Yui Kamio: Unedited Audio & Notes

Manga Details

• Hiroshi Shiibashi

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • Hirohiko Araki (of Cool Shock B.T. fame) on Steel Ball Run

  • Notable people they had as assistants

    • Takuma Yokota (of ‘Destroy All Humans. They Can’t Be Regenerated’ fame)

    • Kentaro Hidano (of Super Smartphone fame)

    • Kana Yoshimura (of Murciélago fame)

    • Hiroyuki Senda (of Weapon Girl fame)

  • Other works

    • Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (2008-2012, 25 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)

    • Illegal Rare (2014, 4 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)

    • Tokyo Kigo Tanpou (2016, 1 volume, Jump GIGA)

    • Iwamoto-senpai’s Recommendation (2021-present, 9+ vols, Ultra Jump)

    • Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan: Kage (2023, 1 volume, Ultra Jump)

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • March 11th, 2019 to November 25th, 2019.

  • Series it replaced

• IT’S COMPLICATED! In late 2018, World Trigger had transferred to Jump SQ, Hunter x Hunter went on hiatus, and Alice & Taiyo, THE COMIQ, and Seiji Tanaka: Secretary to the Managing President, General Time Industries all ended. Five series were down, and were only replaced by three new series. So when Yui Kamio and The Last Saiyuki turned up, they were filling a 3-month long void in the magazine!

• Series that replaced it

  • Zipman!! by Yusaku Shibata (2 vols, flop, SHONEN FLOP EPISODE ONE AND ALSO EPISODE 27)

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • The Last Saiyuki by Daijiro Nonoue (3 vols, flop, SHONEN FLOP EPISODE 54)

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 36 chapters/4 volumes

About the Manga

• Plot

  • It’s modern day high school times in Japan and a powerful violent delinquent girl in all black is causing havoc. Her name is Yui Kamio and when her best friend Nao ties her hair up with a mystical chain she got from some monks, Yui’s hair and clothes turn white. In this state, “Yui in White” is quiet, sweet, non confrontational, pretty and overall demure as the kids say. You know, everything a girl should be (parody satire sarcasm parody). Anyway the posse of a rich handsome douchebag named Kiito pushes Nao around a bit causing “Yui in Black” to show up and kick his ass. Uh oh though it turns out that Kiito is into that and he becomes obsessed with finding her. After stalking her for a bit he discovers that Yui in white and Yui in black are the same person and tells Yui in white that he wants to be a veterinarian but it’s okay if you forget that cuz it never comes up again. Nao then drafts him to help her protect Yui and It keeps being a gag manga for a bit and only a few things end up really mattering. 

  • A girl named Kara shows up. She’s friends with Kiito and they’re both members of a high ranking student group called the Life lovers. Kara is in love with Kiito and is immensely jealous of Yui. There are a few other characters like a witch girl who is ALSO in love with Kiito and two ninjas who claim to be Yui in Black’s bodyguards but none of them matter. Eventually a powerful monk appears to turn this into a horror manga by showing Yui in White some tarot cards that freak her out. It turns out that she has something called a mushi inside of her and in fact Yui in black was a legendary mushi hunter this whole time woah. A girl named Honoka shows up with doll powers. She also has a mushi inside her which makes her a girlboss. Kiito and Yui manage to defeat her and turn her good because she ALSO falls in love with Kiito. Soon another girlboss named Ayako appears. She can play her violin which is infested with a mushi and is called the deathspellvarius, to make people either die or turn into zombies it’s a little unclear. People try and cover their ears but oh no she’s so good at violin that she can make their bones vibrate! Yui breaks her violin but has already started turning into a zombie and so is useless and will continue to be useless for the rest of the series unrelated to the zombification. Kiito follows Ayako to an organ which she plans on playing with the mushi in order to kill people but Kiito shows up and plays the organ so incredibly mediocrely that it defeats her and reminds her that she used to like playing music or something. She kicks him like chun li but eventually gives up and becomes good, and I can only assume that somewhere deep inside she has also fallen in love with Kiito.

