Medaka Box

Well, Medaka Box is about a history of a two classmates, Medaka Kurokami and her childhood friend Zenkichi Hitoyoshi.

Medaka-chan, as Zen tells her thinks that her does make everyone happy , becomes the 48th president of her high school with the 98% of the votes.

One of her new ideas is to listen the requests of the all students and resolves thier problems through a suggestion box that her calls "Medaka Box", whereby Zenkichi doesn't agree but he helps her for his friendship.

Their adventure becomes with their finds of the rest of members for the Student Council and the differents problems of students, and the secrets of their high school.

If you lke the battles, and find a little of romance is the correct series, with the humor of NisioIsin and the draws of Akira Akatsuki.

All characters have their own personality definite.

IS a very good series for all of people. Enjoy it!!!!!

This review has been written with only 11 chapters out, so try not to judge it too harshly please.

Ok, the basic storyline follows the adventures of Zenkichi Hitoyoshi who helped his childhood friend Medaka Kurokami to become student council president with a 98% of the school's vote. He is then roped by Medaka into joining the council himself and she forces him into many bizarre situations in response to the many suggestions in the suggestion box. Hilarity ensues.

Story: 8/10
A classic style storyline, but a good one nonetheless. (I'm a bit of a sucker for school life.)

Art: 9/10
I find the art very well done. It allows you to really feel the character's emotions.

Characters: 10/10
This is where I think this manga really shines. The characters are the most enjoyable part of this manga.

Medaka Kurokami is a genius, brilliant at sports, and extremely rich. She also has a toned body and rather generous buxom (both of which she has little hesitation in showing off). Her dominant demeanor led her to victory in the student council election despite being a first year student. She often manipulates her childhood friend into helping her, despite his constant insistance that it's "just this once."

Zenkichi Hitoyoshi is Medaka's childhood friend. As is often stated at the beginning, he is also the one who understands her better than anyone else in the world. He is a rather hilarious fellow, who always falls for Medaka's "cute girl" switch. Putting all that aside, he really does care for her a lot, and will do almost anything she asks of him.

Last character review: Hansode Shiranui.
Though she's not "officially" a main character, she does appear in almost every chapter after the pilot. In my mind, she is the most amusing! She collects data from places "you're better off not knowing" and takes great pleasure in watching diabolical acts and humor. She has an baby face, immature body, and a severly twisted mind. Truly amazing!


Enjoyment: 9/10
All said Medaka Box is one of the most enjoyable slapstick style manga I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I really look forward to the next chapter and I hope that it proves just as enjoyable for the rest of its circulation.


Overall: 36/40=9/10

On a side note: there's just one thing in the manga I don't get:

Why on earth do several of the characters seem to think of the student council office as a changing room?

I had to drop this one after one volume. The story itself seems nice enough, but the art/translation are not good! the black/white balance is skewed towards black, and I have a hard time following the font the scanlators used :-(

sorry Medaka's Box - you seemed like a good idea, but I wasn't engaged enough after one volume to persevere.

[Quick Review] (for the people who don't have the time to read lengthy reviews)

Medaka Box, a manga written by Nisio Isin, is a satire disguised as a Shounen Battle manga. It mocks every aspect of the shounen genre as well as extending its mockery to include even ecchi and "perfect-girl" manga (if such a thing exists). Every part of this manga is intentionally bad and exaggerated to emphasize just how ridiculous and poorly executed most (but not all) shounen manga are.

If you have not read enough shounen, you won't get it.
If you like a lot of shounen, you won't like it.
But if you're open-minded and enjoy a good satire, then Medaka Box will be your cup of tea.


[Actual Review] (an over-analysis of the manga for people who have the patience to read lengthy reviews)

This manga is bad. Really bad. The thing is, it intends to be bad. While you lie on your bed, reading the pages that comprise this manga, disgusted at just how generic it is and laughing at how this manga can drive the shounen battle genre to new extremes (extremes that not even Dragon Ball could reach), the manga will be laughing with you. It is self-aware on how awful it is, and actually quite proud of it.

