Some things can just never go on long enough. YajiKita Gakuen Douchuuki is one of them. If it never ends I’ll be a happy fangirl.

So let’s see, where did we leave off? Who can tell?!?

Seriously – let’s see, Yukiya has been rescued, and reunited with his retinue, and Sagiri is still in the middle of the woods whining…and trying to not be too obvious about his crush on Hardy (who pins him with his hawk-like gaze and asks him about it, making Sagiri go all goopy, which is even *worse* than him whiny), and the folks at the school go running around beating each other up and the tourists comb the caves looking for buried treasure, while Julian walks around mysteriously, and whatshisface, the one who idolizes Hardy and follows Ruriko around, eh – Tamahiko, that’s it – mostly follows Ruriko around.

There’s the usual insane fighting among the apparent 7 million occupants of and visitors to this school and mostly Junko (Yaji) and Reiko (Kita) spend the volume running around like lunatics, with the occasional face-slamming interlude for fun.

Reading this manga is a bit “sound and fury signifying nothing”, but I don’t care. It’s brain candy. :-)

Let’s move away from the plot for a second – especially as it is so insanely complex that I’m not always sure I can figure out what’s going on, much less explain it simply – and move onto the service, shall we? :-)

Ruriko has been trying to get Kita back into that tux for some oh 13 years now. And in Volume 27, she succeeds! For exactly 15 panels. LOL

Here’s Ruriko’s brilliant scheme this time: She notes that Kita is being shadowed (pun intended) by the school’s female ninja (kunoichi) club. Ruriko has the club president, an adorable little blonde, kidnapped. She tells Reiko that unless she gets back in that tux, bends her knee and swears fealty to Ruriko, dire and dreadful things will occur to doll-like Kaede. Kita, not wanting to see the girl hurt, dons the garb in question – which sends Kaede into fits of love, btw – and proceeds to bend that knee. But before she can swear to anything, chaos is unleashed. Kita-san rescues Kaede, and knocks Ruriko into unconsciousness, then they bail taking Ruriko with them. Which was a relief to Kaede, as Ruriko was about to make Kita swear she’d do anything Ruriko said to do. A somewhat disturbing thought, even to me. Ruriko’s a nutter.

Kita’s back in boring old school uniform before they even leave the house. It was brief, but DAMN that tux looked good.

Kaede’s mishap only serves to strengthen her interest in “Shinokita-sama”, and Ruriko is, of course, too stupid and rich to understand “no.” I’m not a fan of sociopaths in general, but this series is filled with nothing but – including our two leads – so I’m not going to get myself worked up over it.

This is a great shoujo manga series, but not something for the faint of heart. It’s just too long, too complex and has too many characters to be an easy read. Fifteen *lead* characters at casual count.

So is tux-wearing and ninja adoration all there is for poor Kita’s ongoing girl troubles? Not *quite.* On the last page we reintroduce an exceptionally bizarre character, Himegose – an impossibly rich Empress-wannabe with a obsession with…Yaji-san. Seriously. Himegose was all OVER Junko in the original series – wanted her as her girl toy. But her two little henchchicks had a raging crush on Kita. So with Himegose’s return we can expect massive Yuri sexual harrassment for both our lovely leading ladies.

Ratings:

Art – 6 A little weak, even for this series which is wildly inconsistent
Story – 7 But it takes some work on your part
Characters – 7 The good ones are great and the rest are legion
Yuri – 7 Sociopathic service, but harmless for a change
Loser FanGirl – 10 Pretty boys, gorgeous girls, squeal!

Love it or hate it, YajiKita Gakuen Douchuuki is a cultural treasure.

It always gives me great pleasure to be able to discuss one of my favorite series, but in this case, not only does YajiKita Gakuen Douchuuki (YajiKita’s School Diary) have Yuri, this time its not just classic…it’s now.

I have reviewed this series before, once on January 13, 2004 and it even made my 2004 Top 10 of Yuri manga, and yet, hardly anyone knows about it, which is a crying shame, since it is truly a wonderful, wacky and Yuri-filled, girl-gang shoujo manga.

YajiKita originally went for 22 volumes, from 1984 to 1992. The plot was, basically, that two second-year high school students – blonde, cool Shinokita Reiko (Kita) and fiery tempered brunette Yajima Junko (Yaji) – move from school to school fighting corruption, Yakuza, bad gangs (as opposed to the good gangs which, yes, do exist in the story) and running into more ninjas and black-suited, sunglass-wearing men than you could ever have imagined.

Both Yaji and Kita have extraordinary hand-to-hand fighting skills, which they actually work on improving. Yaji’s family runs a dojo, so no surprise there, and Kita’s father is a police captain. They nominally work for the head of the eastern area gang association (Kantou Banchou Rengo no Souchou, for those of you who care) an exceptionally pretty rich boy named Yukiya, who looks like – but does not act or talk like – a girl. (One of the things you can absolutely guarantee in YajiKita is that the boys will often be as pretty as the girls.) Yuikya is served by an even prettier ninja boy named Kotetsu, who is always running around saving an even *prettier* ninja named Sagiri, whom I loathe. (Sagiri whines. Alot.)

