Bad Girl Volume 1 Review

There are some people who try too hard to achieve what they want, whether it be something creative, scientific or romantic. Yuu Yuutani, the titular Bad Girl in this manga by Nikumaru, certainly falls into the last of these categories.

Yuu is in love to the point of obsession with Atori Mizutori, the head of her school’s disciplinary committee. In order to try to get her attention, Yuu decides to act like a bad girl: getting ear piercings, modifying her school uniform, dyeing her hair and so on. Yuu however has a problem – she’s actually a really good honours student. She never does anything that would truly attract the ire of Atori like vandalism or playing truant. Her efforts at being bad end up being cute if anything.

As a result, Yuu does attract Atori but for the wrong reasons. Atori just thinks that Yuu is cute and likes her as a friend – at first, but as the manga progresses, she treats Yuu more like a pet. Yuu tries to get help from her gyaru friend Suzu Suzukaze, not that she is interested given that she is one of the few people in the school who doesn’t care for Atori. Yuu also ends up getting into conflict with another student, a streamer called Rura Ruriha whom Yuu has not heard of, so Rura tries to grab her attention constantly.

Certain things strike you when reading Bad Girl. For starters there’s the somewhat peculiar naming convention of the main characters. I know this manga is a comedy, but having your characters named Yuu Yuutani, Atori Mizutori, Suzu Suzukaze and Rura Ruriha feels a bit lazy if anything. It would be like having an English-language comedy where the characters are called Carl Carlson, John Johnson, Robert Robertson and Magnus Magnusson, which feels less like a comedy and more like a question on Only Connect (the clues would have to be “Simpsons character; Guy Fawkes’ alias; Host of Brain of Britain; Host of Mastermind”).

As for the comedy itself, overall it is pretty good and there are many laugh-out-loud moments in Bad Girl. Yuu’s attempts at being bad are laughably awful, like pretending she is wearing thick-soled boots by sticking large erasers to the bottom of her shoes. Then there is the pet-like way Atori treats Yuu, to the point of getting her a collar and toy animal ears to wear. This leads us to some comedy avenues that might feel out of place for some readers in a manga with a “Teen” rating. Put it this way, there is a good reason why there are censored images when Yuu tries to find out more about pet things when she googles “doggy play adult content”.

As for production, there is nothing I can fault Yen Press for. Andrew Hodgson does great work translating. Abigail Blackman has multiple roles as letterer and co-editor with Jacquelyn Li, and again everything seems to fit seamlessly. The manga also comes with some bonus colour pages and a lengthy translation notes section; Volume 2 is due out in August.

Bad Girl has so far been an enjoyable read, and surprisingly quick to read when compared to other yonkoma manga. The series was adapted into an anime last year which was streamed on HIDIVE.

Read a free preview on the Yen Press website here.

Our review copy was supplied by the publisher Yen Press.