Is Again!! Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Overview

Again!! is a high school dramedy by Mitsurou Kubo. Kinichiro Imamura graduates having done exactly nothing: no clubs, no friends, three years of being avoided because his face makes him look like a delinquent. On graduation day he takes a fall down a staircase and wakes up on his very first morning of high school, three years earlier, with all his memories intact. Also caught in the fall: Akira Fujieda, a classmate who remembers the original timeline too. This time around, Imamura stumbles into the school's ouendan — a nearly extinct traditional cheer squad held together by its ferocious captain, Yoshiko Usami — and decides, for once, to actually join something. The series is complete, and Kodansha publishes the whole run in English. This review stays spoiler-free.

What it does well

The premise is a fantasy everyone's had, and Kubo refuses to make it comfortable. Imamura doesn't wake up cool. He's still awkward, still scary-looking, still bad at people — he just has context now, and watching him fumble toward the life he skipped the first time is both funny and quietly painful. The story is honest about the fact that a redo doesn't change who you are; it just gives you more chances to embarrass yourself in new directions.

The ouendan is a great engine. It's uncool in-universe — a relic the school wants gone, defended by one girl screaming tradition at people who laugh at her — which means every small victory has to be earned. Usami is the standout: rigid, absurd, sincere to the point of self-destruction, and far more complicated than her introduction suggests. The push-pull between her all-or-nothing devotion and Imamura's wary, half-committed presence gives the series its best scenes.

Kubo's art deserves a word too. Nobody in this book is drawn to be admired — faces stretch, sweat, and crumple, and that expressiveness is exactly why the comedy hits and the humiliations sting. Her characters look like real, specific people, and the body language does half the storytelling.

Where it falls short

The middle of the series loses the thread. Side characters get arcs that stall more than they build, the club politics repeat themselves, and the do-over premise — so sharp early on — sometimes fades into ordinary school-drama rhythms for volumes at a time. Fujieda, the other time traveler, is underused for long stretches, which feels like a missed opportunity given how much her presence should change things.

The romance is the other sore spot. There are real feelings in play, and the series teases them patiently, but payoff is thin — and when the story decides to end, it moves fast. Add an art style and a lead who both take some warming up to, and you have a series that asks for a little patience before it gives back.

Verdict

Again!! is a sincere, funny, sometimes frustrating take on the second-chance fantasy — strongest when it's about regret and the terror of joining in, weakest when it drifts into subplots. It won't satisfy readers who need tidy romance or explained mechanics, but if you've ever looked back at school and winced, this scratches an itch very few manga even try to reach.