The best part of this manga is its characters.
Medaka is a parody of not just the shounen protagonists, but of perfect-girl characters (most notably Haruhi from TMoHS). She starts off as a perfect little student council president, hell bent to reform everyone who she deems as delinquents, then BOOM, sudden tone change. Medaka is now your usual overpowered protagonist, who gets more and more powerful as the manga progresses. Her perfection makes her into an irritating character (this can be seen as a critique of the shounen heroes).
Hityoshi Zenkichi, Medaka's long time friend, is basically a shounen battle version of Kyon (from TMoHS). He complains about having to be with Medaka, but actually cares. He later becomes the bitch of the series, but I won't get into that.
The rest of the characters are very distinct from each other (a trait Nisio Isin perfected in his continuous quest to create the oddest characters). Although, their distinction can't make up for their lack of depth (another critique on shounen). They fill a singular role (without any groundbreaking development) and function to play that role well at the same time to parody it. The manga also illustrates one of the most basic traits of shounen battle manga, big villains get bigger and badder. Each villain is stronger and more overpowered than the last. Heck, at one point, God was a villain. GOD WAS A VILLAIN. AND GOD WAS HOT! (note that this is not an actual god from any religious text nor any from mythology. Just a chick strong enough to be considered god. A chick who could make Goku her foot stool and Vegeta her jester while nibbling on Luffy cookies).

[. . . .]

And how could I not mention Kumagawa Misogi? In my opinion, his arrival marked the point when Medaka Box became a grand manga. He is a one-dimensional character, the villain of a later arc, and an overall amazing add to the mix. He is the Joker of the manga (that is, if the Joker was a loser.)

The story is a gem in terms of satires. It is the perfect satire of the shounen genre (although perfection in this field doesn't mean that it is good). The first arc establishes the student council, the main characters, and that Medaka is too perfect. That arc demonstrates just how bland shounen can get when setting up. It's so bland you don't need to read it. Just go read a synopsis then skip to the battle part. After that, the story takes a bumpy change in tone, shifting from being a slice-of-life shounen manga, into a battle manga (kinda like KHR). Here's where things pick up. The pacing becomes faster once they introduce Unzen (the first villain) and the manga goes from being unusual to illogical. And it doesn't stop. It gets crazier in the next arc, introducing Kumagawa Misogi, and further demonstrating why the powers in Medaka Box easily trump all other powers in shounen.

But I think I fell in love with this manga after Kumagawa's arc. The arc that follows challenges the Weekly Shounen Jump. It bites the hand that feeds it. It is filled with 4th wall breaking, which is used not just to mock Shounen Jump, but to challenge it. Sure, this arc dragged on for too long, but don't most shounen drag on for way too long? This arc concludes in spectacular fashion with troll-like humor and every trope you pull out of the book of shounen.

[The art is nothing special so I won't talk about it (maybe it was intentionally mediocre?)]

To wrap it all up, I think this manga is a genius at what it does. A masterpiece in terms of manga satires. This alone will not justify how bad the manga is, but is sure as hell makes it worth the read.

Medaka Box is the hypest battle manga shounen I have read in years.

It's also really badly done in several key points.

This'll be a short review and then a long study on the key points that make Medaka Box fall from one of the most enjoyable and emotionally attaching mangas to a generally mediocre-to-good result.

Story : 7: Depends what you mean by "story".
If we're talking plot, Medaka Kurokami and Zenkichi Hitoyoshi(the two true heroes of this manga) have friends and enemies. The enemies change when they're beaten and usually the friends vary and change along with. And that's the plot.

As per custom you have a buildup and introduction of every main member of the cast at the start of the manga, but then the "original team" of sanji, usopp & co just get changed. We stick with Kikaijima, Akune & co till a certain arc, then they just sort of go away.

Why? I don't know. They just go away and get replaced by other team mates/friends of either of the two heroes.

So it's a ridiculously by-the-numbers battle shounen. New enemy shows up, new fights are made, new victories are gained.

