Manga / Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches

Due to the sheer amount of spoilers in the series, especially in the manga for anime-only viewers, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!

The eponymous characters. Clockwise from the upper left corner: Ryu Yamada, Mikoto Asuka, Rika Saionji, Meiko Otsuka, Nene Odagiri, Urara Shiraishi, and Maria Sarushima. In the middle: Noa Takigawa.

"Once upon a time - well, not so long ago, actually - there was a high school boy known as "Yamada-kun." Now, Yamada-kun was a so-called "problem child," and he was feared by everybody at his school. But one day, through a crazy incident, Yamada-kun turned into a completely different person..."

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (山田くんと7人の魔女, Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo) is a shounen supernatural romantic comedy manga with elements of ecchi and gender-bending by Miki Yoshikawa, the creator of Flunk Punk Rumble (who was an assistant to Hiro Mashima, explaining why the artstyle bears some resemblance to Fairy Tail). It was serialised in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from February 2012 to February 2017, ending on its five-year-birthday after 243 chapters.

Ryu Yamada is a second-year student at Suzaku High. Ryu is always late for school, naps in class and gets abysmal grades. The beautiful Urara Shiraishi, on the other hand, is Suzaku High's brightest student. One day, without explanation, their bodies are swapped! Ryu ends up in Urara's body, and Urara in Ryu's. Thus begins Yamada's journey into the world of Witches and Suzaku High's mysteries.

A live-action TV show began airing on August 10th, 2013, running for 8 episodes. Soon it also came in animated form, though only as a promotional video for the manga. One million views for this promo video led to the production of an actual anime. The first OVA came out on December 17th, 2014. The anime series began airing in April 2015 as part of the spring 2015 anime season, running for 12 episodes. The second OVA was released in May 2015. Crunchyroll has the home video license and released it on Blu-ray and DVD with an English dub. The series later ended up part of Crunchyroll's partnership with Funimation who distributed the show on DVD/Blu-ray in July, 2017.

---

The manga and adaptations provide examples of:

A - D

• Aborted Arc: Subplots, especially minor ones, are sometimes left hanging:
  • Yamada and Odagiri's investigation of the Japanese chess club just randomly stops after they tried spying on the club at a tournament. This one could possibly be justified in-universe since Odagiri wasn't really interested in the investigation as much as she saw it as an opportunity to be alone with Yamada and make him notice her - without success.
  • Sarushima's quest to lose her power so she can kiss a potential boyfriend without seeing the future. She does lose her power at the end of the first witch war, but that's only because all witches in her group lose their powers, and she isn't shown reacting different to it than the other witches, even though she should be one of the happiest. Since her role is reduced to cameos after chapter 90, we don't to get find out if she gets a boyfriend either. (Or if she was really referring to Yamada)
• Aborted Declaration of Love: Nene, believing she's going to get her memory wiped out again, tries to give one to Yamada. At the same moment, he obliviously decides he's too cool to let her finish.
• Absurdly Powerful School Jurisdiction: This turns out to be the case with the Absurdly Powerful Student Council. Once they ban kissing at the school, Odagiri thinks that Yamada can get away with it by kissing Shiraishi outside of the school grounds. But this is not possible - Asuka follows Yamada and Shiraishi and prevents them from kissing. The council also establishes a rule that normal students can't visit suspended students in their private homes.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: The student council president is actually aware of the witches in the school and keeps them in line, and two of the witches actually are in the council. Moreover, according to Tamaki and Miyamura, the power the council holds is absolute. If you're nominated for a place inside this council, you can't refuse. And Rika the seventh witch serves as their enforcer, erasing memories as needed.
• Academy of Adventure: Suzaku High. A given since it's apparently the only place in the world where magic exists (unless other places are just as good at keeping up The Masquerade).
• Accidental Hand-Hold: At one point, Yamada grabs Shiraishi by the hand to drag her out of the clubroom so that he can swap bodies with her in private. As he, after some time, walks complaining down the halls, he discovers that he forgot to let go of her hand...
• Accidental Kiss: Yamada and Shiraishi give each other one as they stumble down the stairs. Actually important in the first few chapters for puzzling out the mechanics of swapping bodies.
• Accidental Proposal: When Miyamura insists that Yamada should propose to Shiraishi in the epilogue, he makes Yamada do a roleplay where he (Miyamura) plays Shiraishi. Once Yamada goes along with it and yells "will you marry me?!", Shiraishi walks in and thinks Yamada is proposing to Miyamura.
• Adaptation Expansion: The live-action show goes in its own direction for the plot after the introductory episodes, and it overtook the manga by ending first.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The anime has several due to how fast-paced it is. For example, the scene where Yamada swaps bodies with Shiraishi to go on a date with Tsubaki and prevent him from setting the old school building on fire is left in, but it’s never explained why Shiraishi couldn’t just go on the date herself – because the anime omits the scene where the club finds out that the only potential way to change the future is through a body-swap.
• All Elections Are Serious Business: The election campaign and preliminary festivities for the Student Council President election in the second witch war are rather over-the-top, especially because it's the first ever actual election in 40 years (40 years ago, a bill was enacted making it possible for the president to appoint his successor on his own, but the bill was revoked through a motion of no-confidence - which in itself is an example of stupidly complicated politics for a mere high school student council). Justified in Yamada and co.'s case since the result of election may change their lives completely, but all other students also go crazy even though - for all they know - the worst thing the election may mean to most of them is a cut in their club budget.
