4 Yankee Romance Manga You Should Read

It’s no big secret that I love a good yankee romance series. If you’re looking for a yankee romance manga to get into, but aren’t quite sure where to start, why not try one of my recommendations?

Takahashi From the Bike Shop

Some info about this manga

This is a romance manga featuring two adult characters.
She is a little shy, and works in an office. He is very outspoken, and works at a bike shop.
This series touches on some slightly heavy topics (family not accepting you, sexual harassment).

This is currently being published both in English and Japanese, and there’s even a drama for it!

A quick recap

Tomoko really doesn’t like her job. Even though her boss is a total creep to her, she finds herself having difficulty actually putting him in his place. Even outside of work, she has a difficult time expressing her wants and needs, choosing instead to say what she thinks other people want to hear.

One day on her way home from work, her bike gives out, leaving her in a bit of a pickle. Thankfully her bike picked a good location to stop working properly, as this is where she meets Takahashi, who eventually fixes it for her. The two of them go to the bike repair shop that he works at, where he fixes it for her… and promptly asks her out rather bluntly. While she’s taken aback at the straightforwardness of his question, she accepts.

From here, the two rather opposite people begin slowly getting to know each other better and better.

More info

Read my full review of this manga, and find out where you can read it, here!

Glasses With a Chance of Delinquent

Some info about this manga

This is a high school romance series.
She’s scared of yankee, he’s secretly a former yankee.
They start dating at the start of the series.

This is currently being published in both English and Japanese!

A quick recap

Momose is a girl who just went through her “high school debut”. After being bullied by the yankee students at her former school for being too plain and too much of a pushover, she became determined to turn her life around come high school.

So, she dyes her hair blonde, puts on a cheery attitude, and successfully enters high school. She quickly learns that the only other member of her after-school club is actually a former yankee… There goes her yankee-free high school days…

While she is a little bit scared at first, she soon grows to actually enjoy his company. Maybe not all yankee are bad people!?

On the flip side, Ichikura is a former yankee who become an honours student upon entering high school.

He is an incredibly honourable person who values being “cool” above all else but… the concept of “cool” is very subjective! While he was still acting as a yankee, he acted according to a set of morals: he would never attack someone weaker than him, he would always protect women, etc.

Now though, he has come to realize that there are different ways of being cool, and he doesn’t have to resort to violence in order to have an image that he’s proud of.

More info

Read my introductory review to this series here! Or, jump straight into my review of volume one here!

Love, That’s an Understatement

Some info about this manga

This is a high school romance series.
She is an honours student, he is a yankee on the verse of failing out if he doesn’t start studying soon.
They start dating at the start of the series.

This is currently being published in both English and Japanese!

A quick recap

One rainy day, Lisa finds a beaten-up Zen and helps him find his way to a hospital. Incredibly touched, Zen creates a “get out of jail free card” and gives it to Lisa. Lisa refuses the card, perhaps because she doesn’t want to be indebted to Zen, as she doesn’t know how she could repay him. Lisa, having always done everything for herself, doesn’t want to put herself in a situation where she may be forced to depend on someone. Zen, finding Lisa to be incredibly cool, doesn’t give up after this refusal and continues to stay by her side.

Zen eventually gets Lisa to agree to tutor him and his group of friends, allowing them to remain in constant contact. Through their time together, Zen is able to slowly help Lisa realize that it’s okay to depend on others.

More info

Read my review of volume one here!

Gunrou ni Hana

Some info about this manga

This is a high school romance series.
She enters a high school famous for yankee students, and is taken in by a group of yankee.
Reverse harem vibes.

This is a new series, currently only being published in Japanese.

A quick recap

After being all but raised by her mechanic brother, our main character Yuuri has come to have a passion for machinery. So, naturally, when it came time to choose a high school, she chose a technical one. The school she chose is famous for quite a few things: the male-to-female student ratio is rather skewed, with the majority of students being male; it offers subjects that a typical school doesn’t; graduates tend to have an easier time finding jobs; and it’s full of delinquents.

On her very first day, Yuuri quite literally runs into one of the most prolific delinquents in the school, Akamatsu. While their run-in only happened because Akamatsu was brawling with another student, the fact that they interacted at all was enough to put a target on Yuuri’s back. She’s soon called into the staff room, where it’s explained to her that Akamatsu is a member of a group of rather prolific group of yankee, and that for her own sake she needs to stay far away from him.

That’s rather difficult for her to do though, as all of her classmates immediately start avoiding her due to their fear of Akamatsu. Unable to explain the misunderstanding, she opts to eat lunch alone in an empty stairwell. And it was empty, until Akamatsu himself appears, jokingly asking her who gave her permission to eat there. Yuuri attempts to run away at the sight of him, and that’s when the rest of his group appears.

More info

Read my review of chapter one here!

Maddies Manga