Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends

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Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends.

Now this Manga was something I didn't expect, looking at the front cover all I could think was "Oh man, another teen manga with overused content". Oh how I was wrong.

Story: 8/10

This Manga is easily one of my favorite manga I have read in a while, the overall story doesn't seem very powerful at first, but as it has progressed it has slowly begun to reveal interesting little tidbits into the past of each of the characters. Now, I'm keeping an open view on the story, as I have not read the entire series (as only 3 volumes ... are out in English at the time I'm writing this). Humor has a major influence on this Manga, as the activities that they partake in generate a lot of fantastic and down right raunchy moments.

Art: 8/10

The art style for this manga, isn't anything overly unique or bland. It pays attention to the details when it is needed and it works well with the overall light and Hilarious themes. each character looks different, not only in their general display but in their facial expressions and posture. As a big theme in this manga would definitely be comedy, the art does not disappoint in portraying these moments to the reader.

Character: 9/10

Now, surely having a club that is for making friends is going to generate a lot of "Interesting" characters, and oh my, how it does. Throwing all of these different characters into one room would make any normal person question whether or not it's some twisted social experiment. The club starts with just Kodaka and Yozora, but as the manga progresses characters are constantly joining this lively club. An obnoxious princess, Kodaka Fan-boy and an overly intelligent 10 year old nun later and you have the ingredients for madness.

Enjoyment: 9/10

If I was to put this manga into one word, that word would be "Hilarious". Due to the simple fact that this manga shows what you can do when it comes to comedy. I found myself Audible laughing on public transport, much to the discomfort of the other passengers. Along with all I have said so far, this series is really shaping up to be one of my top 3.

Overall: 9/10

If you have not had the time to check this manga out, I would thoroughly suggest you find a copy somewhere and give it a read. It's funny, raunchy and brings a smile to your face with every page. I personally cannot wait for the rest of this series to be published into English, and I refuse to watch the anime until I finish it.

I bashed the anime in season 1. I loved the anime is season 2. THEN, I read the manga.

THE MANGA IS FANTASTIC! HOLY MOLY! I can not stress how much the characters grow in this and how much you feel for em. They go from weird rejects to relatable and deep. ESPECIALLY when the manga starts to go pass the anime. In several volumes, they grow so much. There isn't much I can say about the parts of the anime covered that I didn't already say in the anime reviews. I mean... It is kinda the same? Yet different slightly. Then the post anime story ... hits. It hits hard. Characters learning to confront their emotions, learning to let go, friendships blossoming, love blooming. It really is amazing.

The story is good but let me touch on one thing. The Art. THE ART! The art starts off weird. The characters don't really seem well drawn at first. I mean it's fine, but off. Then I noticed something. The art of the series gradually improved as the characters grew and matured. Seriously. Compare Yozora and Kodaka from the first chapters to the later chapters (78-84) and put them side by side. It's like looking at weird kids to detailed young adults. Like 2 different characters. This HAS to be a stylistic choice. If it is, it is an amazing one. I loved watching everything gradually improve. The art. The characters. The Story. I can't recommend this enough. I hope the ending turns out as amazing as the story so far. Especially since this is to do somethings different than the LN. Here's hoping.
Story, Art, Character, Enjoyment, Overall: 10/10 Poop jokes included.

Harem is such a complicated genre to make enjoyable. The very nature of the story demands that there won't be a resolution until the popularity drops, and usually the quality of the comedy dropped long before that. Add that from the start you know that the first interest will be the winner, or maybe the second one if the author is extremely risky; and you end up feeling as if the entire story is desperately trying to bait you into things that won't happen. The main route to get the reader interest is being funny, which is hard to make universal.

I wouldn't say that this ... manga is extremely funny, although it does reach situations so far fetched that make it enjoyable as a slice of life comedy. The secondary characters are, as it tends to happen, far better romantic options and knowing that they are just filler for the childhood friend can make then a bit irritating.

I think the main element that makes this one work specially well is the absolute lack of human contact the MC has. The standard route i giving the MC two school friends who will desire his girls and maybe work as consolation prices for the losers, but having absolutely no one (and each time the class mates talk about him they quickly jump to assuming he abused people and should be in jail) makes it a bit more natural that he wouldn't think about having a girlfriend at all. When you can't talk to anyone, or share your mundane happiness, your mind would be aiming to something much more basic than getting your privates wet.

As the formula starts to get in place they lose the ironic reminder that they don't have friends (since they clearly are friends), so I'd like to assume the author is aware of how he's dealing with that topic without making it overly obvious.

As a side note I really like the sketchy style and while panel layout is pretty standard and the faces can be confusing here and there, it does have a general feeling that makes it appealing.

Okay, so I picked this up randomly without really knowing much about it. It was a great decision. I later found out the original source material was a light novel series. And also found out that there was anime adaptation as well, so it became my goal to thoroughly read the manga before watching the anime (season 1 and 2). I gotta say I am really enjoying the manga. There are plenty of moments where I'm left wondering "how they would even animate that" or "is that even allowed to be on TV!?" but I'm really having fun with it. As my first ever manga, ... I really appreciate the pace of the story-line, the characters and their relationships, and the compact size of the physical manga. Definitely recommend this for a fun read.

So off the bat let me say that the anime covers the manga up to vol 14 though not all the event are in the same order. And if the authors note i vol 15 is true it differs from the LN from vol 15 onward. How much different from the LN it is I don't know since I haven't read them.

I will make this short since it's late when I write this and I am tired so I just want to get these thoughts out of the system so they don't keep me awake.