• All for Nothing: Yamada's plan to work extremely hard to get into Tono, Japan's most prestiged university, to get the attention of Shiraishi, who had forgotten everything about him, turns out to have been for naught when the thing that actually makes him catch Shiraishi's attention and making her fall in love with him all over again is simply being himself and calling her out on being boring... At least in that regard. Getting a university degree does make him land a well-paid job later in life, but that's not why he wanted to go to university.
• All Men Are Perverts: Most boys of the series have the perverted thoughts and interest in girls' bodies that you would associate with normal teenage boys. However, Yamada generally doesn't use the swap or charm powers in perverted means.
• All Women Are Lustful: The girls generally aren't much better than the guys when it comes to pervy thoughts except that they tend to be a bit more covert about them.
• Almost Kiss: Logically, it's a very rare trope in a series where most kisses are not all that romantic, but it does turn up from time to time. The most noteworthy example is probably chapter 7 when Yamada and Shiraishi attempt to switch bodies but won't let Itou in on their secret. Every time they get close to kissing, Itou shows up and asks Yamada to help her with a new cleaning project.
• Alternate Character Reading:
  • When Yamada has swapped bodies with Shiraishi in the first chapter and exclaims (in his thoughts) that he’s turned into her, he uses the kanji for Shiraishi’s name, but the furigana over the kanji read ”aitsu” (”that person”/”that girl”) instead of “Shiraishi”. Probably because Yamada and Shiraishi aren’t as keen on using each others’ names in the first chapter as they later become.
  • “Spotter” (the series’ term for the seventh witch’s sidekick who can always remember him/her and is able to track down witches) is written with the kanji that mean “observation hand”, with the furigana spelling the English word “spotter”.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Chapter 239 reveals that the reason why Yamada and Shiraishi keep meeting and falling in love despite repeated memory losses is that Shiraishi, during her first year, wished to be with Yamada, after which the wish was fulfilled as she became the original witch. This means that Yamada's love for Shiraishi originally was induced by magic and not real. When Shiraishi leaves Suzaku High during her third year, the magic is broken, but Yamada still misses her as all hell, meaning that his love for her is now genuine and not caused by any magic power. So it's very ambiguous, and left up to the reader's interpretation, at which point Yamada's magic-induced love became genuine love.
  • In Shiraishi's notes to Yamada on what to do when they swap bodies, she asks him to not talk to her parents in case he goes to her house. It's unclear whether this is because she simply wants to avoid awkward situations (given that Yamada is known to be a terrible actor who usually fails to mimic Shiraishi's natural demeanor), or if it's because she wants to keep their Parental Neglect hidden from him (given that she tends to bottle up her feelings and generally talks very little about her personal life outside of school) and thinks it'll be easier to hide it if Yamada simply doesn't interact with her parents.
• Animation Anatomy Aging: The series likes to make use of this due to the Only Six Faces tendency:
  • Middle-aged parents are drawn with the same general traits as the teenagers, but with a couple of wrinkles around their mouths.
  • Seniors get a couple more wrinkles, gain more cartoony facial traits, and shrink to half their original height.
  • A stylistically awkward case is the epilogue where the main characters are now in their late twenties; old enough to look like grown-ups, but too young to be visibly wrinkled. The result is that the characters - especially the women as Yoshikawa generally gives females more youthful designs than males - physically look like teenagers, but some of them gain more "adult" hairstyles; Itou grows her hair into a Motherly Sideplait, Odagiri wears her hair in a Prim and Proper Bun, Noa wears her hair in circular ponytails instead of Girlish Pigtails, Yamada and Miyamura have started to actually comb their hair, and Ushio has grown a goatee and has a receding hairline.
• Anti-Climax: A minor one in Noa's arc. When Yamada, Miyamura and Tsubaki swap bodies with Noa's friends and try to find Noa herself to steal her witch notebook, she's nowhere to be found, and all students they ask for help refuse to talk to them (because Noa's friends are outcasts). They sit down and are about to give up hope... when Noa just randomly appears and casually mentions that she had looking for them everywhere.
• Arc Welding:
  • The series is never entirely episodic as even the early arcs feature Character Development, call-backs, and recurring plot elements, but it's only around the culture festival and especially after Rika's introduction that the threads start to tie together, and it becomes apparent that this wasn't just a "Witch of the Week" kind of series, but actually had an elaborate overarching plot thought out since the start, in which every character has their own role to play.
  • The first and second witch war initially seem to be mostly separate stories, but they start to tie together later on: Ushio becomes elevated to main villain and his past with Yamada is brought up again and expanded on, Odagiri is revealed to not be the girl Yamada and Ushio saved, Yamada still tries to find out why he has his power, and it's even revealed that Yamada used to be know about the ceremony because he heard Yamazaki and Leona talk about it when they were still Supernatural Studies Club members.
• Arc Words:
  • For the Myth Arc: "You can erase memories, but you can't erase the feelings behind them".
  • For the mini-arc about Leona and Yamazaki's graduation: "Smiles on their faces". (Reference to Leona wanting everyone to be happy when they graduate)
• Armor-Piercing Question: Yamada asks Rika the seventh witch one; why did the president order Asuka to switch bodies with Urara if he had absolute faith in Rika and her abilities? Why didn't he even tell her about this plot? Could he not trust her? Rika gets flustered even though she usually keeps her cool.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The opposition movement's arguments for removing the student council from office are the following:
  • "The baseball team has suffered consecutive losses due to the student council cutting club funds."
