When regret turns into a second chance.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mitsurou Kubo
Translation/Adaptation: Rise Padgett
What They Say
Kinichiro isn’t even that bad. It’s just that on the first day of high school, his narrow eyes made him look shifty, so people assumed he was trouble. Now it’s graduation, and he’s looking back on three years with no friends. He never even joined a club. But after a bloody collision and an accidental fall, he wakes up a high school freshman, with the chance to try it all over…AGAIN!!
From the co-creator of “Yuri!!! on Ice” comes a dramatic, funny time-traveling high school story about what it means to cheer on a friend! What would you do if you had the chance to do everything…Again?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Kinichiro begrudgingly attended his high school graduation because his mom told he had to. He was a loner with no friends, no clubs he belonged to and everyone got the wrong idea that he was a delinquent with his long hair and the glare he never meant to give anyone. Feeling a bit of regret that he didn’t join the ouendan club when he was invited, he decided to have a final look at what he missed out. A girl finds him in the old school building and runs away from him in fear. She falls down the stairs and Kinichiro falls down after her.
He wakes up the next day a freshman and thought he was only dreaming, but it turns out he gets the chance to start again. Which he does when he means Yoshiko, the caption of ouendan club, when she asks him to join. This time he stops instead of running away. He also runs into the girl that fell down the stairs with him, who is also reliving her high school years. She’s struggling too, but in a different way. Her boyfriend wants nothing to do with her unlike how it was three years ago.
Kinichiro knows if he does not join the ouendan club that the club will fizzle out. He knows he can make a difference, so he tells Yoshiko he will join, but he wants the club to be how it was when it was at the peak. After Yoshiko drilling him like a sergeant, she refuses to say why she’s the only one left in the club. Kinichiro puts Operation Celebrity into action with the goal of bringing more members into the club with Yoshiko pretty face at the center of the campaign.
Aki helps Kinichiro out with putting flyers, but Yoshiko confronts Kinichiro about it, he spews all the things she is doing wrong leaving Yoshiko in tears and warning not to return the club. Kinichiro tried to apologize, but Yoshiko wasn’t interested in Kinichiro’s ideas. He and Aki decide to investigate the cheerleading club which is ouendan’s club rival and also hold joint training camps together. The captain of the cheerleading club disapproves of Kinichiro as a member of the ouendan club and spews all her negative thoughts about him to other members. She hates working with Yoshiko but believes it will be worse with Kinichiro in the future, so she puts one of the cheerleading club’s member and Kinichiro’s classmate up to a devious plan.
Reo, the cheerleader, and classmate, invites Kinichiro to eat lunch with her friends. The awkward situation ends up clearing up a lot of people’s misunderstandings about him. However, while things are going for him, Aki isn’t very happy, she’s the only one alone. Unfortunately, Reo’s nice behavior is only due to the direction of her captain, which includes feigning to like Kinichiro, so he doesn’t join the ouendan ever. He sees through her and quickly points it out to her, but she is persistent.
Meanwhile, the ouendan club gets an influx of male members thanks the cheerleading team’s manipulation to help out just long enough to quit to before the big day after the joint camp. Reo remains under direction to continue feigning interest in Kinichiro, but she is feeling exceptionally guilty about it. Kinichiro now has a few people he talks to but doesn’t feel like it’s any different than it was the first time around. He isn’t taking classes over again.
Aki has been fishing around for some information about Reo, the cheerleading club and the boys who joined the ouendan club. When she finds out the truth, she confronts Reo when she is with Kinichiro when he is with her. Reo was about the tell the truth anyway, but with the whole scheme exposed Kinichiro is having a lot of fun thinking of a way of revenge even after hears most of the truth of why Yoshiko lost the other members of the club.
In Summary:
Packaging notes: This manga is in a larger size format, has color inserts at the beginning of the book, and many translations notes with pictures at the end of the volume. It also has a ton of other book by the publisher at the end of the book and seems to heavily rely on the fact that the mangaka is the co-creator of Yuri On Ice!!! to draw interest to the book. They even went as far as to include reviews of Yuri on Ice!!! on the back cover.
I think it’s unfortunate that the book might have been licensed because of Kubo’s relationship to the popular anime instead of what a great book it is. I had not read this series even though I’m a fan of Kubo’s, but wow, am I glad, I got the opportunity. The story was fluid, fun and interesting while maintaining its shonen roots. It is also not a new concept to have a “do over” in manga or anime, but this was not about love or revenge, but instead of setting things right. I like that spin on it and the hope that people will see Kinichiro as something more than a blond hair delinquent. Kubo’s art is very detailed with lots of backgrounds and displays the characters actions and emotions well through her art.
I was also thrilled to see a long-haired Kinichiro at the beginning. I love long haired manga/anime boys, but sadly it was short lived when he back in time. But, getting back to the heart of the series. It’s definitely a high school manga, but it’s doesn’t have the copy and paste feeling a lot of high school series have. Definitely a thumbs up.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: February 27, 2018
MSRP: $12.99
