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Pitch ------------------------- Hello everyone! This is DrSunshine here to introduce you to a surprisingly underappreciated gem of a manga, titled Yankee-Kun and Megane-Chan (YK&MC from now on), or, in the English release, Flunk Punk Rumble. Drawn by Miki Yoshikawa (formerly an assistant to Hiro Mashima, the Fairy Tail guy, which is why their styles look rather similar) YK & MC is a comedy slice-of-life shounen manga about a high schooler named Daichi Shinagawa.  He's made something of a reputation for himself by being a bullying, take-me-as-I-come delinquent punk with bleached hair (a "yankee" is someone who bleaches their hair, and usually implies a teenage delinquent) and a chip on his shoulder. Things would be hunky dory for Shinagawa, a life of badass sneering, glaring, not really attending classes and thus failing, and occasional fighting, if it weren't for one small detail -- a girl in his life who just won't quit bugging him!  That girl is Hana Adachi, the class rep, who looks like a glasses-wearing geek on the outside, but on the inside is really just a loud, ditzy ex-delinquent who's given up the ways of a rebellious punk to embrace the well-mannered, mundane world of study, afterschool clubs, and hard work. Only she's not really very good at it. She ends up at the bottom of the class (though the rest of the students wouldn't know it!) alongside Shinagawa. But, the thing is, she seems to be unable to understand anyone except delinquents! So, naturally, Adachi looks to Shinagawa to teach her the ways of a good student -- completely against his will, of course, as he will loudly demonstrate throughout the comic -- and things rather snowball from there. Especially when they meet two more core members of their gang of friends (and soon to be student council):  Seiya Chiba, more regularly known as "Chiba". The tallest guy in the school and a former recluse, he's actually quite mild mannered and timid, despite having a face that would scare even the toughest delinquent. For that reason, delinquents are always seeming to pick fights with him, even though he doesn't want it in the slightest. Poor Chiba! After he joins the circle, things get somewhat heated when--  Rinka Himeji transfers in. Hana Adachi's former "right-hand-man" in middle school, the two were apparently an unstoppable pair. She prefers to be known as "The Bloody Pantheress", but nobody calls her that anyway, and to her dismay, most people think she's quite cute. Despite her tough, delinquent demeanor, she actually likes to do housework and helps keep the student council room neat and tidy.   Add in a few more friends that they make along the way (I won't spoil their appearances for you -- meeting them for the first time is one of the best parts of the comic!), and you get a hilarious ensemble comedy of kooky punks who by fate or design somehow end up being the most well-behaved gang of delinquents you've ever seen. Impressions ------------------------- The character comedy is the best attraction of this comic. The characters bounce off of each other in a way that's both superbly executed for character development and incredibly hilarious. Though it starts off with a rather episodic "Shinagawa-Kun, Please Teach Me ____" format -- itself quite reliably amusing -- as new members are introduced to their gang it takes on a more story-arc driven format that still retains the impressive sitcom-character-comedy of the earliest chapters. I'll have to admit, when I saw "Megane-Chan" in the title I thought this would be another stupid fanservice comic with some kind of overly cutesy glasses-girl flopping around showing her panties all the time, and her relationship to some American dude. I was wrong! The fanservice in this comic is pretty much nonexistent! There's occasional fighting, which is quite well-drawn on its own, but really the draw (for me, at least) is the episodic situational comedy and hilarious reaction shots like these:    Tl; Dr? Aww, and after all the work I did!! --------------------------------------------------- In conclusion: YK&MC is one of the best consistently updated shounen slice-of-life comedies I've ever read. The art starts superb and gets better from there. Read it. Info-Type Stuff ------------------------- YK&MC is released weekly in Weekly Shonen Magazine, the same magazine as Fairy Tail, and is being scanlated by Mahou X and our very own Yankee-Goon Scans! It is not currently licensed in the United States - to even actually buy the mere first three volumes in English, you apparently have to go to Singapore. Daigames, a used-book distributor, sells the volumes overseas on eBay but they can be pricey given the shipping and handling all the way from Singapore! As of this post there are 92 chapters in all, available for reading online in the following links. Download at Mangashare First Chapter on OneManga Current Chapter: 92 - "I Was Kind of An Idol, Back In The Day" One of the Awesome Color Covers ----------------------------------------  Click here for the full 1212x750 image. Official Website (in Japanese) TV series website  It's Gotten a Live Action Drama Adaptation!! Being subbed by this group: http://timelessub.org/latest-news/tls-spring-projects Watch the First episode here: http://www.dramacrazy.net/japanese-...chan-episode-1/ And This Makes Me Smile ------------------------------  DrSunshine fucked around with this message at Aug 1, 2010 around 19:17 |
| # ? Apr 16, 2009 22:16 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 08:35 |
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Yeah, this is an awesome series and I've been keeping up since the beginning. However, personally, I find Hana's denseness to be terminal sometimes.