  • "The percentile for English has dropped because the student council is not pushing the teachers to work harder."
  • "Yamada sucks."
• Art Evolution: The art starts to change around the height at first witch war, and by the end of the series, it's markedly different from the art at the start of the series (though you can still tell it's the same artist):
  • The female characters look a bit more feminine at the end compared to the start. This goes for both their faces and their bodies: Their faces are more "cutesy" with less pronounced noses, and their bodies are more shapely (note how Shiraishi could look flat-chested in certain panels/from certain perspectives even though she is relatively busty, and how the girls' legs sometimes looked awfully thin compared to their hips).
  • Characters are drawn with Oddly Visible Eyebrows for the second witch war and onward which they weren't at the start.
  • The light area of the characters' irises is drawn much bigger which give them a more realistic, but less "shiny" look.
  • The male characters' faces also become more Bishonen-like, especially due to bigger eyes and irises. On the other hand, their bodies look less gangly than they used to, and their legs just seem to become shorter and shorter compared to their bodies.
• Artifact Title: During the first 90 chapters, Yamada is dealing with the seven witches. The series surprisingly doesn't end fter that, and after the ritual that erased the original witch powers, seven new witches arise. Then it is revealed in chapter 110 that another set of "new" witches had their powers before the ritual which means they are not the new seven witches. This means that there fourteen witches at the school, plus the previous seven, making the title completely obsolete.
• Artificial Riverbank: During the summer of their third year, Yamada and Shiraishi sometimes walk by one of these when they need talk about something.
• Artistic License – University Admissions: While portrayed rather vaguely (the last arc of the series focuses more on Yamada's struggles around preparing for college than the preparations themselves), the admission requirements and tests for the country's most prestiged university, Tono U, seem realistic enough. However, the trope comes in as part of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council; apparently, the Student Council President can just hand out recommendations for students who have made noteworthy contributions to the school (student council vice-presidents and seventh witches among others) so they automatically can get admitted to a more average university. How this even works, especially when it comes to seventh witches (since the general populace doesn't know about witches), is never explained.
• Art Shift: All visions given by Himekawa's retrocognition power are drawn like rough, unfinished sketches.
• Attempted Rape: Kaori is the victim of this when her cruel ex-boyfriend leaves her to two thugs and asks them to do what they want with her. They try to carry her off as Yamada fortunately appears and saves the day.
• Awkward Kiss: Yamada's and Shiraishi's kiss as a couple is this - full of hesitation and blushing, and it ends with them bumping teeth, but with the way that Shiraishi confirms that she kissed Yamada just because she wanted to kiss him, it's still very adorable.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite her cold demeanor, Shiraishi really does care about Yamada and truly trusts him, to the point when she does not even bother to ask him why he wants to swap into her body. This is further demonstrated when she demands to include him in her camping group and says that she enjoys school now because of him. Yamada himself admits that he is in love with her, and they end up dating.
• Babies Ever After: Odagiri and Ushio and Yamada and Shiraishi each have two children by the story's end. Yuri and Himekawa have one son.
• Bad Mood Retreat: Both Yamada and Ushio have taken to isolate themselves on the roof of Suzaku High (which is always conveniently empty) when brooding or feeling lonely.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: While most of the Witch Powers are considered neutral, there are some that are noticeably good and bad. It should be noted that the witches not chosen by council's powers are leaning more toward "bad".
  • Ichijo's Provocation Power is considered bad power, provoking people with anger and jealousy is definitely not good, and he is shown to be an extreme jerk.
  • Yuri's Mind Control Power is notably more dangerous than Otsuka and Kotori's power, being a one-way power that allows you to control people to your desire. Yuri's Ambiguously Evil status doesn't help.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • Noa's Retrospective Power is actually the darkest power of her group: you basically grasp at people's lowest point in their life. Fortunately, Noa has gone through enough Character Development to avert this, and actually using the power to help her friends instead.
  • Konno's Submission Power is also dangerous, and it is Deconstructed that despite her noble goal to unite the basketball team, she succumbs to Drunk with Power and would have gone worse have Yamada not saved her and gives her the courage she truly need.
  • While Kurosaki's power is considered neutral, it possesses a similar purpose to Noa's as it can be used to grasp hold of the person's greatest weakness (which Arisugawa actually lampshaded, albeit jokingly). Somewhat mitigated that its purpose is to give the one that he kissed some happiness at their saddest moment but the tropes are still in play.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In chapter 127 when Yamada angrily confronts Shiraishi and Tsubaki. At first it seems like he is jealous of them spending time together, but in truth he is angry because Itou was under a witch power, so he just wants to warn them to be careful.
  • When Kurosaki and Arisugawa were still student council newcomers, it was Arisugawa who was suspected, by Rika, of being a witch since she is a girl, while Kurosaki escapes Rika's radar, but guess which one of them actually becomes a witch? Yup, Kurosaki.
• Balloon Belly:
  • Odagiri gets a big one (that weirdly looks like a pregnant belly) after Yamada swaps bodies with her and binges on a buffet.
  • Yamada gets one in Shiraishi's body during the school's camping trip.
• Banana Peel:
  • One of Yamada's numerous amusing accidents when he sees his own future from Itou's point of view is slipping on a banana peel.
  • After Yamada stupidly trips and hurts himself in front of Himekawa, Miyamura discusses the trope by asking Yamada if there's always a banana peel in front of him.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: The characters don't have visible nipples, and there are a couple of nude shots of the girls that seem to suggest that they're also rather Barbie doll-like between their legs. However, as there are several jokes related to gender differences and sex, they obviously do have genitals - we're just not allowed to see them.
