Back to JamesLops's Profile JamesLops's Profile

(Tl;dr at the very bottom of this review)

Wagatsuma-san wa Ore no Yome , or My Wife is Wagatsuma-san is a fairly straightforward series. Our lead, Aoshima Hitoshi, has for whatever reason acquired the ability to "jump" back and forth between time. The only problem is that he is not exactly in control of when this happens. During his first ever leap, he finds that he is several years in the future and is now apparently married to the most popular girl at school. When he returns to the past, he seeks to make this future a reality. This premise, though uninspired, actually had some ... potential in its earliest chapters. However, it fizzled out almost completely by the end and leaves us with an underwhelming ending that is almost insulting to its readers.

Wagatsuma-san is first and foremost a comedic slice of life, following our lead as he attends school. Chapters are connected, but tend to mostly be episodic in nature. The comedy is very peculiar; one moment it's referencing Japanese pop culture, and the next, our characters are dancing Michael Jackson-inspired choreography. Since it's such a wide range of comedic elements, there are bound to be times when one left puzzled as to why that gag or joke means. However, about midway through the series, it takes a turn for the dramatic. This is perhaps where one begins to notice a drop in the quality of not only the comedy but also the story.

The art was, for the most part, passable. When there was a sight gag, the art style changed to accommodate this. However, the art as a whole did change towards the end, and the art style went from passable to completely mediocre.

Stop me if you've heard this one. Our lead Aoshima is your average high school student with nothing at all remarkable or special about him. Of course, because he is such a nice guy, all the women (including a teacher!) fall for him, even as he is blissfully unaware that there are other women in the world besides Wagatsuma. Ugh.

Wagatsuma herself stayed completely static throughout the series. This is par for the course, I suppose. Some attempt at characterization is attempted by making her a bit of a drama fanatic. This ties into a later story arc. Though I enjoyed the way that he initially got her attention and the subsequent relationship they had, by the end of the series, I cared little about either character. This is of course due to the story became more melodramatic and less comedic.

Surrounding Aoshima is a strange cast of characters, including an aspiring mangaka, a half-Dutch exchange student, and his supportive if somewhat precocious sister. Unfortunately, few of these characters get much development and what we are left with are, for the most part, flat, one-dimensional characters. This becomes especially apparent with the DX Brigade, Aoshima's "lovable" band of loser friends. They start out as good comedic relief, but by the end of the series they are little more than perverts, idiots, and obnoxiously unfunny. These characters had potential to be more than what they ended up as, and would have made the series much more pleasant to read.

I wanted to like this manga. Though the concept is cliche and has been done before, the comedy was strong enough to carry it for a very long time. When our leads finally get together, it's cute. However, the story dragged on for too long and left too many ideas unexplored to be considered anything above just average at best and completely forgettable at worst.

Tl;dr: I would recommend you skip this manga and find something else to read, such as The World God Only Knows (harem, similar comedic situations, and even time travel as a plot device).

I apologize for the wall of text, and thank you for reading through it all.