If we're talking story, Medaka Box is the type of manga that likes to diversify its fights a lot. Battles are fought with fists sure, but also mahjong or shiritori, word games, pun games, guessing games, knowledge games, book interpretation games, math games, whatever's your taste.
And to be honest most of the veeeery complex rules didn't interest me. I just sort of read what the characters said and assumed that the heroes would win at the end(which very often didn't happen, so Medaka Box can't be blamed for being predictable).

Art: 8: I'm not the most critical man when it comes to art and although the abuse of "the one wild hair" on all the Kurokamis and several other characters felt a little too easy, I still appreciated the art in general. Environments rarely look fantastic but to be fair for a manga that easily throws around 80 characters at you over the course of only 20 tomes, I still never found myself asking "wait, who's this guy" at any point, so the art has personality if nothing else, and that's good enough for me. The fights are also technically fairly sound and you never feel like asking what happened in the last battle. A solid 8.

Characters: 8: Just like with their looks, Medaka Box has the merit of being amazingly good at developping memorable personalities for a ton of characters. You could probably make me read a line or two of almost any of the characters of this manga and I could tell you who they are just from the text.

Zenkichi manages to be a great shounen underdog hero while Medaka manages to be the female version of Saitama from One Punch Man, save for the more specific bad parts of Saitama. Medaka is hot, smart, gentle, caring, loving, generous, courageous, lewd, every quality you can think of, she has. And it works because Medaka Box as a whole remains a parody, so whenever it's time for Medaka to get into a fight she'll obviously win, either the other characters get into trouble to build tension, either some stupid rules are made up to make it difficult for Medaka.

I could also give descriptions of the rest of the cast but to be honest they literally number above 70 notable characters, so just take my word for it, Medaka Box has good characters and good memorable moments with all of them.

Enjoyment: 7: I watched the anime first and honestly found the manga immensely less good due to reasons I'll put down later. But despite the general inferiority of the manga over the anime, Medaka Box is still, as I said, the hypest battle shounen in years. I wasn't being ironic. It manages to stand out in a crowd of shounens that seems unending. I don't read that many battle shounens and don't claim to know lots about them, but I know that for me, getting emotionally attached to the characters in a shounen and wanting to root for them and appreciate their fights hasn't happened in a very, very long time. It really is the first shounen that I've fully appreciated since a time forgotten and I want to say that it's one of the best mangas I've read this year. I wish I could give MB an honest 9 or 10/10 but due to the numerous shortcomings, I can't.

And now it's time for the long analysis. Grab a drink.

So out of all the little problems of Medaka Box, the three that drastically bring it down from "hypest shounen of the decade" to "just about good enough to be good with touches of brilliance here and there" are:
-The pacing, or rather complete lack of pacing
-The excuse of parody to cover shit
-Quantity over quality

The complete absence of pacing is the biggest issue.

Very much like DBZ in its own way, Medaka Box refuses to ever give relief to its storyline and you are NEVER given a moment of peace to take in what just happened.

I found that to be a flaw in DBZ, where you just end an arc then some x amount of years pass over one chapter and you have no idea what went on during these years but now the characters are just much much stronger than they were. This policy of skipping the "boring" parts which are really important IMO has always been one of the problems I have with DBZ.

And here it's present but in a whole other level.

Medaka Box refuses to simply give itself time. Literally at almost every chapter past the first ones, you get a new villain presented for the next arc before the current arc has even ended. You literally just beat the villain and in his defeat speech he already introduces the next opponent to come.

This lack of pacing makes the entirety of the manga come off like one long, never-ending speech from someone who has a ton of things to tell you but absolutely can't slow down ever.

Take One Piece and its generic arc treatment. First they reach an island. There is some villainous force at work there. They meet new friends and take on a quest for their sake, which demands them to sail to a second island, where the enemy's base is located. You get a big battle with the villain, the friends are saved, and everyone gets into a huge party. The crew leaves for new adventures, and get new bounties to seal the passing of the arc and show they've grown in strength.

The reason for changing islands is simple: it's because it allows you to structure things so that every meeting or battle gets its own little special place. It's to create different compartments in which to place each thing you want to place.

