Aho Girl

Both Japanese and western comedy have a tradition of duos composed of an idiot and a straight man. It is very rare to see the role of the idiot taken by a woman, and when it is, the woman typically has the persona of a bimbo or airhead.
In Aho Girl we have the role of the idiot portrayed by a character who is not a passive bimbo or moe airhead, but the aggressively stupid Yoshiko. In an novel way this breaks with the traditional portrayal of stupid girls in manga because there is little to no effort made to portray Yoshiko as moe or even sympathetic. She is an idiot, a burden to those around her, and any redeeming qualities she may have are overshadowed by the chaos she creates. Even in situations that would normally be fanservice when her skirt is flipped or she is sleeping in her underwear, the reactions of the other characters are disgust and disdain as opposed to nose-bleeding ecchi. The audience is treated to equal opportunity idiocy as Yoshiko's antics don't rely on her being a girl, but rather her being a moron who just so happens to be a girl.
As a foil to Yoshiko, we have Akutsu (usually just A-kun) who plays the straight man. When we first meet A-kun it seems like his treatment of Yoshiko is rather harsh, but as the story progresses, we can empathize with his frustration over his neighbor's antics. But, at the same time, he is not an overly empathetic character. In his interactions with other characters he is a bit of an asshole and not entirely an innocent victim of Yoshiko's stupidity. He's not an utter villain that we enjoy seeing suffer either, and because he is neither a complete devil or saint, what could be a one-note character takes on some depth.
Other characters orbit around the main duo drawn in by the gravity of Yoshiko's stupidity and unable to escape. Its a common theme for Yoshiko to burst into someone else's life and create chaos with the iron-clad assurance that she has a solution to a problem, even when there is no problem in the first place.
The art can be surprisingly dynamic without too much complexity. Communicating complex actions via expressions and non-verbal poses is really well done and aids the comedic beats and character portrayals. You can practically hear the wet smacking noises as Yoshiko chews with her mouth open and sprays bits of bananas as she talks. The 4-koma format is utilized well and provides beats between scenes or gags, though some jokes or story elements need multiple columns to get to one punchline.
Overall, there is no greater story or romance, making this a gag manga in the purest sense. This makes the manga easy to pick up anywhere and reading chapters in order isn't especially necessary. This simplicity is a bit of a rarity as so many comedic manga (even 4-koma types) insert serious arcs to varying effect.
If you are looking for a simple laugh, then Aho Girl is a good choice.

This is a manga with a lot of good parts that’s bogged down by some irreconcilably bad parts.

The story is extremely simple but passable and the art is very good. What simultaneously makes and breaks Aho Girl are the characters.

The side characters are enjoyable, likable, and quirky. Nothing revolutionary, but they’re all pretty fun. The male protagonist is unconventional for a romcom. He's a loner who is pretty disinterested in the people around him and just wants to study, which works better in this story than that description might lead you to believe.

The main thing bogging down this manga is the titular character. She manages to be so annoying and unlivable that it’s actually shocking this manga has any good parts. I get that the author likely wanted to make her annoying, but my god, she sucks the enjoyment out of every scene she’s in. By the end of the manga, I get the feeling you were supposed to like her somewhat, but I just wished she wasn’t there. Her jokes are overused by chapter 2, her personality is annoying and never gets even the slightest bit better, and she's never gone from the story as long as you'd want her to be.

The only other big negative is the ending. Without getting into spoilers, the ending is very inconclusive and forced, with no closure at all. If you want a satisfying conclusion, romantically or otherwise, do not read this.

It’s also worth mentioning there’s a lot of physical violence where the main guy hits the stupid girl, which might be a big turn off for some. In my opinion, however, it’s more like extreme slapstick than real violence.

In the end, this is a mediocre romcom that could’ve been so much better with a few changes. If it sounds like your thing, I’d recommend giving this a try, especially if after the first few chapters you can tolerate the main girl.

Like a lot of 4-koma, Aho Girl takes a little while to get going but once all the major characters are established, it is relentlessly funny. It's a very simple story about an idiot and the people around her who have to deal with her antics. It's really just dumb fun but the jokes land pretty consistently. This is mostly because of the great characters, who are all hilarious in their own way. The best part about it is how unsympathetically things are portrayed. Yoshiko is a proud idiot has no concern for the people she causes problems for. The main male character Akutsu seems to actually (justifiably) hate her. She would be infuriating to be around in real life but reading about her is hysterical. The art is pretty simple but works well with the comedy.

tl;dr: A gag manga that starts off funny but gets boring due to how little variety there is to the comedy.

