Again!! Review

High school.  A time of fun and learning for some.  A time of dread and loathing for others.  Some people on both sides probably wish they could do it over while others would never want to go through it again.  Two people will.  This is Again!!

Again!! is a tale that follows an outcast called Kinichiro Imamura.  He's an extreme loser with no friends, no girlfriend, no...anything high schoolers in Japan care about.  Basically, he's the biggest loser to ever exist in the history of mankind.  This is despite the fact that everyone around him is also a loser, but whatever.

Our protagonist and biggest loser in history, Kinichiro.

Anyway, he decides to break into an abandoned club room for some reason, when he is seen by a popular girl, who then runs away because she afraid he'll...kill her, I guess.  He gives chase and she falls down some stairs to what seems to be her death.  Then, he attempts to check on her but falls down the stairs, landing on top of her, apparently dying as well.  This where his journey through high school begins again.  That means he'll spend another three years as a loser, unless he changes something.

This looks like a death scene if I ever saw one.

What is that "something" Kinichiro wants to change?  What is that one big regret he wants to fix?  Saving the school ouendan (or cheering squad), which is dying a slow death under its female captain and only member, Yoshiko Usami.  It won't be easy, though, as he has to overcome numerous obstacles, including a bloodthirsty cheerleader captain who wants the ouendan to fail.

It's up to Kinichiro to help this girl save the ouendan...

...but it won't be easy with her acting like this.

Kinichiro will run into a number of characters in his effort to change his high school career.  First, there's the girl he went back in time with, Akira.  Then, you have the ouendan captain. Yoshiko, who is a diet version of Erza from Fairy Tail.  There are others, such as former members of the ouendan, including a bi-polar drummer with a crush on Yoshiko.  With the exception of that drummer, the characters are enjoyable to follow.

In the interest of avoiding major spoilers, I won't go too far into the plot.  I will, however, touch on some of the bullshit that creates a lot of the situations.  A lot of stuff is forced or contrived, such as the fall that created the leap back in time for example.  He slips of some flowers that randomly appear out of nowhere.  They weren't there when he was going up the stairs and the girl, who fell just seconds earlier, didn't drop or trip over them.  Where the heck did those flowers come from?  Where did they go after the fall.  They never show up again and nobody ever talks about them after getting in the building, inspecting it, and seeing two kids lying in a pool of blood.  This is confusing and sloppy storytelling to me.  It doesn't break the manga.  It's just a little sloppy.

One part Haruhi, one part Erased, Again!! isn't as good as either of them.  But it's not a bad manga.  There is plenty of drama and lots laughs to go around.  Read it.