Yankee-kun to Megane-chan

tl;dr: A manga that has a solid build up as a group of friends go through high school showcasing well them enjoying the things high school students do, but has a completely worthless ending. 

This manga starts out pretty great. Watching Daichi and company go through three years of high school is great because the manga heavily focuses on highlighting the great aspects of just normal life, though in a pretty exaggerated fashion. The main cast is a really interesting bunch, and there’s a really solid group of reoccurring supporting characters alongside them that are used quite well in repeating roles. There’s also solid character development in most of the main and supporting cast. This combined with how there’s a good variety of stories that are paced pretty well and how the humor is pretty solid makes most of the manga pretty good to read through.

However, when it starts heading towards the ending it really feels like it drops the ball. When the manga reaches them in their third year and focuses on graduating, it really begins to drag on. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem if it managed to wrap things up with a solid ending, but it doesn’t at all. Rather, the ending is completely half-assed.  The core of that could be contributed to Hana. As the main heroine, you would expect her to be focused on heavily and get a lot of development. However, that isn’t the case. Throughout the manga, a lot of her background is hinted at, but nothing is made clear. Similarly, in terms of relationship development there’s a lot hinted at, but nothing explicit. There’s a lot of buildup that feels like its leading to an impactful conclusion. But that conclusion simply never happens. All that build up leads to nowhere.

To a degree, it felt like the manga ended before it should have, that it was building up for one more major arc in college considering it introduced characters that could be a part of it, but it just doesn’t. As the manga approaches its end Hana disappears from the narrative, which feels like a set up for what had been building up all this time to finally be dealt with, but things keep going, the manga reaches the ending, and Hana simply isn't dealt with at all. There’s an epilogue that kind of tries dealing with this, but it deals with it in a way that’s so abrupt and random that it feels completely pointless, in that it doesn’t actually resolve anything definitively but rather it actually diminishes a lot of everything up to that point, and hence doesn’t fix the mess of the ending at all, leaving an overall feeling of hollowness. The art wasn’t so great starting out but eventually became decent. 

If you humor some aspects and forgo some minor inconsistencies, you'll most likely enjoy this manga.

The art is top notch. Great when serious, adorable and funny when not.

The idea is interesting, way more than the title suggests. This mangaka is more than competent when throwing twists or developing characters.

However, they've invested so much of the story into developing interest in the female protagonist. A lovable character, with a seemingly dark background. The writer had laid out several hooks and cliff hangers early on in the story and even more intense ones near the end. Not one was used. So what potentially could've been the biggest arc in the manga, was strangely abandoned in the last few chapters. As if nothing ever happened.

This manga is a real page turner. It's been entertaining from beginning to... well, near the end. The ending was so unsatisfying, that I had to reconsider this manga as a whole. The mystery was not only left unsolved, it was ignored.

I would give this manga an 8/10 all the way to the ~200th chapter. I'd give the last ~10 chapters a 3/10. And that's being generous.

Definitely avoid it if you're in it for the ending.

To everyone who's hesitating whether should read this series or shouldn't, I highly recommend you guys to read this.

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan isn't any of those stereotypical mangas about romances being included in school life and such, it's different in an unique way. You'll see a really funky opening of the story-- believe me, it IS funky-- and the more you continue to read the series, the more you enjoy it. The characters are all well-made, even though Adachi Hana could get on your nerves sometimes, but she's one of the most hilarious character ever appeared on a series. Her idiocy is so entertaining in some or other ways. And meet Shinagawa Daichi, your extraordinary yankee. I love every bits of his character, especially. Then the art... hmm it kinda looks funny sometimes, but it has the author's characteristics (even though kinda looks like Hiro Mashima's art, dontcha think). I don't mind it. The best part of this series is one simple word: development.

Yes-- I feel it. At first, this story was no more than a stupid comedy that could make you laugh your ass off (seriously) and the story just goes wherever the author wanted it to be. But as the story goes on, you could definitely see the developments: it's still as hilarious as ever, but slowly the story is forming into a more solid, dense one. It's starting to have its own 'core' as time passes by. And not just a comedy, the stories themselves started to have their own meanings. And you can also enjoy the character developments, especially Shinagawa's. He changed a lot in the story. And that is really enjoyable.

