There is a high level of craftsmanship on display in School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei. And that should come as no surprise because Takeshi Obata (Death Note, All You Need is Kill) did the art. And simply put, he's one of the best in the business. But what's particularly interesting in this series is he gets a chance to step away from the realistic style he's known for and get a little more cartoony, which as a fan of his art is a lot of fun. 

The slightly cartoony art reflects the less-than-realistic content. The first two pages set up a world where education has collapsed to the point that the government feels it's best to let kids police themselves. It’s kind of like Escape from New York, but with more children. That two-page opener grabs the reader and like all the best crime stories it starts with a murder—but the victim is the classroom fish!

There are simpler ways to dispatch a fish than dismemberment by scissors, but the murder mystery is an old genre and the number one rule is—there has to be a body that gives the reader clues. Not only does the fish’s body provide clues, but it shows the reader how cruel the world Inugami (our hero) is forced to operate in.

Inugami seems more confident within his own world than other shonen heroes do in theirs. I was really glad the hero starts with a murder trail and has no wise old mentor saying, “You got a lot to learn kid.” This is not a story where a mentor figure would work. These kids already run their world, and it is a creepy mess.

As I mentioned before, the art packs a punch and Obata Sensei's visuals really help a high-concept story that could have gone wrong more easily than right. One example of the great visuals is the face of the four-year-old judge. The text describes the preschool judge as “a four-year-old with a middle-aged face,” but that doesn't quite do it justice. A middle-aged face could mean Brad Pitt. It’s not that, it’s a pervy-looking old guy's face on a pre-schooler. Writer Nobuaki Enoki even states that the judge's look is disturbing in the bonus material.

Although I have spent the bulk of this review on the first case, the other stories are all solid mysteries in which Inugami and his sidekick Tento spring into action. The first story does a great job of world building. And you'll note right off the bat that this story's world is very different from most shonen manga. Naruto or My Hero Academia may have more fantastic power than Inugami debating skills (or Ronpa as it's called in the manga), but the kids in those other series want to grow up to be like the adults around them. That is a normal child-adult paradigm. The kids in School Judgement don’t seem to care about grown-ups any more than the kids in Peter Pan do. And it's this "all children" world that makes the strange things that happen in it seem more believable.  

If you're looking for something a little off the beaten path, School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei is a great choice. It features a unique world, dark humor, interesting characters, baby judges...all wrapped up in Obata Sensei's gorgeous art. 

You can judge for yourself how great this manga is by picking up Vol. 1 available here! 

by Rob McCarthy