  •  Ayako says that her family of doctors invented or discovered the mushi during world war 2 and that they need to find the mother of the mushi, Himiko, the ultimate girlboss and defeat her to destroy all the mushi. Kiito invites everyone to a yacht party on his giant rich boy yacht, but Kara is jealous because even though she’s a model Kiito doesn’t “see” her. She’s immediately taken over by a mushi. On their way to a field trip to a place where Himiko’s ancient kingdom Yamatai might be, their train is taken over by Kara who is now a girlboss with big muscle powers and evil bugs as well as two immortal henchmen. Kiito defeats Kara by ripping the mushi out of her mouth when she kisses him and swallowing it himself. They make it to the destination and Yui gets pulled into a mirror where Himiko is. Himiko tries to make Yui go crazy by calling forth her mushi, called the three corpses and nine worms, but Kiito stops her by going through the mirror himself. Himiko shatters his body into a gory mess but he uses the mushi inside of him to reform and calm Yui down. Kiito tells Yui that he loves her no matter what color she is because he’s very progressive and then I guess they defeat Himiko? It’s unclear. Also Ayako and Honoka were fighting an S-class girlboss but she kinda just left. They all have a yacht party.

• Characters

  • Kiito Sonomiya

    • gigachad  

    • Gets beat up by Yui

    • Wants to be a vet

    • Gets into the antics

    • Learns to better embrace his silly side of things

    • The series kinda doesn't know what to do with him ok then it figures something out kinda but it’s still kinda forced

    • Completely changes character like halfway through the series 

  • Yui Kamio

    • Inside of you are two wolves…

    • Always chooses violence 

    • I think she gets rebooted in chapter 7

    • She’s master of evil wurms?

  • Nao

    • Good with chains 

    • Crazy

    • Legit funny

    • Kinda is forgotten about when more powerful women show up

Why it Failed

• a lot of the chain pulls don't make sense like the bike in ch 2

• What is this plot??

• It's like anti character development 

• It has a bad message about suppressing women

• These chapters just are a slog it's not even text it's just so much filler

• Is this series building to anything?

• I feel the entire tone of Yuis character changed early on and it was weird 

• Man the ecchi really kicks it up

• What is this witch brother council plot?

• I wish they had more characters that mattered or even explored people more

• I do not FW this horror change

• What is even going on with the doll ark did they just stop mid flashback due to the makeup thing?

• Every chapter is 15 pages of filler 

• I legit cannot tell what the moment by moment plot of this series is

• How did they get to the roof with the violin? The author makes it feel like characters teleport 

• Did they completely change how yui in black worked? Because isn’t she the original Yui and Yui in white is . I wish I had had the time to compile a list of retcons

• So after the super serious life and death arc it’s back to xany comedy? This tone whiplash is something

• What was the point of Kara, why not just bring Mai-Nyun back?

• Ah yes muscle girl her power is…bugs?

• This series was starting to get interesting and then fuck you 

What it Did Well

• David: And before we get into what we think it did well, if you’ve been enjoying the show we’d really appreciate it if you subscribed to the Shonen Flop Youtube! We’re trying to hit our goal of 1500 YouTube subs and if we hit it we’ll do a special bonus episode on the Build King Epilogue. If you’re already subscribed, thanks so much!

• The physical comedy is on 

• Nao is just so silly 

• The fight paneling is decent 

• Rotating panels when the pov character orientation changes has to be one of my favorite genders chapter

• I love when it know dumb it is like yes have her fight a lion

• I'm glad Yui has non violent sides to her mischievousness but it feels like a different character 

• It actually explores Yui in black as a person like her pretending to be white is great 

• Finally finds its footing and is like yeah this is a dumb plot lets go with it

• Ya know it soft reboots 5 chapters in and all the better for it

• Actually plays with the formula and is more character driven than expected 

• Some of the art is really cool with the wispy style it gets sometimes

• It’s fun when two unrelated villains got beef and make the world feel a bit larger

• When the series isn’t so serious it’s actually fun

Where it Could Have Gone

• Make it more about her growing as a person see the chain as a crutch 

• More of Nios weird shit keeping the mc in track like let's see her get military grade spy equipment 