In short, the art of storytelling demands not only talent at telling a story by telling it, but also talent at telling a story by giving the listener/reader room to appreciate the finer points of your story. Storytelling demands that the author not only tell his story but let the reader take the time to appreciate it, and Medaka Box has ABSOLUTELY NO ATTENTION for this kind of pacing.

It's almost anger-inducing when a fun arc with a fun villain and cool fights is ending, and I already get a new villain that's gonna start his job literally before we're even done here. There's no party, there's no resting time, no moment to reflect on all the awesome things that happened, no bell rung loudly to signal victory, nothing! It's a terrible feeling to come out of a sometimes extremely long arc and feel like the payoff is just ignored and we just move on to the next arc without any ceremony at all.

Never taking the necessary time doesn't apply only to the manga in general, either. It's also applicable to a lot of of characters, following the DBZ principle of "you must never get boring" yet again.

For example one of the main villains, and possibly the biggest, baddest villain in the entire series, is at some point turned into a good guy, in typical battle shounen fashion.
After having been a completely unpredictable psychopath for the entire manga and having been marked as "the one Medaka couldn't change", "the ultimate enemy she ever had", he turns into a good guy with quirks in literally one chapter.

You end the chapter where you beat him, his arc is over, next chapter he's one of the gang.

There isn't any time given to his evolution. Nor is there time given for us to see him change. We beat him, he insta-becomes a friend(with quirks) and that's wrapped up.

That horrible freaking lack of pacing just destroys everything. Yes the "villain becomes friend when you beat him" principle is fine and yes I like the idea of it happening, but damn, it's not a magical transformation over one page. You can beat someone and prove him wrong and have him change his ways, but you cannot EVER buy a full transformation that goes this fast.

Same applies to a lot of character evolutions where there are the good old shitty DBZ "insta-trainings" where you're told the characters trained and now they're stronger and that's that.

Compare this with Slam Dunk or GTO where you get very slow, humour-filled, and paced trainings and evolutions, where sometimes entire chapters are filled with nothing but Sakuragi throwing balls at the hoop. It's boring, yet brilliant. It works perfectly because the goal isn't to be always balls to the wall top of the hype action, it's to tell the story of a basketball player, from the dumps to talent and success. When Onizuka has to pass his stupid test for middle schoolers, you spend an entire small arc with him learning stuff and all his students helping him one way or another.

This appreciation for slower, sort of boring parts is what enforces the feeling of growth and effort. It's by going through the slow, boring parts, that you can really appreciate the awesome action later on.

And Medaka Box has absolutely no appreciation for any of that. It's shameful because whether it's in inventivity, depth or enjoyable bullshit shounen over the top-ness, Medaka and the rest of the cast are probably some of the best shounen battle heroes I've seen. But I almost never felt like they evolved or grew, and many times, things that were supposed to click never clicked, because we never took the time to slowly sculpt the statue, we just gave it a lot of hammer and pick strikes and now it's all done and beautiful, without ever giving it the slow, little picks that give it its finer detail, if you see what I mean.

The pacing is the worst, and I find that very sad. Without the pacing issue this might really be the best battle shounen I've ever seen...

The two others aren't that bad but they do harm it too.

The "I'm a parody so you'll excuse me if I do some crap" is also here, and I've been seeing that trend a lot in the past years. What is it with mangas being half-parodies half-serious and then excusing the lesser parts of their serious side with the whole "but I'm a parody though"?

It happens several times that characters that are dealing with something serious and important, and are serious enough characters themselves, suddenly start acting goofy and parodic at the wrong time. Sometimes parodic conclusions are given to serious situations.

That isn't much but it also brought me a few disappointments and poor parts. Characters getting all nice with each other even though they were edgy badasses till now, or something really serious happening and a character goes "this is just like a shounen manga"...it's not very bad but it does break the credibility of serious situations.

And lastly, the quantity thing is just nasty. My guess is the author just tends to spend his characters entirely and then just makes new ones because he had new random ideas, but it gets ridiculous.

There are characters that are barely introduced who get into life and death fights with the original main duo and I still have no idea who they are or what they are when they're fighting their deadly battles.

