of you, moron! Your ears look like Doraemon’s pockets.” This is something like the elephant in the room since it is just about the only thing in this series that I consider to be bad. This series first started in the late 80s but still even considering the time there were series that looked better than this one. However, while the artwork may not be the most beautiful thing in the world it certainly manages to get the job done, at no point will you have trouble understanding whether a person is angry, happy, sad and so on because their faces are expressive enough and the actions scenes aren’t exactly difficult to follow either. As a matter of fact I think the art in this series sometimes just made things even funnier for me. Enjoyment – “Do you understand now, Itou? If you’re pissed, let your fists speak. Rather than crying yourself, it’s better to make the enemy cry. Make someone else feel more unpleasant than yourself! Make the enemy repent! If he collects stress he’ll die early! This is what true victory is!” So, did I enjoy this series? Well that would have to be a resounding yes!!! This is probably the most enjoyable manga I have ever read. It made me laugh so much that it became physically painful and the supreme Lord Mitsuhashi is a wise ruler who has many lessons to teach us commoners. This manga is funny and very endearing with lots of fun characters and plenty of fantastic memories to take away from it. I suppose it may be a tad repetitive and maybe the art isn’t so great but honestly I couldn’t care less about those things. I have probably taken a lot more from this series than most acclaimed anime and manga masterpieces which is rather funny in itself. This series is tied with Gintama as my favourite comedy across all mediums so if you want to have some laughs just relax and read some KKOW and be careful if you plan to read this manga while eating or drinking. It would have been a perfect 10 if not for the artwork but well that’s just a superficial thing anyways.