In the beginning Yaji and Kita can’t stand each other, but after a dozen or so volumes that disappears. Sometime around the time Kita gets shot, Yaji realizes that she quite likes her partner…and Kita begins to act a little more possessive of Yaji, as well, often acting like her boyfriend. (Kita out of school uniform and without her glasses is seriously bishounen. People constantly think she’s a guy at first.)

There are about 877,636,345 other characters who linger in this series, so it would be hopeless to enumerate them all.

However, on to the Yuri. I’ve already pointed out in my earlier review that Kita is a girl magnet. Sometime towards the end of the original series, the mangaka threw caution to the wind and had Kita get a part-time job at a host bar. As “Rei” she danced with many a woman, and looked damn fine in a tux. Yaji even brought Misuzu, a girl that had honest-to-god fallen in love with Kita earlier in the series, just to watch her drool. Poor Misuzu was *dying* as “Rei” danced with the other women…and when one of them, a rich girl named Ruriko, goes so far as to *kiss* Kita, Misuzu is out of her seat and punching Ruriko faster than you can say “Hey! Get your hand off my Reiko!” :-)

Anyway, that was back in Volume 21 or so. About 12 years ago.

Last year YajiKita picked where they had left off 13 years before. With no interruption, no aging – no change at all, the next collected volume came out…as Vol. 23. In which not a single moment of time had passed. It was really charming and wacky. Not a single change had been made – unlike the New Hana no Asuka-gumi whioch had at least updated to include cell phones.

In Vol. 24, Ruriko, having had her desire for “Rei” thwarted for a decade and a half, (metaphorically speaking,) seemed even more determined to possess poor Kita. She concocted a variety of methods by which she tries to maneuver Kita out of her clothes and into a tux. Of course, I approve.

Which brings us to Vol. 25. Yaji and Kita are rushing around looking for a kidnapped (and escaped, yet still missing) Yukiya, and come across Ruriko and Tamehiko (another one of the many resurrected characters) at a pleasant little cottage in the country. Ruriko locks Kita in a room with her and slinks up to her “Rei” asking her to stay. Kita draws back and apologizes, telling Ruriko that she can’t work for her. At which Ruruiko is appalled. “Employee?” she keeps asking. “What are you saying? I want you to be my lover!”

I have to admit – I applaud Ruriko’s frankness.

Kita excuses herself…she’s not interested in women, at which Ruriko trots out the old chestnut that she doesn’t like girls either…she just likes “Rei.” Kita bails, but Ruriko is unfazed. I’m looking forward to the next plan she comes up with – all the others have been so wonderfully stupid. :-) And maybe we might just get Reiko back in that tuxedo!

In the meantime, however, Kita has been noticeably *there* every time Yaji faces unwanted attentions from men. Maybe Kita isn’t interested in women, but she might just be interested in Yaji. :-)

Okay, not. But I like thinking about it. ^_^

Anyway, despite the fact that you actually *do* have to read this series from the beginning to get what’s going on – Volume 25 offers yet *more* women who desire Kita-san, which keeps it in my top ten, even after 20 years.

Everything old is new again!
Part 1

Yes, now that all the otaku of my generation have grown into curmudgeonly old farts who now edit the magazines they once read as kids, you’ll be seeing more and more “revivals” of series from the 70’s and 80’s. Face it, when they remade Beverly Hillbillies into a movie, you just *knew* we were doomed, right? Well, in the case of anime and manga, this isn’t such an evil trend. Here’s a title that you should keep on the lookout for, with great characters, Yuri sub- (and sometimes, overt-) text and action-filled plots:

YajiKita Gakuen Dochuuki, (Yaji and Kita’s School Diary) is a manga series from Bonita magazine from the early 80’s. This was one of Bonita Magazine’s most popular series ever, with Kita consistently topping the “most popular character” category in the annual poll.

I can believe it.

Yaji and Kita and their adventures parody two comedic figures from Japanese literature who wandered from town to town, encountering bad guys and generally making fools of themselves. In this iteration, they are two schoolgirls who wander from school to school, fighting the bad guys and generally saving the day. Shinokita Rei (Kita-san) is a butchy, serious blonde girl, with a penchant for rescuing (and becoming the object of affection for) lovely young ladies and Yajima Junko (Yaji-san) is a tall, lovely brunette girl with a impetuous nature and a habit of rescuing (and becoming the object of affection for) beautiful boys.

In practically every arc of YajiKita, you can be sure of a few things –  the Yakuza will be involved, there will be much fighting, Yaji and Kita will be inutterably cool, the girl will fall in love with Kita and the boy with Yaji. The girls are all doll-like and beautiful and the boys are all *so* pretty. And Kita looks incredibly hunky on her motorcycle….sigh. YajiKita is running once again in Mystery Bonita magazine, so keep your eyes peeled for the collected volumes! I promise to report as soon as I’ve managed to take a look.

Ratings:

Art – 8 out of 10. It’s very realistic and clean.
Story – 6 out 0f 10 for realism, but 10 out of 10 for fun.
Character design – 10 out of 10 for Kita alone. ;-)
Yuri – 6 out of 10 – lots of fun service, little substance.

Overall – 8 out of 10