At the end of the manga there is a roundup of 100 characters from the entire series and I could barely care about half of them. The ones I cared about was because I spent a lot of time with them. Because they were from the start of the series and lasted very long, or because they latched on and lasted till the end. None of the characters in this manga are forgettable, but when you throw 100 of them in a giant roundup, there's like 40 I care enough to remember. The rest I just had too little time, and too little appreciation for them.

Same goes with the fights, BTW. There are a ton of fights in Medaka Box and very few of them are very well told, again because quantity over quality.

Look at Slam Dunk again: out of the entire 25 tomes manga, I think they have something like 6 full matches that are fully shown. Ryonan training, Shoyo, Kainan, Ryonan again, Toyotomi and Sanno. Sounds ridiculously low right? And yet Slam Dunk is a far greater and better told shounen "battle" manga than Medaka Box is, because within every match there is a full battle going on, there's winnings and losings, shortcomings and strengths, surprises and plot twists, character growths and interactions and everything to make it all great. And it's wonderfully well told.

Medaka Box has 6 full on battles against a new group of characters at about every 2 tomes.

Not only are the fights inferior to Slam Dunk's because less time is given and less specialisation/depth is given, but the abundance of cheap fights done quickly between new characters or characters I just don't care about makes me want to skip it all. Instead of focusing on everything and giving it care and real value, we go from cheap fight to cheap fight, and it just sucks.

To give a concrete example, I think that past the beginning of Medaka Box, which is more parody than shounen battle at this point, the best part of the manga is the Anshinin arc, where you get a bunch of new girls, the old crew is slowly being pushed out the window, and you get a long sequence of fights one after the other. Now again, that's quantity overy quality, lots of fights, lots of characters you just met or see only once, but this arc has every merit of Medaka Box along with some care given to fleshing out and giving time to every character.

It gives a bunch of very different fights with very different rules and it does it fairly fast, but because it takes some of the time it needs to take, and because it uses that time to characterize, the Anshinin arc's beginning is the best part of Medaka Box to me.

Overall:

I'm sort of sad to write down this extremely long review, my longest yet by far, because Medaka Box is awesome, and it's also a huge bummer for it to be undermined so badly. It is the first shounen to which I've gotten attached in years. Even One Piece doesn't give me the feels that Medaka Box did. I wanted the good guys to win, I had a ton of fun with the battles, I liked the characters good or evil and I have to say that it was original many times and when Anshinin was the main villain and Medaka was fighting someone who wasn't going to be beaten by fist or victory, I had a blast more than anywhere else. It's a manga that I've grown extremely attached to and it's really depressing to say that it isn't nearly as good as it could be. It has spikes of genius and is overall fun as heck but I cannot overlook how badly made it is, and how so many important points where just overlooked. It's frightening to think of how good this could be if it were actually properly paced and focused its battles and characters more. It could be the best battle manga in decades, unless you count One Punch Man as a battle manga before being a parody(cause no, I love Medaka Box but it's no One Punch Man no matter what).

Still, despite all the dampening the bad points bring, I'm giving it a solid 7 overall. And I wish, I wish so hard for the anime, which actually had some decent pacing thanks to filler episodes after each arc, to get new seasons, even if I know it's not hapening.

Ever wondered about a series that satires shonen? Medaka Box is that series.

Taking place at Sandbox Academy, Kurokami Medaka is the head of the student council where she vows to help with any request. Aiding her is Zenkichi; a childhood friend who always looks out for her. ( I really like this guy) The beginning of the series starts off with an odd jobs formula where requests would be solved in an episodic fashion. However, it quickly transitions into an over the top battle manga dealing with super powers labeled as abnormals & minus.

Being nearly perfect, Medaka vows to help those in need & reform her enemies into better people which leads to a classic challenge of good vs evil with her various antagonists. Eventually her student council also partake in the battles making it more of a 90s shonen due to its revolving cast.

This manga contains its own sense of humor with its writing of constantly comparing events to shonen jump series. There are times where it presents a tongue in cheek approach as most antagonists refer to their lives as arcs & plot cliches.