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| # ? Apr 16, 2009 22:52 |
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This is one of my favorite manga and definitely deserves more love. Hana sometimes gets on my nerves a little bit with being so dense, but the interactions between her and Daichi are so awesome, hilarious, and sweet that it makes up for it.
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| # ? Apr 16, 2009 23:16 |
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yoyomama posted:This is one of my favorite manga and definitely deserves more love. Hana sometimes gets on my nerves a little bit with being so dense, but the interactions between her and Daichi are so awesome, hilarious, and sweet that it makes up for it. It makes me wonder if it's just a front, an even deeper one than her glasses that she doesn't need. She didn't seem as ditzy when she called on her apparently Yakuza connections to save Daichi in Chapter 9.
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| # ? Apr 16, 2009 23:28 |
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DrSunshine posted:It makes me wonder if it's just a front, an even deeper one than her glasses that she doesn't need. She didn't seem as ditzy when she called on her apparently Yakuza connections to save Daichi in Chapter 9. Yeah, I always wondered about that myself. I'm hoping we'll find out more about her Yakuza connections, and why she acts like a ditz.
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| # ? Apr 16, 2009 23:43 |
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I go with the simpler theory that anyone that loves Daichi's horrifically bad puns is in possession of a dangerous, damaged mind.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 00:57 |
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One of my favorite things about this series is that Hana has only cut loose a handful of times. Normally with this sort of setup everyone would try to keep her out of trouble, fail, and usually end up with a situation that can only be resolved by Hana going nuts. It is nice to see a genuinely funny gag manga that doesn't rely on lazy writing.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 02:09 |
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This series is awesome and I recommended it sometime ago in the Fairy Tail thread, good thing this thread was made so more people will read it. Badly drawn retard hana never fails to make me crack a smile.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 02:55 |
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"What is 'ecks'?" 
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 03:11 |
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 If she were Clark Kent she'd be hosed.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 04:32 |
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I dunno why, but the facial expressions remind me of Jaguar. Not far enough in to give it a fair judgment(Only on chapter 3, the one with Chiba), but so far it's only a bit above average for me. Hopefully it'll pick up a bit more once they get a posse.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 05:52 |
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http://image.onemanga.com/002/mangas/00000671/000084002/10.jpg Where's the love for Rinka? Edit: Too lazy to host the image, but didn't want to leech bandwidth
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 15:38 |
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This is a fun series, reminds me a good deal of Sket Dance, which is another story about odd teenagers in high school, though it's a bit heavier on the gags. Still recommend it.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 21:03 |
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Thank you for this thread, I read all 41 chapters within a few hours or so and loved it. I am not saddened at the fact that I have to wait a week for each one. 
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 21:08 |
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Rueish posted:Thank you for this thread, I read all 41 chapters within a few hours or so and loved it. I am not saddened at the fact that I have to wait a week for each one. Actually I think it's bi-weekly, so they do get released pretty quickly. Makes it sort of erratic, but the last three were uploaded in a few days' time.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 21:19 |
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Rueish posted:Thank you for this thread, I read all 41 chapters within a few hours or so and loved it. I am not saddened at the fact that I have to wait a week for each one. Don't worry. You are in good company. Anyhoo: Latest chapter discussion! So! I've really been enjoying this latest arc-- loved how Shinagawa's only action is to sell apples for 200g. Haha! The last time Adachi et al. went to "save" someone from a life of seclusion, they ended up adding Chiba to their team. Do you suppose they'll add another delinquent-looking fella to their group? After all, any good gang of punks needs a bald guy!  Also, since they all look like their avatars in the virtual world, I wonder if Kumagaya is going to look like his virtual character, complete with scar?
