Oct 25, 2023
This review will spoil a first-chapter twist and vaguely touch on plot points, but is otherwise spoiler-free.
As of this review, this manga has only been about half-translated. At the pace of the current group's releases, they're projected to take over three years to complete the rest of the manga. This means that unless you can read Japanese, you can't read it to the end yet. Fortunately, I can, so I have the honor of writing the first complete review of this manga.
Before anything else, I must say that the MAL entry as well as some of the preliminary reviews are misleading you. Toss aside any
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expectation of this being a serious, disturbing, psychological drama about bullying, because they will only result in disappointment. Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu is an absurd, goofy manga that is structured similarly to a battle shounen. For the most part, it does not take itself very seriously, and any reader who does will only be met with questions and confusion. Now onto the review.
The first-chapter twist is interesting. From the perspective of Tanaka, we see Nakajima horribly bullying Shirosaki. Perhaps this is the kind of story that involves Tanaka attempting to stop Nakajima's bullying, or otherwise saving Shirosaki somehow. It's a premise that has been explored many times by other manga that take themselves far more seriously. But it's revealed that Nakajima is actually a kind person, and is being forced to bully Shirosaki by Shirosaki herself. This nicely turns the story on its head, reestablishes Nakajima as the protagonist, and sets up a far more unique premise, one where the bully himself is actually the victim.
The manga's goals seem to be in conflict with its premise. While Nakajima's grave circumstance with Shirosaki is given some importance early on, the story does not attempt to address it directly. It instead chooses to go in a different direction, having Nakajima confront other "genuine" bullies, with the rationale being that they would get in the way of his bullying Shirosaki. The story sidelines Nakajima's suffering, keeping it as a constant throughout the plot rather than the driving conflict of the narrative. To anyone wishing to see a story in which Nakajima searches for a way to escape his situation, this will definitely come as a disappointment.
Looking past the premise and towards the rest of the story, it becomes a bullying-themed battle manga, in each arc of which Nakajima meets increasingly threatening foes whose goals relate to bullying others. Everything about these storylines is absurd. The characters' powers, the premise, the setting, everything. The absurdity can often be funny, such as the school campus being so large that it takes thirty minutes to run across. It can also lead to endearing characters, more on that later. But the liberties that Nakamura takes to achieve this often gets in the way of the narrative.
For example, one story arc follows a merger of two schools into one, and involves a student council election where Nakajima runs for president to stop a competing bully from having his way with the newly-merged school. The manga claims that Nakajima has already secured the votes from everyone from his school pre-merger. Considering every student in the school sees Nakajima as an evil bully, it's hard to believe that everybody would vote for him instead of the other candidates. In another arc, Nakajima needs to procure a flash drive containing compromising footage of him so that it won't be shown to the public, but in this case, it's hard to believe that the arc's antagonists wouldn't keep several backups. Furthermore, it's especially hard to believe that despite literally the entire school being aware of systematic bullying, no information about it makes it outside the school. Including more would require more heavy spoilers, but the point I'm trying to make is that Nakamura hand-waves away or often straight up ignores inconsistencies, kinks in the story, and potential continuity errors for the sake of progressing the plot or to make a character look cool. There a large "anything goes" attitude, as if the universe has no rules or limits.
Furthermore, a lack of rules can result in a lack of stakes. Why should I ever feel that a character is in trouble when the definition of "trouble" isn't even agreed upon? When deus ex machinas are permissible and commonplace, tension is lost. Goofiness isn't an excuse to ignore rules and stakes, and a story with all of the above could have been achieved had it been given more thought.
Despite all this, Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu has one fantastic redeeming aspect: Its characters. Where many others fail, Nakamura has successfully written a cast of characters that is endearing and interesting to watch. The manga contains many dynamic characters that drastically change as the story progresses. Nakajima himself is thoroughly interesting, which is the most important quality that any good character must have. Despite placing quite low in the power ranking of characters, he doesn't come across as underpowered. His outward appearance as a ghastly bully contrasts well with his good nature, letting him have his cool moments while also preserving his role as the kind hero-type character of the story. His circumstance with Shirosaki also earns him sympathy from the reader, letting us easily root for him. He's calculating enough that he earns the respect of canonically smart characters, yet not so all-knowing that he can easily outmaneuver any challenge on his own. He's balanced and easy to love. He's not very complex or multidimensional, and grows relatively little compared to the rest of the cast, but the most important thing is that he is interesting and has agency.
The quality of being interesting to watch is shared among many other characters. Be it the pathetic underdog-type character who grows into a respectable person who earns the respect of other characters, or a prior villain, crippled, changing his ways and becoming an ally to Nakajima, whose fights are exciting to read. Nakamura has done a fantastic job of writing truly endearing characters.
A final note on art before the conclusion. The art is very simple. The way Nakamura draws his characters is very distinct, and should he continue his manga career beyond Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu, his character designs will no doubt be very recognizable as his own. However, there is a very low level of detail. Backgrounds are very sparse and almost resemble liminal spaces. There's basically no rendering to be found, making the art seem very flat and two-dimensional. As a result of all this, the panels contain a lot of white space. The manga doesn't take itself very seriously, and is very goofy, so this by no means detracts from the experience, but at the same time, the art is nothing to write home about.
For what it's worth, I personally enjoyed this manga. With all the criticisms I have about how little it takes itself seriously, I ended up loving the characters so much that I overlook its downsides. But in being objective, I have to be fair, and the fact of the matter is that this manga's narrative is relatively poor in quality. Its goofiness makes it difficult to be truly invested in the plot, and for many, the characters simply can't make up for that. So in the end, I can only conclude that this manga is mediocre.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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