However this series isn't perfect. The flaw would be its shifts in tone during chapters 98-131 as it changes the series into puzzle games & various other battle genres such as cooking & magical girl. Again, this is done for both variety & satire but gets carried away by making several mind games too complicated. Further confusion is added in chapters 132-140 as the events don't make too much sense but the overall conclusion of said events aided in the remaining story.

Overall, Medaka Box brings its own quirky uniqueness to shonens, very likeable characters & creative abilities. There may be a slump in the middle but the pros can outweigh the cons. I would recommend watching the anime all the way through (24 eps). The adapted episodes best represents the tone found throughout the series. Meaning if you don't like the anime, then you might as well not read the series. Medaka Box isn't for everyone but depending on your tastes; you're in for some zany excitement!

this is a review of up to chapter 46 but I don't think my view will change much on the series as it is that good

This is a series written by Nisio Isin the man behind many hit light novels such as Bakemonogatari, The Beheading Cycle and Death Note Another Note so you know that there's gonna be something about it from his line up alone. it's a story that when I first read through I thought Nisio had been watching too much Haruhi, take one look at the main cast then look at the Haruhi cast and begin a very hard game of spot the differences. After reading through what there is a few times i decided that I was wrong and it is not Haruhi, it's Haruhi on steroids and as you know steroids make you better (isn't that right Baseball). it takes the best aspects of Haruhi and gives them a brief look at and moves on to it's eccentric points. Let me get one thing straight it's not a rip off, even though the last few lines would have you believe otherwise, it's a refined work of art with alot of similarities.

Story 8/10

The story is all about 1 abnormal girl, 1 normally abnormal guy and their job on the student council at a school fill of stereotypes. Medaka(thats the abnormal girl in case you couldn't guess) lives for others and so she sets up a box, the "Medaka Box" for any student to make a request and the council will take care of it. the first few chapters revolve around this idea and the collection of the rest of the student council members. after the student council members are gathered the story immediately jumps up 100 notches and kicks you in the balls with the arrival of discipline group which leads into a great big can of anger management issues for Medaka followed by a "shock twist". While this all may sound rather cliche that's exactly what it's trying to be many people think this is all a load of BS and a mistake in story development but the thing is Nisio knows story development too well not to notice what he was doing, it was scripted to be a parody of the Shounen genre which is exactly what make the story so great, it's doing what only the greatest of the greats can do, take the piss out of itself while not giving a damn.

Art 7/10

My only problem with the series would be the art, it's not that it's bad or anything it's that it just doesn't feel right to nisio's style. if you watch Bakemonogatari or Katanagatari you get a feel from the art work that Nisio had something to do with this because it does you don't get the same feeling that you get from those two, it feels rushed which is a general problem I get from reading anything punlished in shounen jump but that can't be helped because it is rushed and there's nothing I can do about it

Characters 10/10

While the supporting cast are generally a bunch of limp d***ed idiots this is perfectly compensated for by Medaka and other "abnormals" because they are truly that abnormal that you can't help but think they are epic. these abnormals add a sense of insanity to the whole series that just works and allows you to say that all the characters are epic even though only some of them are. Special props to Medaka, Miyakonojou, and "The Losers"

Enjoyment 10/10

Something is special about this series to me, I can over look any flaws involving weak side characters annoying rushed feel to the art and lack of true originality to the plot by the fact that is lives off the "Rule of Cool". the "Rule of Cool" states that you can over look a lot of bad things about a series 'cause it's just so god damn f***ing epic. it truely does live off the "Rule of Cool" but it does so well, as does any series that lives of the "Rule of Cool" just because it does.

Overall 9/10

Go.

Read it.

Enjoy it.



Special Mention to the fact that if you took the crew of DBZ and told them to go fight the Abnormals from Medaka Box you would get a battle that would have so much epic stuffed into it you couldn't see it without your mind exploding

While reading some of the reviews about this series it seems like people only read the first 10 chapters then decided to write a review of this.

Medaka Box starts out as a gag mange following the life of Zenkichi Hitoyoshi and the President of the Student Council Medaka Kurokami. However the series soon becomes a fight manga ( around chapter 20ish ).