• Go full gag manga, really just be romance cromartie highschool 

• Honestly just forget about the swap gimmick and focus on the event crazier supporting cast 

• There like a transition period between being a comedy and action series that really was the sweet spot I wish it stayed in longer 

• God just stay in the chapter 7-14 chapter land that was fun and shit ya know

• It’s kind of hinted at but Kiito is learning to find value in himself beyond his looks, and also tie into the biology stuff more like he wants to be a vet. Even magic bug still bug

• Maybe they keep befriending bad bitches, each one badder than the last but no bitch is as bad as Yui who has to prove it. This is the baki of bad bitches

• A series about scientists trying to use yokai for military purposes could be dope

Misc Thoughts

• I wonder what the chain change joke In chapter 2 was in Japanese 

• Man this series really slowly creeped up the hornieness

• So are people just completely cool with the magic personality changing?

• The implications Yui in black doesn't have an education due to be locked away is wild

• This feels like something the mirror world author would have made

• Lesbians just everywhere 

• Chapter 19 page 10 I know it’s like a bell or something but for a minute I thought the priest was playing basketball when he got a phone call from the MC

• Maxybee pointed it out but the art style changes notably and imho for the worse

• Wait, I thought nao became friends with Yui. How does she have a generational hair tying ability?

• Page 15 of chapter 20 just randomly turns into a MGS cover

• 

• This author loooooves long legs

  • 

• Maxy Bee thoughts:

  • Shiibashi originally came up with the bones of the series concept in 2012, but wasn’t able to turn it into anything until his editor saw a drawing of a delinquent girl he’d drawn and suggested building a series around that. The delinquent aspect was the missing piece, apparently, and so Yui Kamio Lets Loose was born.

  • The series’ working title was The Legend of the Ultimate Girl Boss.

  • Chapter 7: Battle Tendency is a motherfucking JoJo reference, a small tribute to Shiibashi’s former master.

  • Chapter 10: Fracas! At the Station is a Panic! At the Disco reference, but doesn’t appear to have been in the original Japanese. The translator probably just saw the perfect opportunity presented by the title “激闘!! 駅前大戦” (Fierce battle!! War in front of the station) and ran with it.

  • Chapter 11: the title page is a reference to the announcement of the Reiwa era, except in this case it is Ebi declaring it the ‘Kamio era’. Didn’t pan out, that.

  • Ryuji Keikain, the monk and exorcist introduced in chapter 14 along with the HUGE PIVOT, is a popular character from Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, officially connecting the two series.

  • The rom-com section of the manga has Shiibashi trying to adapt his art style to the genre, which is why characters start to look a bit different after chapter 14, as he slips back into his comfort zone.

  • Volume extras include:

    • Sketches!

      • Sketches of the cast

      • Gag sketches

      • Character design sketches

      • Volume cover sketches

    • Yui in White in a few costumes (from Weekly Shonen Jump group covers)

    • Afterwords (vol.2, )

    • “Yui Kami Lets Loose: Summer Special”, a 1 page baseball AU.

    • Delinquent profiles

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary

  • Community

    • Maxybee: Centipedes? In MY Jump manga? (Sorry)

    • Dougie4😊: Magic Yakuza all the way down

    • duderocks: Can’t keep a girlboss chained forever 

    • FunkyGreenOverdrive: A hair raising manga cut short

    • Kpt.Kluless: Double taisei but it’s a romcom

    • LordAnubis: Yui: Rise of the Axe Clan

    • Portal man: romancing doctor Jekyll and madam Hyde

    • Sbubby: Lies! There were no cameos here!

    • T-Wolfwood: Guy fights bug alien girls, what?

    • Thores: The genre shift doesn’t BUG me

    • Vanarchist: Seals away the only okay character

    • Watchtower: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss with Ms. Hyde.

    • Spike: So now Yui's gotta let loose...

    • Redblade: I continued reading One Piece instead

    • AuraPaladin: Too busy reading One Piece oops

David: this author is against women's suffrage | serious serial subpar; silly series superior