Manga Review: Oresama Teacher, Volume 7, by Izumi Tsubaki

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Publisher: VIZ Media (Shojo Beat)

Volumes: 14+

Goodreads Synopsis:

Reads R to L (Japanese Style), for audiences T. Mafuyu is the no-nonsense, take-charge and hard-hitting leader of her high school gang. But when she gets expelled for being a delinquent, her mother, fed up with her daughter’s wayward ways, sends Mafuyu to an isolated school far off in the country.

Mafuyu finally discovers the truth behind Takaomi’s bizarre bet with the principal of Midorigaoka Academy! The twisted tale elicits her sympathy, and she decides to put her all into helping him out. But her all may be less than she hopes as she faces down the looming threat of…finals!

Review:

The first chapter continued where the last ended, with Mafuyu and Saeki talking about some serious stuff, and Saeki is kind of, maybe, sweet, and Mafuyu promises to help him with his bet to get the school.

The rest of the book is comedic, though; no more serious stuff. In the next chapter, finals are coming up, and Mafuyu is doing some serious studying. She’s never really focused on it before, but she knows now that it matter to Saeki, so she studies a whole bunch and exhausts herself with it, and maybe doesn’t do all that great? I wasn't really sure with that one, because we saw one of her tests with a not-so-good score, but only because of a small mistake, and she said later that she aced them, so I was a bit confused on that part.

The next two chapters are summer vacation, and Mafuyu goes home because all her friends are busy and she is not. She’s trying to avoid her old gang members, because it’s only been a month since she left, and she feels like she’d be imposing and they wouldn’t care all that much after the big goodbye. She goes to a festival with Sakurada, who I didn’t really remember, but was still funny. Then she has a big showdown with Kangawa, her old second and the new bancho of her old school, which is actually really funny and sweet.

The almost-last chapter shows a storm and several different groups of boys getting locked up in a dorm building, all of them freaking out because of ghost stories and funny coincidences with the others running around. This could have been really funny, and wasn’t even all that bad, but I was having a hard time telling who was who. There are so many guy groups from different schools, with only a couple characters differentiable, that I had no idea who was from what school, what school they were at and why they were there and how they got there. The coincidences were funny, there are just too many people that I don’t know.

After that, there was an extra chapter that I did really enjoy. It showed when Saeki was in school and what happened when he met Mafuyu. He, apparently, does not like kids, but slowly opened up to Mafuyu. That was nice to see.

And the book ends with a bunch of comic strips. Some were funny, some were okay. Mostly it focused on the festival Mafuyu went to in her home town. But, again, there are just too many people and too many schools  and I have a terrible time remembering who is who and where they are from and why I care about them.

Unlike in the last volume, though, there was a Story & Character index at the beginning of the book, which I really appreciated.

The characters can get somewhat frustrating when I don’t know who’s who, but I am still enjoying this series. I have the next one, and will be reading it really soon.