“My wife is Wagatsuma-san” is cringy good

My wife is Wagamatsu-san

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Author: Yuu Kuraishi, Keishi Nishikida

Status: Finished

My rating: 8.5/10

Synopsis: Aoshima Hitoshi is a second year student in high school, who wishes he had a girlfriend. One day he wakes up for an unknown reason 10 years in the future, and he is married to the prettiest girl in school, Wagatsuma Ai! How has their relationship grown from mere acquaintances to husband and wife!?

You may have never heard of this manga before but let me tell you something, it’s straight up gold. The series was very interesting and different from other romance mangas I’ve read before. The story basically is about a cringy high schooler named Hitoshi Aoshima who experiences time slips into ten years into the future in which he is married to prettiest girl in school, Wagatsuma Ai. From the start we know how it will turn out ten years in the future, but whether it happens or not depends on Aoshima’s choices in the present. A story about total chaos begins.

The story is well written and constructed by Kuraishi-Sensei and the artwork by Nishikida-Sensei suits the story well. The manga was quite refreshing from your regular rom-coms because there isn’t really much romance in there, the manga is all about comedy and must I say it’s excellent. As someone who reads a lot of gag mangas, this one is there on the top. But the comedy is mostly referential comedy and so we get tons of references of Japanese culture and other mangas. To be honest I didn’t get Japanese pop culture references, only understood a couple that the target demographic Japanese reader would probably understand so unless you actually know them the comedy feels lost sometimes.

Even with it’s referential comedy, there are also some funny gags from time to time with some epic facial expressions. I can’t count the times I burst into tears laughing at this manga, the comedy is consistently funny making you laugh each chapter. The author also does well in avoiding your usual cliches which makes it more interesting to read. The story was well written and constructed by Kuraishi-Sensei and the artwork by Nishikida-Sensei suits the story well.

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Not gonna lie, when I saw this for the first time, I thought it was going to be yet another weak guy but good heart love harem. However this manga completely overthrows all that. The protagonist Aoshima has some major growth arc. He is a wimp, acts awkward and even a chicken at times at the beginning but grows on to become more mature by funneling the main protagonist to make hard decisions in order to mature as a person.

The time-slip concept is really interesting since he can’t live his life regularly since the tinniest decisions can affect Aoshima’s future with Ai. It’s not a win-win situation since he realizes soon that he isn’t that powerful that even if he knows what is going to happen, he change everything. He tries and tragically fails most of the time leading him to question his future with Ai but he realizes that no matter what decision he makes there will always be an apparent loss. All this makes his character growth even more gripping and keeps the reader hooked to the story. But other than Aoshima the other character don’t really get any growth which was kind of a disappointment.

The art is also nothing special. It is inconsistent at times but the characters’ expressions were on point each time. They literally had me laughing all the time. One more thing is the female characters were well done, they were really cute but because of the inconsistencies the art got slightly worse as the story progressed. But that never really bothered the overall story that much.

My wife is Wagatsuma-san is a fun manga which is meant to be read for just laughs. It’s not something groundbreaking or serious but it’s one of those manga you read when you just want to relax and read some dumb things. it has a few boring parts to it but overall it’s amazing. You’ll most probably read and just forget it since there’s nothing unique to it but you’ll also get a hit of nostalgia when stumble across after a few years, as in my case.

As someone who like dumb comedy mangas, I really enjoyed but if you’re looking for a genuine rom-com then this might not be the one. But people who do want to give this a go then I will 100% recommend it.

Thank you for reading.