Yamada-kun is in a word; frustrating. I’ll preface this by saying that I did enjoy reading this manga, there are a lot of good points that make it a fun read. However there are also some things that – to me – made reading this a frustrating experience. There will be a few spoilers in this review, I’ll try to keep them light though.

First, I’ll start with the good – the characters. Most of what makes this a fun read is the characters. Yamada-kun has a diverse range of interesting, funny personalities, and some of the best parts are simple interactions between the characters. The manga also portrays realistic relationships between a lot of them, something I can appreciate when compared to other school life/ harem manga. Some highlights would be Miyamura and Itou who are downright hilarious. The manga also has some good character development for a lot of side characters, but struggles when it comes to the mains, particularly Shiraishi. Now I will say that she receives good development at the start of the manga, but for most of it remains as a blank slate who just acts as a love interest for Yamada – the main character. She is particularly bad in the second half the manga, but this is the case for a lot of the characters, as the writing went downhill after the first arc. A lot of characters struggle, and I think this is because there is such a wide range of characters.

The art in Yamada-kun is decent, but nothing too special. What I liked about it was character expressions, which were unique and really well portrayed. The other thing, which the author took special note of, is the character traits between different bodies. As body-switching is a main part of the story, the author did a good job of showing how different a person acts when in another’s body, like how they walk, talk, and act around certain people. While it was exaggerated at times it was a good approach and was often beneficial to the comedy or story.

In terms of story, this manga is a mixed bag. In my opinion it starts off strong, there are a lot of interesting things to be found out with the mystery of the witches at the school. However after the first arc the story is massively downgraded, and it skips over plot hole after plot hole, rushing through random arcs. It lost a lot of direction around 100 chapters in, and only ‘sort of’ found its way back some time later. The ending was incredibly frustrating as there were tons of loose ends that were just sort of left open. It was very rushed. One of these cases was also detrimental to Yamada’s character development. Sometime early on the mystery of the witches is a big thing, and Yamada wishes to find out why he got his power to copy other witches’ powers. When I saw this I thought it would be a big point to his character, but it was brought up one other time 200 chapters in, and then left at that. The writing and the pacing were simply frustrating as a reader who wanted to see these characters develop and mysteries solved. Many story arcs were also underwhelming, as many mysteries had been hyped up but then never solved. The story couldn’t seem to find its footing.

So what are my final thoughts, and should you read this manga? Yamada-kun is a fickle story, the story is all over the place, and it struggles to find its place in terms of what it wants to do. In saying that, the characters are funny, interesting, and realistic. If you are going to read this you would be best focusing on the comedy and characters rather than the plot, which is frustrating to think about. I enjoyed reading this the most when I wasn’t concerned with the innumerable plot holes and crappy ending, and when I focused on the characters and relationships portraryed. Overall – a 6/10

TL;DR: Characters really funny and unique, good cast. Story has no direction and is often times frustrating to read, plot holes common, and rushed ending. 6/10