Anime/Manga Recommendation: ‘Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai (He doesn’t have any friends)’

If you are looking for a slice-of-life story with a mellow combination of sports, comedy, and not over-mushy romance, you better check out Jun Sakura’s Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai (He doesn’t have any friends). Plus, the manga was also adapted to a two-episode Original Net Anime (ONA) so apart from reading, you also have the choice of watching it.

Below is a non-spoiler review that describes why Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai is definitely worth your time.

Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai begins the story with the transfer student named Chihiro Watanuki who struggles to make friends in her new school. She met Yuuji Yugami, a student weirdo with a bad reputation that everybody tends to avoid. Yugami doesn’t have any ‘friends’ and he’s completely fine about it. Now, you might say that it must be pretty cliche. Perhaps yes, but here goes the personalities of the characters that adds twist to the story.

Yuuji Yugami
Voiced by: Kouki Uchiyama (Amagi Brilliant Park’s Seiya Kanie)

When everybody says he’s weird, he’s really weird. And when everybody says he has a bad reputation, there’s really a basis for that. Yugami is a frank and rational guy, and this type of personality irritates his senpais, makes his classmates dislike talking to him, and his kouhais unable to resist his ‘requests.’ He literally does what he wants and says what he think is right, even if those things seem a bit out of the norms.

While Yugami is not that type of sparkly-bishounen characters, he’s a good-looking guy and in fact, the ace pitcher of the school (Yes, you’ll see how good he is at pitching and you’ll definitely have some Diamond no Ace moments in the story). His personality makes him unpopular though. But at the same time, Yugami always stand by his virtues (and schedule). He always make efforts in his responsibilities. And perhaps, we can say that this guy, who always claim that he doesn’t need friends, is in fact the very friend that everybody needs.

Chihiro Watanuki
Voiced by: Madoka Yonezawa (Gintama’s Gintoki)

Chihiro isn’t your average cute-sy manga girl. The unique thing about her is, she admits Yugami’s personality isn’t actually ‘nice’ and when she said he annoys her at times, she really do feel like that. But even though she dislikes some part of him, she doesn’t hate him. She doesn’t cling to him neither. But they do talk. And there’s no mushy atmosphere around it, which is refreshing.

So if you want a slice-of-life story with a mellow combination of sports, comedy, and not over-mushy romance, you better check out Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai.