Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (山田くんと7人の魔女) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Miki Yoshikawa. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from February 2012 to February 2017, with its chapters collected in 28 volumes. The series was published digitally in English by Crunchyroll starting in 2013 and was licensed in North America by Kodansha USA in 2015.

An eight-episode television drama adaptation was broadcast on Fuji TV from August to September 2013. A 12-episode anime television series adaptation by Liden Films was broadcast from April to June 2015.

Plot

Ryu Yamada is known as a delinquent in his high school. He has been bored with his classes after one year of attending school. One day, he accidentally falls from a flight of stairs onto Urara Shiraishi, the ace student at the school. Yamada wakes up to find he has swapped bodies with her. The two try to reverse the change and discover kissing triggers the body swap. On the suggestion of student council vice-president Toranosuke Miyamura, they revive the Supernatural Studies club. The supernatural phenomenon–obsessed Miyabi Itou soon joins the club. The club encounters other "witches" with different powers are activated with a kiss on the lips.

Production

Manga author Miki Yoshikawa's previous work, Flunk Punk Rumble (Yankee-kun to Megane-chan) ran in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 2006 to 2011, with a total of 211 chapters.[5] Her editor suggested for her next project that she write a one-shot for Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine. She developed two stories: a prototype story for Yamada-kun and The Demon's Classroom. The second story was initially chosen, but became difficult to run because the main character was a grade school girl. The prototype Yamada story eventually became the first chapter for Yamada-kun.

In the Comic Natalie interview, Yoshikawa said that she had thought of the body swapping idea in the Yankee-kun days, and had researched some medical books on the differences between men and women, both physically and emotionally, but generally went with it because she liked the idea. "It just kind of came to me, but I was wondering how a guy finding himself in a girl's body would react, and the reverse". She treats a body-swapped character as an entirely different character.[6] At Anime Expo 2015, she said that she initially thought about gender swapping first but later rejected that as a potential magic power.[7]

When it was noted that the main characters for both of her works were delinquents, Yoshikawa replied that those types of characters came easily for her, as she grew up in the lower end of Tokyo. The characters and their names are not based on her friends so that they can act crazy. At Anime Expo 2015, she said that the characters reflect different aspects of herself. She also said that the Yamada-kun characters go to a different school from the ones in Yankee-kun but that they live in adjacent neighborhoods.[7]

With regard to drawing, she tries to vary each kiss, but mostly uses the side angle to make sure it comes through. With regard to kisses between members of the same gender, she replied that was not intended to target any specific demographic but just "an inevitable outcome".[8] At the time of Anime Expo, she said she had five assistants. She does her drawing by hand in black-and-white, and uses the computer for the filling in colors. She spends about half of her time on story, and the other half on actual drawing.[7]

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Miki Yoshikawa, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from February 22, 2012,[9] to February 22, 2017, after running for exactly 5 years.[10][11][12] Kodansha collected its chapters in 28 volumes, released from June 15, 2012,[13] to April 17, 2017.[14]

On October 26, 2013, Crunchyroll announced a partnership with Kodansha where it would distribute chapters digitally to 170 countries using a new service called Crunchyroll Manga. This includes an English translated version.[15] The series is licensed for a North American release by Kodansha USA, who began releasing the series in 2015.[16] In July 2015, Yoshikawa attended Anime Expo as a guest of honor where she promoted her series.[17][18]

Television drama

A live-action drama aired from August 10 to September 28, 2013.[19] It stars Yusuke Yamamoto as the title character Ryū Yamada, and Mariya Nishiuchi as Urara Shiraishi.[20] Its theme song is "Time Machine Nante Iranai" by former AKB48 headliner Atsuko Maeda. She described the song as "cheerful and fun" and hopes it will liven up the show.[21][22] Sponsors include Samsung, which included the show's characters in their related commercials broadcast at the time.

Episodes

The average rating for the series was 6.3%.

Episodes

The average rating for the series was 6.3%.

Anime

An animated promotional video (PV) was released by Liden Films on August 26, 2013.[24] The video was directed by Seiki Takuno. Ryu Yamada was voiced by Ryōta Ōsaka, and Urara Shiraishi was voiced by Saori Hayami. In June 2014, Liden Films launched a website with news that it would be producing an original anime DVD (OAD).[25] The OAD has two installments: the first was released on December 17, 2014, bundled with the manga volume 15, and the second is bundled with volume 17 for May 15, 2015. They were advertised as featuring all seven witches as well as hot springs scenes.

In November 2014, Liden films announced plans to produce a TV anime series with the voice characters to reprise their roles from the OAD project. The series was directed by Tomoki Takuno, with Fumiaki Usui serving as assistant director. The series writer is Michiko Yokote, and the chief animation director and character designer is Eriko Iida. Yota Tsuruoka served as sound director and the music was composed by Masaru Yokoyama.[26]

A 12-episode anime television adaptation produced by Liden Films and directed by Tomoki Takuno aired in Japan between April 12 and June 28, 2015.

type	drama
director	Mamoru Hoshi Masataka Takamaru
producer	Yukiko Yanagawa
writer	Shin Ogawa
music	Toshihiko Sahashi
studio	Kyodo Television
runtime	45 minutes
network	FNS (Fuji TV)
first	August 10, 2013
last	September 28, 2013
episodes	8

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches

Plot

Production

Media

Manga

Television drama

Episodes

Episodes

Anime

OAD

Episodes

Reception

Works cited

External links

References

OAD

Episodes