Art - The art is good in this manga with many ... tips off the hat to other shows for instance sometimes the girls are drawn like the Power Puff Girls from the 90's when they are fighting. So I you never gets bored of the art.

Pacing - The Pacing is properly the weakest link. Sometimes the story drags especially in the early part, the opposite is true in the later volumes where the conclusions gets a little rushed.

Story - for a harem it is a suprisingly good story and most of the story lines gets resolved. The main problem I have with the story is that it end a bit too open ended. As I said without spoiling anything most of the sory lines gets an ending and most of these are good, and the story of the neighbours club ends very well. However I would have very much liked a more closed ending and find myself a little unfulfilled.

Characters - The main members of the neighbours club gets a good growth and development and even later characters are enjoyable to follow as they interact with the main group. All in all they seem to be actual people and not just stereotypes as you see in so many harem. Which is impressive when you think of how out there the basic personalities of the characters are. It was a bitter-sweet feeling when it was time for the story to end.

All in all I would say it has been an enjoyable read, but not I don't see myself re-reading it anytime soon.

tl;dr: A manga that has some really strong aspects, but is incredibly rushed towards the end so squanders quite a few of them.

Haganai as about a group of high school students that don’t have any friends but really want to. They come together in what is officially known as the Neighbors Club, though really they don’t really have any sort of proper mission. They basically just hang out and occasionally do something with the vague pretense of “once we have friends having experience with this will be important”. It starts off pretty light hearted with a strong emphasis on comedy, though as it progresses it ... gets a lot heavier with a focus on character arcs and the development of bonds.

The Neighbors Club ultimately has seven members. The protagonist, Kodaka, is a guy that’s pretty easy going and reasonably kind, but because he naturally looks like a violent delinquent bad rumors have always followed him around and resulted in people staying away from him. Yozora, the club president, is a girl that’s aloof with an incredibly sharp tongue and wits to match, who has a hard time getting along with pretty much anyone. Sena, the daughter of the headmaster, is a girl who’s always been naturally hyper competent, which combined with her being a somewhat spoiled and a bit of an airhead has resulted in her being pretty arrogant and looking down on everyone which causes people to either worship her or stay away from her.

Rika is a girl who was given permission not to attend class because she’s a scientific genius and thus just sticks to herself doing fujoshi things. Yukimura is a guy that other guys have generally stayed away from due to how effeminate he is, and thus he wishes to become a true man by following in the steps of the famed delinquent Kodaka. Then there’s Kodaka’s chuuni little sister Kobato who is technically in middle school, but hangs out with the club anyway. And lastly, there’s Maria, a ten year old girl that despite acting even more immature than her age would suggest, is apparently a genius working as a school affiliated nun thus serves officially as the Neighbors Club advisor, though she got tricked into it. These seven are introduced pretty early on and though as the manga progresses a lot of side characters are thrown in, the journey of these seven remains the core.

With such a varied cast, the manga is able to pull out a lot of varied but pretty consistently solid comedy. It also helps that all seven of them are very likable and interesting in their own ways. While a significant portion of the early parts of the manga is just the cast doing random things without any sort of sense of progression, it’s still enjoyable and works well in building up investment in the characters and their relationships. And though it doesn’t get too serious, it does manage to flesh out the cast considerably well.

However, ultimately the manga changes tremendously, with the turning point being about 2/3 of the way in, which corresponds to roughly where the anime ended. After that it starts taking itself much more seriously. There’s still a good amount of comedy interspersed throughout, but the ratio is considerably less compared to what came before. There had been a lot of things that had been building up over time over the course of the manga that it tackles head on and it manages to hit some really strong emotional beats. The bond between Sena and Yozora is ultimately the highlight of the story and thanks to it being a key aspect of what I would consider the climax, the Christmas Party, the manga is able to be incredibly impactful when it needs to be.

Still, the last third of the manga still felt incredibly rushed, with the last two volumes especially just being a blur. While the bond between Sena and Yozora overall did come across well, it still felt like it was moving too fast during key moments. The end game of the other bonds in the manga fared much worse and ultimately did not come across well. The key theme of the manga is the power of friendship and the different types of friendships that can develop, but only Sena and Yozora’s friendship was properly fleshed out. It touches upon similar dynamics for Rika/Yukimura and Kobato/Maria, but doesn’t spend enough time on them for them to come through properly.

The manga also touches upon various other relationships, such as the relationships of the members with their parents or certain other students outside of the club, but these come through even worse, with it basically feeling like it’s just glossing over them despite how important it feels they should be. Romance is also a pretty big element of the manga throughout, but it hits a stand still at some point and then never progresses so it doesn’t really feel like it was given proper closure. It essentially indicates that progress will definitely occur after where the manga ends and isn’t subtle at all about it, so it’s not like it’s an open ending or anything like that. However, that doesn’t change that it never actually shows said progress so while logically it’s solid, at an emotional level it feels lacking.

The writing in this final third also felt pretty off, with it jumping around a bunch and skipping over a lot, resulting in bizarre tone shifts and the atmosphere feeling pretty off at times. It really felt like this part needed to be twice as long in order to handle everything it was dealing with properly. Ultimately the story is still really good, but it feels really disappointing that it wasn’t told very well, resulting in the ending feeling pretty unsatisfying.

The art was also disappointing. It starts off somewhat amateurish in quality with a pretty generic style. Over the course of the manga, the mangaka clearly improves and becomes capable of much more impressive art. However, the changed art style doesn’t really fit Haganai really well I feel, being a bit too rough and grungy. Furthermore, while the mangaka does clearly improve, and this is very evident in certain parts like colored illustrations, there are also a lot of parts later on that feel low effort and thus worse than the earlier parts of the manga.