• Bathos: Some of the themes of the series are reasonably serious (bullying, loneliness etc.), but they are far from always presented in a serious way. Especially the scene when Yamada tries to get back with old friends who have forgotten him by talking about underwear, but they reject him, can be considered to be one of the most hilarious and one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the series all at once.
• Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults:
  • Shiraishi's trio of friends have their last appearance when they badmouth Odagiri in the girls' bathroom... only for Odagiri to appear from a stall. Not that she cares much - she simply insults them back and leaves (without washing her hands).
  • This trope practically forms the Bookends of Kaori's character arc and shows how she changes from a bully who escalates the overheard insults to a Bully Hunter who saves a girl from the overheard insults.
• Beach Bury: Happens to Itou when she, Miyamura and Shiraishi have fun on the beach. They give her the sand body of a very tall woman, with Miyamura of course shaping the breasts.
• Beach Episode: Chapter 25 and 26 of the summer trip arc, as well as chapter 202 and 205 of the Guam arc, feature the main cast going to the beach to have fun.
• Beach Kiss: Subverted. It looks like Yamada and Shiraishi are going to kiss on the beach of Guam, but then she gives him a peck on the cheek instead, not wanting to kiss him as long as he has the precognition power because she fears that he may get a vision of a Bad Future. At the end of the trip, they kiss on a hill overlooking the sea.
• Behind the Black: An odd inversion; at the beginning and end of Sarushima's arc, Ushio can see Odagiri's accidentally exposed underwear just because the readers can see it (in-story, he shouldn't be able to see anything as he's standing behind her, and she's facing the readers).
• Better than a Bare Bulb: There is a lot of lampshading in the series, most of it coming from Yamada when he plays the Only Sane Man.
• Big Bad: Yamazaki, the student council president, is this for the first witch war in the manga as well as the entire anime and live-action drama, by trying to prevent Yamada and co. from knowing about all seven witches.
• Big Ball of Violence: Sometimes used for comical effect, like when Itou and Tsubaki beat up Yamada for using Noa's offer, or when Yamada and Ushio (in a flashback) find out they're in the same class in middle school.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Most of the on-screen kisses are drawn like this, despite usually having entirely pragmatic purposes. Because of that, the first romantic kiss between Yamada and Shiraishi (when they become a couple) averts it and is as cutely awkward as some people's first kiss in Real Life can be, with their teeth colliding and all. On the other hand, the kiss between Leona and Yamazaki at the end of the former's flashback is a straight example since it both has the romantic intentions and the "epic" feel/look.
• Big Fancy House: Shiraishi lives in one, and the same goes for Miyamura and Leona. The "fancy" part is most obvious with the Miyamura family's Western-styled house. Shiraishi's house looks more like a standard Japanese house, just much bigger than the average.
• Big "WHAT?!": A stable trope of the series, to the point that you'll see a character uttering a loud "what?", "wha?" or "huh?" of surprise or disbelief at least a few times in each chapter.
• Bilingual Bonus: Because of having lived in another country, Sarushima thinks in English, so any Japanese reader without at least some knowledge of English language wouldn't have been able to tell what she's thinking in chapter 107 - a funny little Call-Back to the first time Yamada met her.
• Binocular Shot: Shown in chapter 105 when Nancy and Sid look at Yamada and Kotori through a pair of binoculars.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Meiko is a very timid, shy girl on the outside. But once she communicates her thoughts through telepathy, you get a more clear view at her Sergeant Rock personality.
• Black Comedy Burst: Otsuka doing a Dramatic Gun Cock and threatening to shoot her friends if they don't obey her is a slightly darker type of humor than usually seen in the series (though she was brainwashed at the time)
• Blackmail Backfire: Subverted. When Odagiri tries to blackmail Yamada by saying she'll share a photo of him sneaking around the girls' room on the field trip (actually Shiraishi in his body), Yamada stands his ground by telling a half-truth that he actually just went to get Shiraishi's books for her, and Odagiri can just ask Shiraishi to confirm it. The subversion comes when Odagiri then shows a photo of "Yamada" holding Shiraishi's panties, and Yamada realizes he has no excuse to get out of that one, after which he's forced to give in to Odagiri's demands.
• Bland-Name Product: Happens several times with the food and drinks the characters are consuming:
  • Usually you have to look closely into the background to see the altered brand name, but one more obvious and hilarious example is in chapter 94 when Shiraishi brings Yamada snacks and coffee of a brand called "Starsocks". The logo has the Starbucks mermaid replaced with a sock with a star on top. Itou also uses a computer of the brand "Mec".
  • On one cover page, Shiraishi reads a book titled The Catcher in the Soy by "D.J. Cider".
  • Shiraishi's friends eat snacks called "Mokky". Depending on how much English Yoshikawa knows, it could be an intentional jab at bland-name products. When Odagiri's favorite snack is established to be Pocky, it starts being called by its actual brand name, though.
  • Alex, the American exchange student, brings a TV show titled "25" to Yamada's house. The guy on the cover looks like Jack Bauer with a pompadour.
• Blatant Lies: Itou trying to convince the Supernatural Club of her psychic abilities (by physically bending a spoon) or her possessions (a photo of a UFO fake on a string and a rock).
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Sarushima and Noa's power respectively. Seeing futures that were meant to happen and traumatic past isn't the best thing.
