So here's a weird one. I stumbled upon this manga by complete accident and seeing as it was 4 volumes long, it couldn't be too bad. Turns out it's pretty good.

It's a well-known fact "delinquent manga" is usually a bunch of badass, tough, cool looking dudes punching the hell out of each other repeatedly while screaming about WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MAN, and while those are super fun to read and nail some really important parts of being a man growing up, Yankee Juku e Iku nails the side that people don't usually acknowledge.

"Teens are so stupid and absolutely not badass."

Ikariishi himself is an ugly idiot known for being the strongest delinquent and winning just about every fight, YET he's a pretty mellow guy who just wants to go to college. His friends and the other people around him are equally as ugly and stupid, just like teenagers are, and they act like teenagers do, down to the absolute immaturity of some of them.


Like the only other review for this says, it's a very blunt manga. These are real teenagers being idiots messing around, and Ikariishi is a surprisingly great character despite all that. Seeing the kindness and spirit behind people's faces is a message that's as old as time but very few works actually pull it off as well as this one.

I'd say give it a try, it's extremely fast to read with maybe 2-5 speech bubbles each page at most. At best you walk away with a better understanding of people, at worst you wasted maybe 1-2 hours of your time. Regardless of the outcome you'll most likely remember it in some way.