It's sad, really. When a manga resonates with you so much, you just.. can't help but cry a little when reading it. A manga that connects with not only you as a person, but the culture and life you grew up with. A loveable family where everyone, even if it was a neighbour, was part of said family. A family of so many people, sticking together because of their bonds.. It's really something beautiful, and no other manga has done that when compared to Kippo. To say that I didn't like Kippo at first would be a lie, I ADORED this manga from it's firstvolume. Everything about it felt right, even more so with the context of having read Bad Boys. It's been.. what, four years since I've seen Kiriki and his friends? So watching them be old, married people with kids did really strike me at the right time of my life. It's like watching people I used to talk with get old. It felt nostalgic, and really fun at that!

Sadly, Kippo has also got to be one of the most absurdly stupid, generic, contrived and absurdist delinquent manga I've read, and not in a good way.

I'm just gonna say it here, there's a lot of stupidity in this manga that affects the relatively grounded atmosphere it has. Sure, I can get behind the comically ugly women (because they exist), I can get behind the absurd delinquent shenanigans (because I like them) and I can get behind there not being a real "main" character in this manga (more interesting narrative opportunities) but.. okay. So you have two main characters who fill the role as "protagonists." Kiriki Kyuuji and Sawa Ichirou. Kyuuji makes Ichirou meet the Mammoth Family (aka. Tsukasa Kiriki's group), and Ichirou gets introduced to said family. Okay. The manga shifts towards multiple members of the family, while having Ichirou and Kyuuji interact with them. That's okay. I'm fine with that. I liked it. My favorite moment from this manga (and one where they do a title drop) came from said interaction.

You kill Kyuuji off. Okay, I can get behind that. Ichirou's already in the Mammoth Familya t this point, I'm okay with this. It's a natural moment that was built up to with no asspulls, it felt natural. Kyuuji is dead for.. a single chapter. He comes back as a ghost. Okay? Huh. That's funny. It doesn't really add anything to the manga. Everyone in the family can see Kyuuji, but nobody else can. Huh. Then, there's an arc dedicated to a former antagonist in Megami no Oni, I think? A character that I don't know because I've only read one of Hiroshi Tanaka's works, that being Bad Boys. Okay, that's fine. I COULD be missing context here, so I'm not gonna judge it.

Then, not only does this character take over Ichirou's body and makes him go ballistic, this arcs ends in the most "Disney" way possible, by having all of the family pull up to Ichirou and saying "YOU CAN'T SEE KYUUJI ANYMORE, THEREFORE YOU'RE POSSESED BY A EVIL SPIRIT! OUR FAMILY'S NOT LIKE THAT!" -- which ends up freeing Ichirou from the ghost guy. Now, the ghost guy being gone is kinda whatever. I am missing context -- and that's my fault. But not only does Ichirou simply not appear for the remaining TWENTY-THREE VOLUMES of the manga, Kyuuji randomly just.. stops appearing. He's finally gone as a ghost. You wanna know for how long he was a ghost?

Three volumes. Yeah. While I do like their conclusion, it feels like Kippo should've ended here. Ichirou and Kyuuji are now conjointed, and I like that. It's a good conclusion for both of them. Without them in the cast however, you get.. a relatively generic delinquent gang war manga, except that this time it's a bunch of retired ones! Until you get a backstory arc for characters that didn't really do much like Kin, that last for like.. four volumes! Then, Kiriki does more gang stuff with his friends! Even though he's retired! Then, more delinquent shenanigans happen! Then, MORE gang fights!

Kippo became a manga about absolutely nothing. I know Japanese, I can read beyond what's translated.. and it's just not good. It's just generic furyou bullshit that doesn't really correlate to what the manga sets up at the start. I mean, yeah. They focus on other members of the family, but did ANYONE really want to have an entire prequel arc that doesn't really matter? There's a lot of good stuff, like the "Queen" arc where the girls get to do stuff and it actually makes a good point on how absurd the mother-to-daughter standards are and how the girl in this arc is shat on because of her ugly face and how she's not "good" at anything, or the "Marry" arc. These arcs are good, but they're piled up with the most generic stuff you've seen in your delinquent manga.

Now, it is a good read. I wouldn't particularly suggest reading beyond maybe Vol. 8. Not like you can read much after that, since that's what currently translated, and this manga gets yearly english releases. One volume per year. So, twenty-two years to get translated is.. really fun. Kinda sad, too. I can see people liking Kippo, because it is a very good evolution of Hiroshi Tanaka's world and style, but I dunno. It's really more of your usual delinquent situations, and while that's not bad, I feel like it should've focused on Ichirou rather than the whole family. They get arcs, but the progress is small in scale, and having it turn into "Bad Boys: Kiriki's Geezer Days" wasn't a narrative I was super interested with it.

It's corny, yes. But I like corny family stuff. Makes me feel at home.