  • Rika's is NOT happy to have her power as no one will be able to remember anything about her at all.
• Blood from the Mouth: During fights, the characters will often spit blood to signify that a punch or kick was really painful, though this is only symbolical, and the blood is usually gone in the next panel.
• The Body Parts That Must Not Be Named: Penises are euphemistically (and comically) called "the weird thing between the legs" and "a supernatural phenomen between the legs" by Shiraishi and Itou respectively after they swap bodies with boys. Female genitals are not even alluded to - when a boy swaps bodies with a girl, he'll often just mention that he's missing "something" or that it "feels empty down there" instead of mentioning which parts he now has instead, as if the girls were Barbie dolls. A single exception to the trope is a chapter when Odagiri uses the word "balls" idiomatically (asking Yamada to grow a pair of balls).
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: When Yamada plays tsukkomi some of the boke behaviours he is up against are sometimes enough to make his eyes bulge. Occasionally Yamada's apparent idiocy makes him the boke.
• Book Dumb: Yamada, to a T. He's far from the best student and has trouble grasping complicated concepts, but he's surprisingly observant and intuitive.
• Book Ends:
  • Sarushima's arc (if you don't count the two-chapter prologue when Yamada and Miyamura visit her) starts and ends with Odagiri barging into the clubroom, bragging that she knows a lot about Sarushima's ability (even though she's actually got far less intel than the club), accidentally flashing her underwear, and slapping Yamada for seeing it.
  • The first and last chapter of the series has the same monologue-styled lines. The former acts as a monologue for the story's introduction while the latter is Yamada reading story of himself and Shiraishi to their children.
• Boss Subtitles: Characters are usually given introduction boxes that list their full name and their class (and sometimes their club affiliation). Exceptions exist with very minor characters, characters whose identities are supposed to be mysterious at first (like Takuma), and characters who introduce themselves with name and affiliation in their very first appearance (like Rika).
• Brass Balls: Odagiri asks Yamada to grow a pair of balls when he considers giving up on Shiraishi.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Yamada and Miyamura are pragmatic enough that they're initially willing to put a random hapless student under the manipulation power to infiltrate the Japanese chess club. However, in the end Noa volunteers to be put under the power.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Yamada gets hit by this hard after meeting the seventh Witch. Instead of losing his memories, everyone's memories of him gets replaced. He's alienated by his former friends as he is nothing but a stranger to them now. He asked Shiraishi out, only for her to reject him because she claimed she loves someone else. Itou claimed that she was in love with some other club member because they committed acts that Yamada actually did (like accidentally kissing Shiraishi while falling down the stairs or catching bathroom peepers). And after all those months of cultivating a loving relationship with her too.
  • Even before that, there is his backstory with Ushio. Your best friend jumps into a fight, making you feel obliged to do the same only for him to turn around and lie that you were the only one fighting, resulting in a suspension from school and turning you into the school's outcast?
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Yamada declares that he'll stay at Guam instead of going back to Japan, Ushio looks directly at the readers and says "the end" with an accompanying textbox informing that the series will change its name to Igarashi-kun and the Seven Witches from the next chapter onwards.
• Breather Episode:
  • Otsuka's arc doesn't quite have the emotional drama of the previous arc focusing on Odagiri and Ushio (it's almost pure comedy), and neither does it have the high stakes of the next arc focusing on Sarushima (the only obstacle is a make-up exam, and Otsuka isn't one of the antagonistic witches). It's fitting since it is a summer holiday trip, during which the cast wants to relax and have fun.
  • Chapters 119 and 120 serve as breather chapters between the winter trip and the start of the second witch war. These are the only chapters in the series with no mention or use of the witch powers at all - they are simply cute Slice of Life stories revolving around the characters celebrating various aspects of New Year.
• Bug Buzz: When the summer vacation begins, Yamada mentions that one of the trademarks of summer is the really annoying buzzing of cicadas.
• Butt-Monkey: Yamada. The other characters act as comic relief as well, but Yamada seems to get most of the slapstick, the harshest jokes and the blame directed at him.
• Buxom Beauty Standard:
  • Shiraishi is very beautiful, perfect, and as Miyamura noted, has E-Cup breasts.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Averted in scenes that take place in actual darkness, but a very similar effect is used in manga scenes where the characters' bodies are shadowed for dramatic effect. In such scenes, most of their faces are colored with greytones, but their eyes are still white.
• Call-Back:
  • When Yamada reads Sarushima's mind, she thinks "I want him to clean my room" - which is the thing she made him do when the two of them first met many chapters back.
• The Cameo: Daichi Shinagawa and Seiya Chiba, of Yoshikawa's previous manga, Flunk Punk Rumble, make a brief appearance as adult teachers in the first chapter. They also appear in the manga PV along with Hana and Rinka, but still high school-aged.
• Canon Welding: A relatively minor example where it turns out that Japan's most prestiged university in the world of Yoshikawa's former series Flunk Punk Rumble, Tonosama University ("Tono" for short), is also the country's most prestiged university in the world of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches
• Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Shiraishi does this to Yamada when they are on a sort-of-date in a bookstore, and Yamada is about to leave because he couldn't find the book he was looking for - to make him stay so that they can look for the book in other stores.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: When Miyamura needs to save Yamada from Dark Takuma, he sends Tamaki to hold Dark Takuma in check by stealing his power while he himself gets Ushio and Noa to chase Dark Takuma off. Once Miyamura, Ushio and Noa arrive, Tamaki has managed to pacify and chase away Dark Takuma on his own.