Indeed, one of the best comedy-school life ever, I guess.

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan is an extremely cliche manga yet still very enjoyable with a lovable cast.
It starts out with a typical delinquent who's scared by everyone, then forced by class Rep to do stuff. There's every cliche in the book, delinquent fights, student council is involved, helping out others, college, etc. etc. Despite the somewhat lackluster story-line, Yankee-kun to Megane-chan has an enjoyable cast of characters with hilarious interactions and decent amount of character development.
the art style really shines for hilarious moments but is still mediocre.
Overall, characters are great, amazing humor, but the story-line is too cliche.
Props to the story for actually ending, though I didn't really enjoy it.

Okay... This is my first review. My deepest apologize if i have some mistakes in english. So, yankee-kun to megane-chan, first time i decided to read this manga just because i really interest in school life's story. When i saw the art (honestly, i'm the kind of person who see the cover first and then decided to read) i was sure that it would be comedy. And then i begun to read it. What a surprise. It isn't comedy at all. I mean it's true that japanese manga art never contains a single genre of story. But in this manga we can also learn about how the delinquent's life is.

I also don't mention it's non-mainstream manga because we already know that there're a lot of other delinquent story. Nevertheless one thing that makes me really enjoy to read it is the collaboration of past life story, love and idiocy.
Haha... I'm so exited about the last three points here.

Then, here some synopsis of the story

The story begun with the appearance of the famous Mon Shiro's local delinquent named Shinagawa Daichi. He's a super delinquent who's never care about other people and his entire school environment. His hobby was just sitting down in toilet, smoking, watching a porn and doing other useless things. He was a great shirker. Fortunately his life was changed when someday he met with a glasses worn girl called Adachi Hana.
Adachi was just like a clumsy girl with idiot thinking. She's appearances was really old-fashioned. She had a thick glasses, braided hair style and a sheet of "ahoge". Once a glare Adachi looks like a smart girl but in fact is totally opposite of that. She had a terrible exam scores even Shinagawa can totally beat her in math. Shinagawa just seems like a dumbass but actually he's genius in math.
Somehow Adachi started to drag Shinagawa into several social activity at school such as extra class, school festival, sport, etc. And little by little Shinagawa's mind was opened to a society.

One of the biggest break through in Shinagawa's life is when Adachi asked him to be student council vice-president at the election. That's unbelievable. How could an anti-social person like him have a favor to participate at student council's election? But in fact that's happened. After several miracles Adachi won the election and Shinagawa become the vice-president. During election Shinagawa met another strong ex-delinquent named Gakku Izumi. He is good looking boy and smart. Shinagawa ever had a some battle with him and the result was draw. Instead be an enemy he decided to join student council member as Shinagawa's teammate.

When Shinagawa did his job as vice-president of student council he learnt a lot about sociality. He often dragged into other student problem and unbelievably he could solve their case. Of course he solved it with his own ways. The delinquent ways. He gained many friends because of that. He realizes that he isn't lonely anymore. He starts to concern about the other persons. But Shinagawa is still a blockhead person that wanna do something egoistically. She is just delinquent after all.

If i'm not wrong in volume 6 of this manga was revealed Shinagawa's love story. Actually Shinagawa and Adachi had met before when he took an entrance exam in Mon Shiro High School. Shinagawa just fall in love with Adachi at the first glance. But that day Adachi really had a different appearance. She didn't wear glasses and her hair style wasn't braided. She obviously looked cute that time. Unfortunately Shinagawa hadn't asked her name when he met her at entrance exam. So Shinagawa spent his entire time in high school to search her. Too bad. He didn't realize the person who's he looking for is just really close to him at the whole time

This manga's storyline/plot is very entertaining and amusing. I first started reading it, and I couldn't stop! The characters are created so nicely that you just can't help but laugh at even the most stupid jokes that are made. I think that is you enjoy stories where characters get together throughout the story, then yuo'll like this because Hana Adachi is someone who goes out and makes friends, and you enjoy seeing how she does things.

