Hammer Session!

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tl;dr: A manga with a a really fun and interesting swindler of a teacher, but that is pretty lacking in terms of the characters and story surrounding him.

This manga is about an incredibly swindler named Yuu serving as a teacher. He and a fellow prisoner manage to escape while being transported, and while on the run they end up at Hikari Academy middle school. Due to various circumstances the principal takes a liking to Yuu and thus he asks him to take on the identity of Hachisuka Gorou, a new teacher that was supposed to start the next day but would now simply assist Yuu ... in maintaining his cover. Of course what the principal wants from him isn’t to just serve as a normal teacher, but rather to use his skills as a swindler to take control of the hearts of his students and guide them onto a better path, and using what he calls Hammer Sessions, Yuu plans to do just that.

This manga is essentially composed of a series of episodes each involving Yuu dealing with a student in trouble. Each episode involves him using his wit, sharp senses, and various tricks in order to do so in a way that pretty much always really amusing. The episodes are usually pretty basic and have a very simple and easy moral at the end, but it’s middle school students so it feels like it fits well enough. There’s also a good variety to the episodes, but it does kind of feel like the author was struggling in keeping them interesting over the course of the manga. It felt like the author was constantly trying to up the ante on the issues the students were having, and by the end of the manga the situations got a bit too heavy. The writing in the manga is pretty focused on being fun and thus remains pretty lighthearted throughout. However, that as applied to students with pretty intense problems doesn’t work well. As such, the episodes felt like they were getting increasingly less enjoyable towards the end, not including the final episode which was a really solid way to end the series in terms of the overarching themes throughout the manga.

The manga is very heavily held up by it’s protagonist. He’s a Gary Stu for whom things essentially always go as planned, but in context it works well. This largely comes down the fact that he’s really likable. He’s a got a good amount of charisma as a part of his swindler aspect, but he also has his innocent side as well that shows up at times, and throughout all that he’s just a really good person. The main heroine Mizuki is also pretty likable due to how kind she is. The problem with her and the cast in general is that there’s a lack of depth and major lack of progression. Yuu may be cool, but in the end very little about his background is revealed and ultimately it feels like he wasn’t really fleshed out as a person. There’s a lot of light hints at romance, but in the end they don’t go anywhere. Yuu also has rivalries with other teachers, but those too for the most part never go anywhere. In the end, it kind of feels like the manga ended without properly dealing with a lot of what it set up. The abruptness of the ending may be thematically appropriate I suppose, but it was still pretty unsatisfying.

Furthermore, in terms of the students that he gives Hammer Sessions to, each gets fleshed out a good degree and gets a good story. However, each character focused on is essentially new with little to no previously revealed background, and though they may continue to have some presence after their arc, their presence is minimal and does very little to build off of their arc or develop them further. As such, every episode feels too disconnected from the rest and ultimately it doesn’t really feel like there’s any sort of overarching story going. There’s also a lack of any sort of class dynamic that’s generally a core part of such stories thus making it harder to get invested in the characters at a deeper level. Thus, while almost every episode individually may be pretty great, holistically the story never manages to become more than the sum of it’s parts and thus isn’t able to leave all that strong an impression of anyone other than Yuu.

The art isn’t particularly great in terms of style or quality. Still, it definitely can look good at times and it certainly does feel like it’s constantly trying.

The plot is that a con artist who is wanted to serve life in prison becomes a school teacher because of a bizarre turn of events. The principal hopes to use him to con his troubled students into behaving again.

Heres a quick summary of facts for you
-original idea
-very funny
-you will love the characters
-jaw dropping surprise every chapter

Heres how the plot line of each volume goes.

... 1)Our teacher finds out about a student in trouble somehow or another.
2)He researches them
3)He works his way into their lifestyle (remember this is a professor and the students lifestyle involves things like robbery or crazy parties)
4)He uses his knowledge of the student to push them into doing a better job of whatever they are trying to do.
5)He blows it up in their faces
6)He picks up the pieces and uses it in a jaw dropping scheme to get them back on the right track.

As far as my character rating goes, they haven't really used a couple of the secondary main characters yet in any meaningful way. But other than that the characters are brilliant

As far as the art goes, Its great, just I have seen better. Not really a big factor in this kind of manga.

PS Don't watch the J-Drama version. It will disappoint and bore you to tears. Half the fun in this series is the reaction of the stunned students as to what is going on, the J-Drama can't express that and they make up a lot of bad story lines as well. The characters are completely without appeal as well.

If you read Great Teacher Onizuka there's nothing to be had by reading this manga.
The focus isn't as much on the class however, as it is on the main protagonist, that's a conman and oh he's so good at doing his thing, and he daringly solves problem after problem with his class, in a way that's very unexpected (really he's just conning people).
I get it that it feels nice when protagonist has everything under control, but there's no comedy in here, no ecchi (well, unless we count windy skirt flips ecchi), and generally the whole thing feels a bit bland.

That said, it still seems enjoyable ... enough read, so if you have time to waste on reading manga, then you might as well waste it on this one.