• Central Theme: According to Miki Yoshikawa; no matter which problems you have, You Are Not Alone. That's why the witch powers are psychic powers that reflect and derive from fairly realistic problems instead of being flashy fantasy magic.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Rika's arc is notably darker and more dramatic than arcs before, particularly due to the memory wipe. The series returns to its usual comedic ways after everybody gets their memories back, but gradually grows more dramatic again in the second witch war with the introduction of the Japanese chess club, the provocation power, and Yamada's hidden past. After the end of the second witch war, the rest of the series is light-hearted and funny, though a couple of dramatic chapters pop up here and there (for example Dark Takuma's appearance and Shiraishi's disappearance) due to the Mood Whiplash tendency of the series.
• Character Development: Not just a tool for characterization but actually a plot important point. Yamada's influence and help encouraged the Witches to change for the better. With their memories of him gone, all the character development made has been lost, with the Witches going back to their old, and, for some of them, wicked ways. It takes a toll on Tamaki when he realizes that, helping him to grow too.
• Charm Person: The power of Nene Odagiri, who makes anyone she kisses fall in love with her. She then uses them to her advantage. Turns against her when Yamada uses the same power on her.
• Chastity Couple: Yamada and Shiraishi took two months to be comfortable enough to simply be holding hands, they are fairly rarely shown kissing except for when the main purpose is using witch powers, and they haven't done more intimate things at all. Their lack of physical contact is lampshaded, however (Odagiri even tries to exploit it), and Yamada does want to move further.
• Cheer Up Episode: The first half of chapter 102 is about Yamada thinking Shiraishi is pissed at him for going on a date with Konno, so he does various sweet gestures (such as massaging her shoulders and offering her yakisoba bread) to make up for it. None of it works, but then it turns out that she wasn't angry at all; she was just distracted because she had to hurry to go to cram school.
• Chekhov's Gag: Noa wanting to be Yamada's wife. She doesn't actually become his wife, but she temporarily becomes his spotter, in other words some sort of Familiar who can always track and remember him, and to her that equals being married.
• Chekhov's Gun: Yamada's yakisoba bread doll Shoba is seen a couple of times in his room in Rika's arc, and it later plays in integral role in him getting to know Kotori since he figures that the best way to get close to her is to play with dolls with her.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Mikoto Asuka debuts before most of the characters and appears from time to time as part of the Student Council, but she's not revealed to be a witch or even named until much, much later.
  • Nene Odagiri is a less extreme one. Though she's immediately named at her debut, also as part of the Student Council, it still takes some chapters before she's revealed as a witch.
  • Subverted with Kiku Sonoyama. She is the teacher that appears on the summer camp with the key for the clubroom, but she plays no other role than providing the key. Some time later, all evidences point towards her being the seventh witch. But no, Yamazaki soon reveals that she isn't, and she hasn't been seen since.
• Chick Magnet: Miyamura is a "straight" example, even if he's not in the slightest interested by the girls who squee over him, preferring to sexually harass Yamada instead. He certainly doesn't mind a shot of panties though.
• Christmas Episode: Chapter 115 in which Yamada and co. plan the trips of their Christmas break. Chapters 100 to 118 also take place in December, but aren't Christmas-focused.
• Circle of Shame: To emphasize that Noa's friends were made outcast, the anime shows an Imagine Spot where they are in the middle of a circle of laughing, faceless students. In the same imagine spot, Noa is shown as Alone in a Crowd.
• Class Trip: Yamada and friends go on two traditional class trips: the second-year trip in chapters 16 to 18 to a Ryokan Inn in an unspecified location and the third-year trip in chapters 200 to 205 to Guam. Besides that, they also go on several trips to the school clubhouse to take make-up exams or to solve matters for the student council.
• Clear My Name: Sarushima's arc is effectively a preventive variation of this trope where Yamada and Sarushima know they'll be framed for Tsubaki's accidental arson in the future and thus have to stop Tsubaki before they get framed in the first place.
• Cliffhanger: There are several good ones, but one that stands out for the suspense and the outrage it has created among the fanbase is the end of chapter 153: Himekawa is about to reveal the exact nature of her significant relationship to Yamada, and Shiraishi has returned to school, arriving at their doorstep, and she has presumably been told by Miyamura that Yamada and Himekawa have become very close while she was away...
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Subverted often with Shiraishi. Whenever she seems like she's a bit upset about Yamada's interaction with other girls, it's actually her being concerned about other things, such as people finding out about his secret power. Or at least that's what she wants him to think. It is played straight in Chapter 60, when she pouts over him choosing to partner with Itou instead of her. When the two of them become a couple, she admits that she sometimes feels jealous.
  • Rika the seventh witch, was revealed to be this towards Yamazaki when he was just a normal student but close to Leona, Miyamura's sister. So she set him up by telling him she was the seventh witch to ensure he would forget about Leona with her memory wiping powers.
• Closed Door Rapport: When Tsubaki locks himself into the school kitchen after seemingly being rejected by "Shiraishi", Yamada's desperate plea for him to not cook and Tsubaki's angry replies take place through the locked door.
• Club Stub: Happens twice in the series, as a club on Suzaku High needs to have at least three members:
  • The Supernatural Studies Club was dangerously close to being discontinued when Leona and Yamazaki were the only members. After Leona became a Hikikomori and Yamazaki became the Student Council President, the club briefly had zero members, but then Miyamura transferred to the school and joined the club to hunt down the seventh witch. In order to save the club, he persuaded Yamada and Shiraishi - whom he at the time suspected to be affiliated with the seventh witch - to join as well.