This is genuinely one of the most bizarre things I've ever read.

It may seem strange that this is the case as, for the most part, this manga is just another inoffensive romcom. In fact, I actually believe a large majority of this manga is respectable. It has a unique cast of lovable characters and is supported by its wonderful art. The series does take an obvious decline starting at around the halfway point with constant introductions of pointless, uninteresting characters and overused formulas/storylines, but most of it was bearable. Problems like this exist in most long-running romance comedies, and I am definitely no stranger to this.

What really makes this manga bizarre is the absolutely psychotic ending.

There are plenty of acclaimed manga with heavily criticized endings. Prison School and I Am a Hero first come to mind, but at least those series have endings that are somewhat consistent with logic and have reasons. Prison School's ending is a pretty obviously trolly one and makes sense given the author's attitude at the time, and I Am a Hero's ending is a realistic conclusion to the story (one that I believe is almost genius in how little it cared for standard storytelling rules in terms of structure and completeness). On the other hand, I cannot even begin to fathom the ending to Yankee-kun to Megane-chan.

--sorta spoilers ahead for the last 20 or so chapters (specifics intentionally kept very vague)--

In the final arc, a very, *very* important character is completely removed from the story, and no explanation is given. What's strange is that all of the other characters do nothing about it, and hardly even react to it - not even the missing character's primary love interest! Up until this point in the story, every character had relatively consistent characterizations and they all cared heavily about each other, and so a reader would normally expect the cast to tear up the world if this were to happen. However, the cast only initially reacts with shock and forgets about it pretty much immediately. A rushed theory on what happened is given but is contradicted literally a couple of panels later. In the epilogue of the manga, there is a time skip and every character's future is detailed, with hardly a mention of the missing character, until the very last 5 pages in the most nonsensical, mind-boggling stupid way possible. It is not even an explanation of what happened, it is just a brief cameo of the character.

--vague spoilers end here--

Upon reading the ending, I assumed that this was the result of the series being axed in the middle of an arc or something. However, this is not the case - the series was relatively popular, and the author just intentionally chose to end it like this. There is no greater mystery in the world than why she decided to end it like this. Disappointing is nowhere near enough to describe it - any reader could see that there are gigantic, glaringly obvious plotholes everywhere surrounding it. There is no section of the fanbase that could possibly be appeased with this. It is not just written unbelievably poorly, it also doesn't even accomplish anything. Entire 40+ chapter storylines are rendered completely pointless because of this plot direction. If the author wanted to end the series quickly, there were very simple, safe, and obvious ways to do it. She very easily could have ended the series in a way that would appease her fans, but she went out of her way to add this insane and inexplicable plot direction. And so I genuinely thought that the author must have absolutely detested the series at that point and wanted to end the series in an intentionally disappointing and trolly way.

However, the series received another epilogue 6 entire years after the original ending. This made me start to reconsider. Was the author going to fix everything? Was she going to retcon the original ending, or perhaps give a better explanation for the events of the original? Was she finally going to relieve the fans' from their years of frustration and disappointment?

Nope. Instead, the epilogue pretty much just rehashes everything we knew from the original ending, except with a very obviously different (and worse) art style.

...what

What could possibly be the explanation for this? If she really hated the series so much, why even bother releasing an epilogue for it? The only possibility is that the author wanted to give one last 'fuck you' to the fanbase by saying "Yeah, I wanted it to end like this". This is the only possibility in my head, but nothing online even remotely suggests that the author hated the series. Instead, evidence points to the contrary.

It doesn't make sense from a production point of view or an in-universe point of view. I have never been so confused after finishing a manga. It is genuinely impressive how inexplicable the ending is. What even.