This is very much a gag manga without anything more to it. And it starts off really funny. The premise stems entirely from the cast of characters, and though they're a simple bunch they're amusing enough in the various stories it tells about them together. However, the thing is that there is essentially no change at all over the course of the manga. An amazing plot or character arcs aren't necessary for a gag manga, however some sort of change is necessary as otherwise things start to go stale, which is exactly what happened here.

The comedy really doesn't have a lot of range, and without much change it starts getting incredibly repetitive and quite dull less than half way through. While certain characters like Yoshiko and her mother are hilarious at first, they start getting less funny as essentially the same gags involving them keep getting repeated, and by the end I found them both tremendously annoying, which is a problem as Yoshiko is the main character. Of the other main characters, there is humor born from sympathy at Yoshiko's childhood friend Akuru's situation but that too faded pretty much completely by the end into a general feeling of indifference, and while Yoshiko's main friend Sayaka is likable due to how kind she is and how she serves as a good foil for the weirdness of others she isn't all that amusing on her own due to being so normal.

Thus, the characters that really stand out are the few side characters that actually have changes in their character or relationships as that actually results in fresh situations and comedy. These were mainly the Head Monitor, who isn't even properly named, but is incredibly likable due to how crazy she is and how hard she tries to grow eventually which even results in Akuru showing unseen sides of himself, and Akane, one of the gals in Yoshiko's class that actually ended up getting pulled into an actually decent romantic plot thread. Still, in the end none of these really go anywhere, and there's not even a halfhearted attempt at trying to give these or any of the stories in this manga any proper closure at the end. Rather, the ending is just basically a run through of all the various characters that appear over the course of the manga without actually doing anything with them, which while a flimsy ending is a fitting one considering how flimsy the manga is, though that doesn't really make it satisfying.

The art is really simple but overall okay. The style works well for the comedy with facial expressions and such being pretty exaggerated and it overall being really easy to follow due to how basic things like paneling are. Though the character designs aren't all that interesting, there's decent amount of variety  considering it's supposed to be a pretty down to Earth manga, and the cast though pretty small, did all feel distinct visually.

---Spoiler FREE, my short opinion---

Aho girl is the first manga I started to read and I'm glad I did. Aho girl is witty, surprising and motivating and really focused on comedy. It's not a typical type of dumb girl I've seen in anime's, being all shy and cute. The surprising elements of the reaction of Yoshiko's (main character) friends ( or rather victims) is just what any normal teen would do(excluding 2 characters), but the art here is how the have put it. I totally like this manga and would recommend it for people who would like to laugh.

The story line is slow and doesn't have a clear goal to work to and is more like slice of life. Because it's so dynamic in the environment it's never boring to anticipate what will happen next. Pantsu's will be shown, but this is more part for the story and wit than for fan service, also dealt with a load of humor.

As for the art, it's simple. The drawings aren't much in detail and sometimes the text balloons takes halve of a panel. But the face Yoshiko sometimes make is priceless in combination with the situation.

The side characters also have a lot of humor but are more well-rounded and they show some emotions. In contrast to the main story line, the side characters do have a clear goal which they desperately want to reach. This gives the characters a bit more dept and empathy. However, each side character is slowly introduced as the story takes time to properly introduce them. At some point I began to emphasize with them as they are struck with the immense stupidity of Yoshiko.

The goal of aho girl is to entertain and it definitely does. As i slowly progressed trough the chapters I'm amazed by the slapstick humor and sometimes burst out in lauther. It's just simple effective humor but not superficial.

For now I'm addicted to this witty and surprising manga.

I saw that there wasn't a review on this manga so i thought why not make one.

anyway the book is AMAZING, I've never laughed so much while reading a manga. Almost every page is stuffed with comedy and the characters are people you just cant help but like. The art was decent but not mind blowing but that didn't really bother me at all. The one major downfall when it comes to this anime is the extreme lack of story. over all this is a great anime and defiantly something worth reading.
...i would have rated things much higher in my opinion but i want to make this review a fair one for those reading it