  • In the second term of their third year, the students are obligated to leave their club to focus on college preparations. In the Supernatural Studies Club, this leaves only the first-year students Hikaru and Hotaru as members. Thus, Yamada and Itou have to scour the school for a second-year student who wants to be the new president so that the club can be saved. They do find a new president, namely Noa.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Yamada has no idea when chicks are into him. Isn't that right Odagiri? This is lampshaded by Tamaki.
• Collateral Angst: When Leona is introduced, the story initially doesn't focus as much on Leona herself as it focuses on Miyamura and his bitter realization that his sister has isolated herself from him and may never get better. First when Leona's flashback is shown, the audience sympathy shifts to Leona herself.
• Color-Coded Characters: When all members of a given witch group show up on a colored cover page together, they are given their own individual colors, maybe in the form of the ribbons of their witch hats or maybe as a background color. The colors are sometimes related to their hair colors or personalities, and sometimes they seem randomly chosen. In-universe, when the witches show up on a spotter's radar, they also have the following colors:
  • Rika's witch group: Shiraishi (red), Odagiri (purple), Otsuka (green), Sarushima (orange), Noa (sky blue), Asuka (ultramarine), Rika (yellow).
  • Nancy's witch group: Konno (sky blue), Kotori (yellow), Chikushi (purple), Seishuin (red), Kikuchi (orange), Himekawa (green), Nancy (ultramarine).
  • Takuma's witch group: Kurosaki (blue), Ichijo (purple), Yuri (green), Hikaru (yellow), Alex (orange), Dark Takuma (black), Good Takuma (white).
• Colorful Theme Naming: For the new Student Council Member and the other group of witches:
  • Black: Jin Kurosaki
  • Green: Midori Arisugawa
  • Dark Blue: Tsubasa Konno
  • Violet: Aiko Chikushi
  • Yellow: Kotori Moegi
  • Pink: Momoko Seishuin
  • Turkey Red: Akane Kikuchi
  • Sky Blue: Sora Himekawa
  • Rainbow: Haruko Nijino
• Comforting Comforter:
  • When Yamada falls asleep due to working himself into the ground on the winter trip, and Odagiri decides to do his remaining work for him, she finds his coat and drapes it over him.
  • Leona covers Miyamura with a blanket when she finds him asleep in a chair.
• Comical Angry Face: Happens constantly with bulging eyes, enormous mouths and sometimes pointy teeth, given the series' love of Wild Takes.
• Comic Roleplay: Yamada and Miyamura do one of these in the epilogue to prepare Yamada for proposing to Shiraishi. Hilarity Ensues when Shiraishi suddenly turns up and thinks Yamada is proposing to Miyamura.
• Coming of Age Story: What the story is really about is Yamada's own journey from a teenage delinquent who is Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life to a respectable young man who has found his place in the world - in a sense, the witches are simply engines to bring him there.
• Commonality Connection: Subverted. Rika Saionji thought that was the case with Yamada because he wasn't wearing underwear when they met (it's a long story).
• Competence Zone: It's not that noticeable since practically all characters in the series are within a narrow age range (16 to 18) anyway, but for some reason, the majority of witches and allies are in the same year as Yamada himself (that's to say, second year students for most of the story and third years for the last part).
• Compressed Adaptation: The TV anime has only 12 episodes. The first witch war, corresponding to 90 chapters, is adapted in that short a frame. The first episode already skips over or simplifies events that lead to early bonding scenes for Yamada and Shiraishi. While the arcs up to Sarushima Arc are more or less well adapted, leaving out some explanation about Saeushina's power and Karen Kimishima (although it seems that the event of Yamada with Kimishima seems to happen offscreen, considering his interaction toward her in OVA2), Noa's arc clearly suffered the most with a lot of plot and characterization cut out.
• Connected All Along: Leona with Yamazaki and Rika. Also Ushio and Kotori, though it hasn't been explained yet how they know each other.
• Continuity Nod: The second OVA has a brief cameo of Sasaki wearing an "I ♥ Yamada" T-shirt, referencing the fact that she started to crush on Yamada at the end of the first chapter even if she hasn't played a part in the story since.
• Contrived Coincidence: Honestly, what are the chances of Yamada and Shiraishi accidentally kissing each other in that way? Also, what are the chances that the person Shiraishi has an Accidental Kiss with is the guy with Power Copying? Subverted at the very end. When Shiraishi become the original witch during her first year, she wished to be with Yamada, meaning that their first meeting in the manga wasn't a coincidence at all, but a result of magic.
• Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: Kotori's mind-reading power always lets her read people's thoughts as coherent sentences, though the key words of the sentence will often repeat themselves a few times, giving the impression that people's most important thoughts echo.
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: The first witch notebook has a chapter about the witch powers at the end, but right after the notes about the charm and telepathy powers, the book ends with "to be continued in the next volume". So the cast has to find the second witch notebook to know about the remaining five powers.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Miyamura's older sister Leona. When she drops her shields, she shows she has a great depth of feeling but is also scared of the seventh Witch. When she realizes her brother was victim to her, she agrees to help Yamada fix everything.
  • Yamada's sister thinks Nene is this.
