13/01/2020: Best “Back-to-School” Manga/Anime

5 series to make coming back to school less horrible!

1. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

A girl finally confesses to her classmate but ends up being … his manga assistant? It turns out the handsome mysterious student is a best-selling mangaka and he enlists her, and several of their schoolmates (with hair as colourful as their personalities), to help him. Cue hijinks, shenanigans and poking fun at romance story clichés while the characters struggle to finish work before the deadlines, not to mention several romances of their own. It’s a fun story set in a familiar environment (school) and it might make coming back to school slightly less awful.

2. Aiura

Don’t you hate studying or putting any effort into meaningful tasks? You might identify with Saki (the cool girl who hates everything but sports), Kanaka (the airhead always teasing her friends), and Ayuko (who just goes with the flow). As high school girl anime/manga go, it’s pretty standard but I like that they don’t fetishize the girls too much (although the anime occasionally lingers on their legs a little longer than needed) and the focus is on their relationships and antics. If you’re like me and don’t have friends, this one gives you a warm feeling simulating a meaningful existence. If you’re a functioning member of society, it’s still pretty good and it’ll remind you that there’re all sorts of fun things to do even if schoolwork has you busy.

3. Danshi Kokousei no Nichijou

This one’s pretty famous, so you might have heard of this anime/manga about high school boys doing stupid things. It’s a little like Aiura but it’s a lot whackier and zanier so it’s great for taking a break. To illustrate, there’re scenes about boys imagining they’re in a JRPG adventure and a girl re-enacting a romantic novel at riverbank but embarrassing herself. You’ll either love it or hate but it reminds you to enjoy your youth and not get caught up in the rat race so give it a look!

4. The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

This normal guy who hates excitement, Kyon, meets Haruhi, who’s hyper-capable but focused on finding aliens, time-travellers and ESPers because she finds ordinary people beneath her. It transpires that Haruhi actually has godlike powers and could erase existence! It’s up to Kyon and his schoolmates (including actual aliens, time-travellers and ESPers) to pacify Haruhi with normal school life so she doesn’t discover her powers and destroy the world. It’s more than just fanservice and clichés (although there’s heaps of it). It’s an important reminder that you can’t spend your life seeking out excitement at the expense of ordinary, meaningful experiences like Haruhi; while you can’t just stay in a hole running away from excitement either like Kyon. At the very least, you’ve got some of Kyoto Animation’s best work, fun characters voiced by a stellar cast and a great show about finding the exciting things in your life. I hope it inspires you to have a good time in school!

5. Another

And now for something completely different: horror! It starts with our hero starting school in the countryside, only to discover that his class is under a curse that kills students in mysterious ways. You see, there’s a “dead” student in the class but nobody knows who it is and until that “dead” person returns to death, the killings carry on! It’s a race against time to stop the curse and survive. A lot of people dismiss the curse as being stupid but I thought it was a pretty good mystery. The deaths are all pretty fun too, if slightly graphic. More importantly, law school doesn’t seem that bad when you compare it to the curse…