Story 7/10

As I stated the beginning 20 chapters are typical slice of life/gag manga antics. You have the pool chapters , the help someone in trouble chapters , you even have the "rival" chapters. The story then shifts to the student council taking on this evil organization ( and this is the turn into a fight manga ). While cliche , the story gets above average marks because of how it puts twists into the story. I won't spoil anything , but you will see what I mean if you take the time to read ~ 30 chapters.

Art 9/10

Solid character designs , Zenkichi has a different look than most protagonists but it works well for him. The fight scenes are also very well done , unlike other fight mangas where it can be hard to tell what is going on sometimes. The only thing keeping me from giving this a 10/10 are the backgrounds , or lack of , I should say. This becomes painfully obvious during some scenes where you see very basic backgrounds.

Characters 8/10

I was debating between a 6/10 and an 8/10 for this , considering only 2 major arcs have happened ( of the time of writing this review ) I decided to be considerate and give this an 8/10. The main hero Zenkichi goes through some decent character development , as does the heroine Medaka. There is also the rich cast of side characters ( though only Kouki and Akane have shown any sort of character progression ). I would write a basic character analysis for these characters but it would spoil major plot points.

Enjoyment 9/10

Series had my on the edge of my seat for most of the major fights , there was never a time where I thought a fight was bad. The slice of life/gag early chapters also were enjoyable.

Overall 8/10 ( 7+9+8+9/4 = 8.25 )

I recommend this to anyone who likes a light fight manga ( think Reborn or the first 100~ chapters of HSD Kenichi ). For people looking for a gag / comedy manga I suggest looking elsewhere as the comedy aspects of this are really toned down after chapter 20ish.

No good reviews for this manga? None?

Ok, tuck the kids into bed, because it's fucking story time.

Please note your opinion doesn't matter two shits until you've read at least until the end of the Minus arc.

Medaka is a BATTLE SHOUNEN. No, not fucking hurr durr king of the ninjas, not a fucking rip off of Yu Yu Hakusho called Bleach (It's named that because when I watch it, I feel the need to drink Bleach), it's a real BATTLE SHOUNEN.

Medaka Box is constantly examining the tropes of Battle Shounen manga, and making fun of them. It's asking these questions.

Can a character truly be perfect?
What are the implications?
How will real people react to this?

An example of this is Medaka herself. Here's a pro tip, you're not supposed to like her one bit. She's not just a Mary Sue, she's the god damned literal definition of Jesus. She lives for humanity sake, she loves everybody, especially her enemies, and she constantly fights to reform them into good guys.

Also she's invincible. Later on, an antagonist refuses to fight her because "If this was a weekly Shounen Jump, she would be the main character, and the villain never wins against the main character."

Medaka is special. By the age of 3 she could solve any problem on Earth. She can beat up the bad guys, she's always right, and she's got the biggest rack in the show. At one point, she wins a tug of war contest, while the entire opposing team consists of the rest of her school.

Now after processing all this information I could have condensed better if I wasn't so lazy, you either hate her or like her. If you like her, that's fine too. But if you hate her, you're missing the point. You won't ever like her. Once you realize you aren't supposed to, maybe you'll be able to enjoy the series.

Have you ever read a story in which you hated the villain? Or despised the little sniveling coward who always tried to cling to the main character's coat-tails? There's a difference between a badly written character and an intentionally unlikable character. And ironically, that's what Medaka is as the main character. The best side supporting character ever made.

Zenkichi is the one you are supposed to like, him and a bunch of other supporting characters, and then Kumawaga steps in and you hate how much you love him. Or maybe you love how much you hate him? Shiranui is incredibly mischievous and cute, while Kouki and Maguro are both bros respectively. All these people, who are weaker than Medaka, make the show what it is.

Now, if you took this plot serious, Niso trolled the living shit out of you. You should feel ashamed for being such a stupid fuck. Example, at one point 6 villains are introduced that are supposed to be super strong, but then they all get their asses kicked in one page by a newcomer to the set-piece. Forget the plot, that's not what matters in the least, and that's exactly why I didn't open up this review with the story section. It's all about the theme. Which is the whole, is there such a thing as perfection, and if so, what does this imply? Does always winning make you perfect? Does being beaten down, but constantly standing back up to fight make you perfect? Are you born with it? Can it be obtained? That's where the categories of normality, specials, abnormalities, minuses, and not equals come into play. Niso is playing a literary masterpiece on the grand scales, he's cranking the volume to a double forte, he's putting one foot on the gas, and one in the grave.

