My Wife is Wagatsuma-san, Volume 1 Review (Yuu Kuraishi, Keishi Nishikida)

Dorky kid Aoshima, like every other boy, lusts after Wagatsuma-san, the cutest girl in school. But, as Wheatus sang in Teenage Dirtbag, she doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t give a damn about him! One day, Aoshima wakes up and he’s somehow time-slipped ten years into the future – and he’s married to Wagatsuma-san! Howhaa…?! (Ooh yeah, dirt bag!)

I really liked Yuu Kuraishi and Keishi Nishikida’s pseudo-trashy manga. It deliberately sets itself up as a porn-y kind of comic but only to play off of those pervy expectations for comedy – and it’s a hella funny read.

Aoshima’s very over-the-top throughout – nearly everything he says and does is exaggerated for comic effect – and it works really well. The restaurant scene with the Yakuza and the pregnant lady was brilliant too, where his assumptions perennially lands him in foot-in-mouth situations.

Aoshima’s a doofus but it’s important that he’s a likeable doofus – if he was just some sleazebag, this wouldn’t be anything more than a cheap and forgettable exploitation manga. Sure, he objectifies women but he’s also just a dumb kid. Ultimately he’s a good kid with a kind heart – he doesn’t take advantage of his circumstances in a way a less moral person might, and ends up using the information he finds out in the future to make his present better for others (he jumps from both times consistently and randomly). And we see his feelings for Wagatsuma-san go beyond a physical attraction, which is sweet.

There are some fleeting, gratuitous T&A shots, though nothing explicit, and both Wagatsuma and Silvia could’ve done with more character development, though I understand why there wasn’t as much, not least as this is just a first volume: the story is told from Aoshima’s perspective and he’s a very shy and distant personality so he wouldn’t know either very well.

I enjoyed the first book of My Wife is Wagatsuma-san a whole bunch. The time-travel element makes it a compelling and fun take on the coming-of-age tale and how an awkward boy learns to become the man women want to marry.