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 22:05 |
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DrSunshine posted:Don't worry. You are in good company. Somehow I bet Kumagaya will end up being a midget or something And I'm glad there is a thread for this, I love this series.
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| # ? Apr 17, 2009 22:08 |
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Kave posted:Somehow I bet Kumagaya will end up being a midget or something That's what we're expecting, though! I sincerely hope he turns out to be something we least expect!
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| # ? Apr 20, 2009 05:30 |
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New chapters. Is it as we suspected what we'd least suspect?
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 02:06 |
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Daichi the Level 2 merchant who can sell apples AND bananas is totally the best RPG character ever. Also: Boy, a girl! I wonder if she'll join the gang. That'd even them out to 3 boys and 3 girls. If this were a more poorly-written manga I'd guess for Makoto to get a crush on Chiba, but I trust them to not go the cliched route. DrSunshine fucked around with this message at Apr 27, 2009 around 02:24 |
| # ? Apr 27, 2009 02:12 |
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The final joke in 43 was glorious.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 02:49 |
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Can someone explain the ending of the first chapter (the first prologue technically)? Does she not want to associate with him in class or something? Or does she only talk to him when she needs something from him?
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 02:56 |
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I'm betting the girl will join the group, since it's pretty much how some of the other characters came but I agree with DrSunshine and hope they don't do a romance between her and Chiba. Both Merchant scenes were loving hilarious, though, best part of both chapters.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 03:06 |
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Ice Blue posted:Can someone explain the ending of the first chapter (the first prologue technically)? Does she not want to associate with him in class or something? Or does she only talk to him when she needs something from him? I think she was just brushing off his question of whether or not she "likes" him in a dismissive way. Like "Don't talk to me about things like that!" Rueish posted:I'm betting the girl will join the group, since it's pretty much how some of the other characters came but I agree with DrSunshine and hope they don't do a romance between her and Chiba. Both Merchant scenes were loving hilarious, though, best part of both chapters. Daichi's a pimp! Also, this is a pretty sweet-rear end game if it lets you get all that from just being a merchant! I can tell why people get sucked into it. Although now that I think about it, Makoto doesn't seem to give off the same "aura" as the previous characters. She's neither an actual badass punk, nor does she really look like one. Maybe she can serve as their one "normal girl", but it seems a little unlikely. This isn't an action comic, but has anyone noticed how the few pages of fight scene were really well done? Nice and dynamic, but also very clear and readable, with a minimum of speedlines cluttering up the picture. DrSunshine fucked around with this message at Apr 27, 2009 around 03:44 |
| # ? Apr 27, 2009 03:30 |
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The merchant jokes were absolutely killing me. I kinda hope that this is behind Japan, so that we have tons of chapters to catch up on.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 03:37 |
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Serious Frolicking posted:The final joke in 43 was glorious. Kave posted:The merchant jokes were absolutely killing me.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 11:30 |
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That's a pretty reassuring thought. The fact that the translators aren't having to keep up with a new page each week makes me think that they have more time to devote to making their translations really good -- which is what we've mostly seen from things like Akumetsu, which have already completed in Japan. Not that I'm comparing YK&MC to Akumetsu of all things.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 13:24 |
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Ice Blue posted:Chapter 43 is out? Where can I find it? Right after 42, since it was a double release.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 14:19 |
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On Onemanga all I can see is 41-42. Sure you're not being mistaken? The last chapter before the latest update was 40, so the double release would be 41-42. I thought of Bleach when I wrote "double release". drat you, Bleach.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 14:39 |
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DrSunshine posted:On Onemanga all I can see is 41-42. Sure you're not being mistaken? The last chapter before the latest update was 40, so the double release would be 41-42. Yes, I was mistaken.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2009 15:14 |
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It's a little sad to see it still go so unrecognised next to drivel like Bleach and Naruto, but I will persevere! It'll be popular here someday!  Speaking of which, Chapter 43 came out before either this week! Woohoo! EDIT: Wow, I love these colour covers, by the way. Yoshizawa does awesome covers.  Click here for the full 738x1200 image. Oh no! It looks like a rival high school is coming to mess things up! And they wear black, so you know they're evil! I can't wait to see this arc play out. Also, it was neat to see Hana be a bit less ditzy for a moment. Looks like she's a lot more than just "What is ecks?" DrSunshine fucked around with this message at May 8, 2009 around 02:59 |
| # ? May 8, 2009 02:45 |
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DrSunshine posted:It's a little sad to see it still go so unrecognised next to drivel like Bleach and Naruto, but I will persevere! It'll be popular here someday! This is just drivel of a different sort, ya know. Gotta go with the drivel you like. You can either have heroes that endlessly endure trials to get stronger and defeat evil while learning the value of friendship along the way, or you can have heroes that are endure high school and defeat preconceived notions about other people while learning the value of friendship along the way.
