Awkward and bullied in junior high, Namekawa reinvents herself in high school, but her newfound delinquent ways draw the gaze of the disciplinary committee head and her gaze is a lot more predatory than Namekawa (and this reader) would like.
In its own special way, this yuri comedy is a huge step forward for equality. I mean, why should shonen series be the sole realm of smutty ecchi with the female lead frequently being sexually assaulted in various ways?
Just to be clear, this is not a good story. It treats its lead like garbage when all she wants is a fresh start. It IS funny how incredibly hapless she is at actually being mean and those parts of the book are pretty funny.
Heck, there ARE good gags in this one. The useless teacher who is now a total shipper for her female students is great. When somebody else gets added to Namekawa’s harem mid-story, the scene of her having her revelation is treated like she’s just cured cancer, also great.
There’s even a brilliant junior high visit that activates two good friends to think of becoming something more, just in time for the madcap nonsense around them to nip it in the bud. This is the absolute best sequence in the book and it’s drawn hilariously well. It’s not like this can’t be good.
But then there’s everything else.
I would like to think a good editor could have reined this in, but the disciplinary committee head is a predatory lesbian of the worst order and almost every story revolves around her forcing herself onto Namekawa and literally licking her all over. No, the title is not just figurative.
For fans of this sort of exaggerated to the max comedy, you’ll be fine. Anybody who finds this vaguely uncomfortable? Don’t worry, the story’s only getting started. Other perverts keep getting added to the harem, so Namekawa has people violating her, sniffing her, and trying to train her to be a caged pet by the end.
It’s exasperating because this story is funny when it isn’t going for this crass humour. There are some great bits here and none of them involve Namekawa face-down covered in drool, which happens more than once. Her proving her bonafides and climbing a tree to skip class, only to not be able to climb down? That’s good enough without the committee head jumping into the tree to punish her.
Honestly, I wish it was completely terrible so I could just write it off entirely. Instead, I get to lament the good stuff that is entirely overshadowed by some of the most unlikable characters I’ve come across in ages.
Even worse, the last couple bonus manga that turn things just a little bit sweeter? Really cute! The puppy one is adorable and the marathon one would be perfect if it didn’t imply that Namekawa is masochistic enough to find this palatable, which the story has done nothing to establish by that point.
Like some of the most dire comedies I’ve read, this one gets the idea that pushing things to their extremes will eventually make things funny, but it doesn’t get the point that crossing the line serves no purpose except to alienate a chunk of your readership.
2 stars - somebody will probably like this and if it was turned down even just to 10 instead of 11, it would probably be a lot more tolerable. But the devil for this one is most definitely in the details and, even with some very clever parts, I can’t imagine another volume of this just because of how icky this one felt.