School Judgement: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Author: Obata, Takeshi (Art), Enoki, Nobuaki (Story)
• Author’s other works:
  • Enoki - ain't done shit
  • Obata
    • Deathnote, Plat End, Bakumam, Hakaru no Go
• Run dates: Dec 1, 2014 to May 27, 2015
• Chapters/Volumes:24/3

About the Manga

• Plot
  • In a world where it sucks to go to middle school, the Japanese government decided to enact the classroom arbitration system. 12 year old lawyers are sent from school to school in order to argue cases and prevent chaos.
  • Abaku Inugami is the ultimate middle school lawyer, unable to stop owning people with facts and logic. This is called Ronpa and he’s obsessed with it.
  • Inugami is called to represent a student named Tento accused of killing the classroom fish. Representing the prosecution is Pine Hanzuki, a literal magical girl
  • 
    
  • Inugami however proves that the whole thing was a plot by the teacher, and the school fish is actually totally fine.
  • Then the series decided that actually it doesn’t want us to read it because it shows the school principal perving out over a video of his sexy 12 year old student. Airi Takanashi is the school idol who holds an elected office in Japanese high schools. She’s the victim in this case and Tento’s friend Uozumi is the accused.
  • Actually though, it was Airi’s best friend who took creep shots of her in order to tease tento’s friend because she likes him. Ignoring that Airi was the victim here. Whatever.
  • 
    
  • Next the school President Higashide is accused of cheating on his test but actually it was the ugly girl who did it because fuck you if you’re an ugly 12 year old.
  • Then a student thinks he’s being sold cocaine but actually he just has a dog allergy. No really. The accused in this case is another sexy 12 year old so let’s move on.
  • Finally Inugami’s arch rival, a stupid ninja appears to challenge him to a court case. Two child artists nicknamed Da Vinci and Picasso painted the exact same painting and are suing each other for plagiarism. They both worshiped this older girl artist named Van Goh who became their art teacher. Inugami and the stupid ninja reveal that actually van goh is secretly Da Vinci’s sister and is having her art stolen by her mentor. They concocted this really stupid convoluted plan to reveal the theft in court by counting on a kid with powerful facts and logic. Anyway we stopped reading because the author drew a boob hierarchy chart of 12 year old girls.
• Characters
  • Abaku Inugami (Ah-ba-ku Ee-nuh-gah-me)
    • Likes Ronpa: to use argument to refute others theories
    • Seems like “that guy”
    • Defense attorney
    • Went to bad kids school for teens
    • 
      
  • Pine Hanzuki (Pie-een Han-zoo-key)
    • Likes pretty cure
    • Seems very aloof
    • Kind of a bitch
    • Prosecutor
    • Stays in school to beat Abaku
  • Teno Nanahoshi (Ten-no Na-na-hoe-shi)
    • Sidekick
    • Ladybug hair
    • Dumb
  • Shuichi Higashide
    • Class prodigy
    • Class president
  • Reiko Shiratori
    • Very nice girl
    • Has a lot of dogs aka mikam
    • Madonna of tenbin elementary
    • Author for some reason wanted her to have large boobs
  • Kotaro Sarutobi
    • Ninja lawyer
    • Really dumb
    • Went to gradeschool with Abaku
    • 
      

Why it failed

• This is well actually the series
• The objection pointing is getting old 20 pages in
• I feel this idea might have been too complex for 12 year olds since it follows legit court
• Why the fuck do they show boys being looked at naked by an adult in the first chapter
• Why are there so many naked children in the series
• I worry the series will only focus on court stuff
• Ronpa is a dumb word
• The whole wacky adult things but for kids def doesn’t have legs to last a long time
• Art quality def decreased from the first chapter
• MC saying he wanted to kill someone is…weird
• The chapters feel kinda abridged, they don’t spend a lot of time in the court for a court series, like the second case is 20% courtroom
• Falls for the age old issue of characters only existing for the plot, like why not have the MC fight with Shuichi 1-2 chapters before his trial
• Why does a 13yo girl have a mega milk shirt on
• You have to read so fucking much given the nature of the series
• Ok the drug metaphor was a bit too strong, why not just make it sugar from the start

What it did well

• Art is good but I feel not sustainable weekly, kinda berserk inspired
• I think school lawyers is a fun idea
• Kinda funny seeing kids act like adults
• I like the MC doesn’t have a perfect record but isn’t a failure
• Lmao old baby judges
• The chapter end notes are very cute
• I like that the school issues feel like actual school issues
• I think some of the humor actually works
• This series really walked its own path for better or worse
• The cheating case actually did a good job timing if it’s possible for the events to have occured
• I like that Abaku acts like a kid
• The reader involvement is actually fun

Where it could have gone

• Get rid of the weird sexual teenager shit
• Make fun of deathnote, like c’mon
• Show court elements that are not based on just being in trial, how about witness prep, pre trial negotiation, maybe even something not criminal court
• Have him lose a case or have it be his client lied to him and actually did it

Misc Thoughts

• I feel this could have been an adult swim show
• 
  

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker: It’s elementary school, my dear Watson-kun
    • MaxyBee: Too much ronpa, not enough dangan
    • T Wolfwood: lawyer's shitty ripoff of Dr. Stone
    • Genericman: Why did you sexualize elementary schoolers?!
    • Scarlet Myrmidon: Started meh, ended in Horny Jail
    • The luahging fool: The first panel features a lynching
    • Cram: ace attorney more like shit attorney
  • David: Verdict: You should go to jail