Anyway, I find it pretty difficult to rate the series. I would give the first 10 or so volumes a strong 6 to a light 7, the later volumes around a 5 to a 4, and the ending an obvious 1/10. The ending severely dampers the entire series, and I don't think it is worth reading in its entirety because of it.

Overall, I would recommend reading up to the point where the cast graduates from their second year and pretend it ends there. Otherwise, stay away unless you really want to see a good series crash.

This is my first review for anything. I'll make it short. Basically, if you want a good, satisfying ending, this isn't for you. Granted, it isn't that bad either.

I got into this series without knowing anything about it, author and plot, and overall it was a very enjoyable read with a very slow paced romance(if any). There were many loose ends that were completely ignored but it wasn't a big deal until that ending.

If you are going to read this manga, please note, you are going to read a series that throws away the suspension it built for 200 chapter on the last few chapters with a very 'makes no sense' ending.

I can sympathize with author Miki Yoshikawa's dilemma. She was a lowly 23 year-old assistant on "Fairy Tail" when she got a chance to write a one-shot in 2005. Yoshikawa knocked it out of the park, coming up with a creative, funny scenario involving two oddball, likable characters in Shinigawa, the "Yankee-kun" of the title, and Adachi, the "Megane-chan". The bespectacled heroine tries to convince the school delinquent, camping out in the bathroom, to go on a class field trip.

After this initial success, Yoshikawa was offered her own series based on the one-shot in a popular magazine at only 24. And what do you know; the duo went on more funny adventures, and new, amusing characters were introduced to the cast. The manga was well-received and its sales were excellent.

Eventually, however, she had run out of ideas for humorous adventures. And yet, every week, there was that brutal deadline for 20 fresh new pages. What to do? Canceling a popular series, especially the first hit for a young writer, was unthinkable. So she soldiered on.

Storylines were repeated. New scenarios were nonsensical pap that led nowhere. In an effort to break up the monotony, many new characters, including underclassmen, were introduced as the main cast aged.

They all invariably sucked, with each being an increasingly paler imitation of the main five introduced early in the series. But they weren't the only lousy ones. Instead of developing more personality and complexity, the central characters all became increasingly trite and one-note. For instance, Izumi by volume 14 was a bland, irrelevant character despite having been an amusing, colorful scene stealer when first introduced.

I noticed this very clearly. A manga that I would look forward to and laugh at gradually became dull when its plot holes and non-existent motivations weren't making it annoying. And as it continued to degrade further, it became outright torture to complete a chapter.

While many readers noticed this huge drop in quality beginning with volume 8 or so, many others continued to enjoy it.

However, it all come to a head with the manga's conclusion, one so dire, lazy, and insultingly stupid that even the most ardent defenders of the series cried foul. Personally, I could almost feel the author's hatred of the characters and desire to be rid of them. Having them all die in a tragic mercury poisoning accident after eating at the same sushi restaurant would have been more merciful than their actual fates.

If nothing else, the last 16 volumes of this manga indicate the flip side of any series attaining success. Namely, the unrelenting pressure to keep going. Yoshikawa should have never let it get to that point, but as a first-time writer, one can empathize with her plight.

My advice? Read the first 7 volumes, enjoy them, and pretend that's where the series ended.

I skipped it at first, thinking, yeah another one of those bad guy x class rep girl scenarios. BOY, WAS I WRONG TO JUDGE MANGA BY IT'S NAME :)
- Great, rough art style, the facial expressions can be murderously funny
- Lots of random, school inspired humor
- Very Dynamic, but still maintaining a balanced pace of action
+ Yankee-kun's damns, fucks and go to hell's are an enriching value :")
The Megane, Adachi is more than the megane suggest, she's like a Haruhi Suzumiya, without the supernatural factor, but still an unconventional DeusxMachina in itself. Warning: she can be unbelievably stupid (in a good way), thus generating even more funny situations. Adachi's actions usually have additional, unexpected consequences. The Yankee, Shinigawa is an egocentric, short tempered delinquent with, watch out, RULEZ ( however contradictory they may be).
Besides them, there is a whole set of great characters, that really work good together for the hilarious effect!