Yankee Juku e Iku
Yankee Go To Juku

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So here's a weird one. I stumbled upon this manga by complete accident and seeing as it was 4 volumes long, it couldn't be too bad. Turns out it's pretty good.

It's a well-known fact "delinquent manga" is usually a bunch of badass, tough, cool looking dudes punching the hell out of each other repeatedly while screaming about WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MAN, and while those are super fun to read and nail some really important parts of being a man growing up, Yankee Juku e Iku nails the side that people don't usually acknowledge.

"Teens are so stupid and absolutely not badass."

Ikariishi himself is ... an ugly idiot known for being the strongest delinquent and winning just about every fight, YET he's a pretty mellow guy who just wants to go to college. His friends and the other people around him are equally as ugly and stupid, just like teenagers are, and they act like teenagers do, down to the absolute immaturity of some of them.


Like the only other review for this says, it's a very blunt manga. These are real teenagers being idiots messing around, and Ikariishi is a surprisingly great character despite all that. Seeing the kindness and spirit behind people's faces is a message that's as old as time but very few works actually pull it off as well as this one.

I'd say give it a try, it's extremely fast to read with maybe 2-5 speech bubbles each page at most. At best you walk away with a better understanding of people, at worst you wasted maybe 1-2 hours of your time. Regardless of the outcome you'll most likely remember it in some way.

Yankee Juku e Iku is a story about a boy with a dream.

Ikariishi is a delinquent. Not much is revealed about his past, his goals, or his ideals. Throughout the story, he doesn't really become a better person or change his life drastically. It's quite difficult to tell exactly where the plot is supposed to be going, because it seems to have a mind of its own.

There is no narration in this very blunt manga, just pictures and dialogue. Many of the characters are butt-ugly, including its protagonist. It's strong point is neither action nor comedy, and its characters are about as complex as real ... high school students—in other words, either unreasonably angry, inexcusably horny, or somewhere in between. These characters jump rope with the line between reality and fiction, almost becoming caricatures of themselves in the process.

Our first encounter with Ikariishi is quite typical, as he properly establishes himself as the protagonist by handing out ass-kickings like Halloween candy. By pure chance, he's dragged to a random cram school by a very pretty girl who mistakes him for one of her classmates. Seeing how motivated she is to get into a good high school, he just... decides to study along with her. In the meantime, one of his rivals is back from juvie, and wants revenge! On the day of the entrance exam, Ikariishi is forced to pick between saving his best friend and getting a chance at a normal high school life.

My favorite part of the manga is that Ikariishi truly does look stupidly intimidating. And yet, it's not really his appearance that prevents him from becoming a typical shounen protagonist. He is the product of his circumstances, and his choices are driven by a moral code that has been shaped by the conflict in his life. Ikariishi's fate is the brutal reality that is glorified by delinquent manga: unbridled, unavoidable violence. His inability to prioritize himself over others is the reality of living in a world where the strong rule over the weak. These are the circumstances that lead a young boy to give up on his dreams of the extraordinary vastness of outer space, and to instead be chained down by his responsibility to his remarkably ordinary neighborhood.

This manga is very blunt. Teens rebel just for fun, bully out of boredom, and rarely think about anyone except themselves. Teachers are bystanders, parents are absent. And Ikariishi himself is not a hero by any means—he's just a teenager trying to do the right thing in a world so full of brutality that it threatens to consume him entirely.

Yankee Juku e Iku completely disregards traditional storytelling and tropes in manga. It strikes a strange balance between parody and deconstruction, teetering and tottering towards either side without ever committing to one. But at the end of the day, it's fun as hell to read, and I hope that I've convinced you to give it a shot.

Written 09.28.2019 | Edited 08.28.2024