Mission! School

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Make no mistake: Mission! School is a stupid manga. It quickly forgets its own central plot (premise: hijinks ensue as girls trained for combat have to adapt to a normal school setting), and its characters are one-note at best. But it's funny. It's really really funny. And it doesn't have to be anything else.

You see, Mission! School is first and foremost a gag manga, full of weirdos and fools doing silly things in variably ridiculous scenarios, framed as a romantic comedy and peppered with a moderate disregard for the Fourth Wall. In it, we see male lead Ishikawa - a mildly reserved guy (who, as ... the manga gleefully and excessively points out, has no remarkable features or abilities) - generally play the put-upon straight-man to female lead Haduki, who drives the comedy with her earnest, overeager, and ultimately doomed attempts to do normal teenage stuff in a normal way, in spite of her ridiculously out-there rich-girl upbringing, her insane world-conquest-focused schooling, and "help" from her lazy, self-interested, possibly-sociopathic attendant/friend/classmate Minagawa. A cast of strange supporting characters join in and try to interfere with or aid Ishikawa and Haduki's misadventures and budding relationship, all either starting off as or becoming slaves to the gag-a-minute nature of the manga. And everyone and everything in Mission! School is so sincerely and excitedly committed to its gags (and particular gags, at that!) that it skips right past feeling "forced" and becomes amusing in and of itself.

Mission! School is not a witty manga. It is incapable of utilizing much if any character humor. It doesn't derive entertainment value from situational humor (save for absurdism). No, when it comes right down to it, Mission! School's primary strength is its ability to repeatedly defy minor expectations about what's going on (in the plot and in the characters' heads) in generally stupid ways with vast enthusiasm, perfect timing, and expressive art.

And that's it. As a romance, Mission! School is insubstantial and unfulfilling. As a story, it has no plot, and there's no depth to its characters. Heck, its final volume is 50% comprised of meta-humor about their impending cancellation. As a comedy, though? It's light-hearted, good-natured, and, most importantly, gut-bustingly silly. I laughed often and wholeheartedly.

So what else is there to say that's really meaningful? Maybe it's ultimately forgettable, but I've never smiled, chuckled, and laughed as much while reading a manga. Simple and (perhaps) disposable though it may seem, Mission! School holds a special place in my heart. So maybe you should give it a try!
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Story: 3/10 - It forgets its own premise for the most part and has only the vaguest sense of narrative motion
Art: 9/10 - While not innovative in any sense, the character art is a constant highlight of the work. It is energetic and expressive, effectively adapting its style for whatever suits the gag-du-jour. Comedic timing is controlled with skillful panel composition.
Character: 5/10 - Character development is just about the last priority of this manga, and consistency isn't far behind. Case in point, multiple supporting characters end up abandoning their key characteristics or being forgotten entirely. But, while they may have the level of complexity in their personalities as cardboard cutouts would, oh boy are they fun to watch!
Enjoyment: 10/10
Overall: 9/10

This manga is all around incredibly strange. First of all, in terms of plot, it goes in completely different directions randomly. It starts off with a bunch of girls from a military school and such, but then it pretty much drops that concept and then focuses on how Haduki is the daughter of the head of a major corporation, and though that remains a focus it ends up going on completely random tangents. The same applies to characters. The relationship development is completely random, with the main relationship actually starting as a joke and then suddenly being a real thing that's supposed to be taken ... seriously. Character development never really occurs, and a lot of the characters are quite inconsistent, having their personalities changed to better fit the arbitrary plot, or as is more common being introduced, mattering for a bit, and then suddenly disappearing. However, despite all that, I would still say this manga while not necessarily high quality, is still quite interesting. The reasoning for that, is the attitude of the author, in that he clearly does not give a damn. The manga is full of parodies, random shots, and what not, with a sub commentary on such. It has long stretches where it breaks the fourth wall and then suddenly goes back to normal. It is so completely and utterly random, that while the issues previously highlighted would utterly destroy most mangas, while they still definitely can't be seen as a positive, don't harm this manga that much. It ends up quite amusing and refreshing to read. The art and fanservice is also really good.

A manga that is lacking in most areas but is crazy in a good way such that it's still interesting.

7/10

Ishikawa Takuya is your average high school student and he doesn't stand out in any particular way. So he is surprised when his principal asks him to take care of some transfer students. He is even more surprised to find that the transfer students are actually 30 female students who came from a boarding school that was destroyed in fire. At first it seemed like a dream come true, but he soon comes to find that the girls have knives, guns, and deadly training, making him curious as to what kind of school these girls came from.

There really isn't much to say about this manga. ... The first two volumes are the standard generic fare for an ecchi romance manga that relies heavily on a gimmick. A boy stumbles into relationship with a girl, the girl's behavior ranges from a bit weird to completely out there, and boy has to deal with the consequences of her antics. The moment that I was finished reading it, i forgot about it immediately almost completely.

The comedy also leaves much to be desired. I can't think of a single joke that lands. Other comedy series "Kill Me Baby" involves guns and it's jokes land much better than any joke in "Mission! School". But that's probably because it's a gag comic that has more than one joke. "Uppote!!" also has girls with military training and guns (and the girls themselves are actually guns, but that's for another time) and also does a better job than "Mission! School". The only good thing that this manga has going for it is that it's short, and when one of the compliments for something is that it doesn't overstay it's welcome, that's a clear sign that something has gone wrong.

The one compliment that I can give it is that it's art is decent and appropriate a lighthearted comedy manga, and looking at the authors other work, he does a pretty good job at the art.

But then the third volume shifts gears, switching from your typical comedy ecchi manga about girls with guns and military training to becoming a self-aware meta comedy manga about how the manga that these characters are in is being cancelled due to low numbers and the characters are doing everything they can to not get cancelled when the amount of pages gets to zero. Things that range from the female characters showing more skin to titillate readers to re-arranging volumes of the manga on store shelves to make it more noticeable to customers in hopes that more people pick it up.

It just makes me feel bad for the author who was clearly passionate about their work but ultimately ended up having their cancelled. Maybe this manga could have led somewhere interesting, but we'll never know, so the only thing that we're left with is are the three volumes that are presented to us, and what we got just wasn't very good.

Unfortunately, this shift in focus doesn't help the manga as it's comedy, characters, and overall style largely remain the same. I can't recommend "Mission! School".