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| # ? May 8, 2009 05:40 |
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Well, when you put it that way I suppose you're absolutely right! v v
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| # ? May 8, 2009 13:13 |
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Just read what there is of this. I found it a bit slow at first, with pretty much every chapter being Adachi popping in on Shinagawa in the restroom with some problem that neither of them know how to solve. It got much better later, though, with the addition of more characters, and I am now greatly anticipating more of this.
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| # ? May 10, 2009 07:03 |
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Chiba rules. It kind of sucks how Hana's former subordinate has been almost forgotten about, though. All she does now is clean the student council room.
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| # ? May 10, 2009 15:03 |
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L.E. Cheetah posted:Chiba rules. It kind of sucks how Hana's former subordinate has been almost forgotten about, though. All she does now is clean the student council room. I have to agree on this. Now that we've got the whole student council up and running it seems less focused on the quirks of Hana and Daichi (and Rinka) and more on the things the student council does. I for one really loved it when it was just Daichi and Hana bouncing off each other episodically -- the exact thing that Yes_Canteloupe didn't like much! I still really enjoy it now, but I hope there'll be more character humour like at the earliest chapters. Maybe the earliest chapters, and these student council ones, were just setting up for something awesome to come?
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| # ? May 10, 2009 16:49 |
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DrSunshine posted:I have to agree on this. Now that we've got the whole student council up and running it seems less focused on the quirks of Hana and Daichi (and Rinka) and more on the things the student council does. I for one really loved it when it was just Daichi and Hana bouncing off each other episodically -- the exact thing that Yes_Canteloupe didn't like much! I still really enjoy it now, but I hope there'll be more character humour like at the earliest chapters. Well, the latest chapter introduced a sinister rival student council, which is probably also made up of delinquents. Whether that will be a major issue for more than the current arc is unclear.
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| # ? May 10, 2009 19:04 |
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Chapter 44 up on One Manga I agree that Rinka doesn't get enough face time, but I like the little touches that Yoshikawa adds to her like her spinning the roll of tape around on her wrist when she's taping the posters up and paying absolutely no attention to Shinagawa threatening to beat the poo poo out of those two guys. I guess to play up to her secretly cute image.
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| # ? May 17, 2009 11:54 |
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Ohhh poo poo! Looks like there's gonna be some INTENSE SCHOOL COMBAT ACTION coming pretty soon! That leader guy looks like a pretty scary fella, with his book and his dramatic lighting! I hope this doesn't devolve into something, like, Tenjho Tenge or something, and they subvert the fighting schools cliche completely in chapters to come. In fact, I am sure of it. It was nice, on another note, to see Kumagaya attend the council meeting. In the whole student council of Mon Shiro high, only Chiba is the most "normal", so it's nice to have Kumagaya there as another normal person.
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| # ? May 17, 2009 13:55 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 08:35 |
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DrSunshine posted:Ohhh poo poo! Looks like there's gonna be some INTENSE SCHOOL COMBAT ACTION coming pretty soon! That leader guy looks like a pretty scary fella, with his book and his dramatic lighting! I hope this doesn't devolve into something, like, Tenjho Tenge or something, and they subvert the fighting schools cliche completely in chapters to come. In fact, I am sure of it.
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| # ? May 17, 2009 14:04 |
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