And then there's Kumagawa. YES. He is just the greatest character. Here's a little bit of his dialog.

"Even though I'm not cool, or strong, or just, or beautiful, or cute, or pretty, I want to beat the cool, strong, just, beautiful, cute, and pretty people.
Even though I wasn't blessed with talent, even though I'm stupid and have a bad personality, have bad grades, am misguided and am a good for nothing, I want to beat the talented, smart, likeable, overachieving people.
I want to beat those with friends when I can't have friends.
I want to beat the people who work hard when I can't work hard.
I want to beat the victorious people when I can't win.
I want to beat the happy people when I'm miserable.
Even if I'm hated, even if I'm despised, even if I'm useless, I want to prove that I'm better than the main characters!"

Even though this is a Shounen, each page is more text than fight. This isn't because of the normal, making a speech in the middle of a battle, cliché. This is because words get the theme across better than action.

Please be aware.
Chapters 1-12 is a mediocre/ok comedy.
Chapters 13-53 is an OK battle manga that sets up the next arc.
Chapters 54-93 is what gives this manga a 10.
And then up to 140 is a series of Arcs that play on what the previous chapters set up. Lot's of Meta elements.

Medaka Box.....

Before I start my review I wana say that this manga is underrated.
This manga is my fav and I think that until now no manga effected me like this one did.

At first I watched the first season of the anime, to say the truth more half of the first season was like a very strong and smart girl helping who needs help.
When I read that this is an action anime I said to myself where is the action?! the after more than half the series ended and nothing special happened.
I was surprised when it changed after that.

And then came the second season where I was a lot surprised of the changes that happened in it.
Medaka Box became one the animes i felt excited about.

But at the end of the second season the anime stopped at a weird moment, so i decided to read the manga.

AND IT WAS AS COOL AS THE BEST SHOUNEN MANGAS.

Story: A greatly superior girl helps who needs her help at her school by becoming the student council president. and forcing her childhood normal guy zenkichi to help her.
The student council gets another members and solves the students problems so I give it 9.

Characters: The characters is the main reason that will make you love the anime and this role will be for one of the support characters called Kumagawa,

To be short Kumagawa is the kind of character that you never expect what he will do, just a perfect mix for good and bad like (smart-stupid or strong-weak or even cool-lame) and this character may be the main reason for you to love Medaka Box.
And for our MC, its ok if you love her but its ok too if you don't love her, its not going to effect your opinion of the manga at all.

For the abilities in this manga, its not that kind of abilities that will make you wanna do cuz its cool its just cool cuz its weird, so I give the characters 10.

Art: The art in the manga or the anime isn't that attractive in fact the anime's art is something like the 2000's animes
but the art isn't that effective in the manga so i give it 7.

Enjoyment: I guess after reading all that I wrote, you know what is the rating. but well lets just say it perfect 10.

Overall: 10

NOTE: there is one thing that I want to say, at least for me unlike all the shounen manga there is 2 things that are alil bit different from the others

1) Normally you are waiting for the fight to get excited, but in this manga the trongest wepon is the character's personality and the words that characters say.
2) Normally in any anime te 4th wall breaking is meant for comedy but in this anime its kinda different and actually is kinda cool.

Hands down, one of the best manga I have ever read. The only huge negative about this manga is its purposely made 50 mediocre chapters until the Kumagawa Incident Arc.

This manga is not for everyone and people who are never exposed to the completely unique writing style of Nisoissin could think series is suffering the problem of ''not knowing what to become'', If you are looking for a basic school romance/comedy/battle shounen, I do not recommend Medaka Box. Yeah, you will get all of those if you read but none of those are the main focus. Medaka Box is like a dissident infiltrated into the Shounen Jump and made its critique from inside.