• Cosmic Deadline: Subverted. After chapter 238, an announcement came that the series would end in five chapters. The next chapter, 239, goes out of its way to wrap up all remaining mysteries regarding Shiraishi, so you'd think the next four chapters would do the same. But no, they mostly focus on mundane Slice of Life, and as such the series ends with a lot of unanswered questions and unresolved mysteries.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: After Yamada and Shiraishi start dating, Miyamura and Tsubaki make a habit out of covering Shiraishi's eyes when Yamada has to kiss other girls in the clubroom.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Ushio does NOT like it when Nene kisses other people. Even if she's just doing it to cast her spell.
• Creator's Show Within a Show: As an excuse to spend time with Shiraishi after school, Yamada starts dropping by a bookstore with her to buy volumes of the light novel series There's No Way This Bad Boy Would Fall For Ms. Four-Eyes!! by Mikihiko Yoshikawa, a play on Yoshikawa's earlier manga series Flunk Punk Rumble^note The light novel's title is an expanded version of the original Japanese title Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, meaning Delinquent Boy and Glasses Girl, with some differences in character design. Oddly, Flunk Punk Rumble's Daichi Shinagawa had previously made a cameo appearance, and the first appearance of the light novel came right after a crossover special between the two series, with the anime including other cameos of the characters.
• Cross-Popping Veins: Like in any comedy manga, this trope is often employed, both on faces and in speech bubbles. Odagiri is especially prone to having them.
• Cultural Translation: When rattling off rumors about what Yamada did in his first year that caused him to be suspended a second time, the chairperson mentions that one of the rumors was that he forced a girl into Compensated Dating. In the English translation, it is changed to Yamada threatening a girl into prostitution, probably because fewer Western readers would know what compensated dating is. The implication is also prostitution in the original Japanese edition, given that Shiraishi is shown in an Imagine Spot sitting half-naked on a bed while Yamada counts money.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Anyone who tries to fight Asuka will be succumbed to this, as Tamaki and Yamada among others can attest (though Yamada did get in a Curb-Stomp Cushion in his first fight with Asuka when he grabbed her from behind and put her under the charm power). Other examples of curb-stompers are Tsubaki beating up Yamada and Miyamura, and most of the times Yamada fights street thugs (at least individually, since he'll often be exhausted after fighting big numbers).
• Cursed with Awesome: Most of the witches are Blessed with Suck, but given that witch powers do have some useful properties, some of them veer into this trope instead, for example Sarushima who was initially happy with her ability, until it made her see the fire in the old school building.
• Cute and Psycho: Mikoto Asuka after Yamada uses Nene's power on her. She wasn't exactly sane before but the trope was played up during that time.
  Yamada: Sh-She's not just crazy... she belong in an asylum!
• Darkest Hour: Chapter 67 where Yamada's friends have forgotten everything about him and completely reject socializing with him and start treating him like a stranger. It's not the unrealistic Laser-Guided Amnesia that's supposed to be the scary thing here - no, the scary thing is the (unfortunately) more realistic scenario of a person who has good friends and - as Yamada himself expresses it - "lives the high life", but suddenly becomes all alone and feels how painful loneliness is. A bit of mundane horror comes in from realizing that Yamada actually lived this way for almost a year before the start of the series. Or at least he thought so.
• Date Peepers: Tamaki and Odagiri spy on Yamada and Shiraishi when the latter two go to the bookstore the first time.
• Deadpan Snarker: Shiraishi starts out very sardonic, but eases up a lot later.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Tamaki's defeat in the election race results a shaky, reluctant alliance with Yamada that ends up as a genuine friendship.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Shiraishi, Nene and Noa are all very stand-offish and/or rude to Yamada at first, but once he gets through to them and helps them solve their problems, they all fall (madly) in love with him.
• Delinquent Hair: In the Light Music club, which is populated by Quincy punks, one of the members is shown to rock a mohawk.
• Delinquents: A lot of male character give off a slight delinquent vibe when they are introduced, given that delinquents is a bit of an Author Appeal to Yoshikawa. Yamada and Ushio are some of the few who have been actual delinquents, though.
• Demoted to Extra: Itou and Tsubaki, and Shiraishi to some degree, get demoted to extras in the second witch war when Yamada and Miyamura are student council members. When Yamada and Miyamura return to the Supernatural Studies Club, the other student council members get demoted.
• De-power: When Yamada completes the Witch Ceremony this was his desire. He wished not for the memories to be turned but the Witch Powers to be gone from the school. However it's later revealed that, those powers were replaced with slightly similar ones. By the end, all of the new witches loses their powers because Shiraishi, the original witch, leaves the school, and the witch powers never returns again, making the character doubt if they were even real.
• Disappeared Dad: Parents are already invisible in this series, but fathers seem to be even more invisible than mothers. Several characters have at least had their moms mentioned or briefly seen, but the only dads known are Yamada's (who seems to be bumbling as he spends all of New Year's Eve drunk on a bar) and Miyamura's (who is never home because of his work) - and none of them have made physical appearances.
• Discard and Draw: Witch-killer powers work like this. Only one witch power can be copied or stolen at a time, and if you try to copy or steal a new power, you'll automatically lose the original one, a process which is called "overwriting".
• Distant Finale: The epilogue takes place 10 years after Yamada's graduation, showing that he's still together with Shiraishi, is still best friends with Miyamura, and still keeps in touch with Tsubaki, Ushio, and Tamaki now and then, though the other characters he knew from high school are absent.
• Dodgy Toupee: The Suzaku High teacher who scolds Yamada in the very first scene of the series wears one. It's not particularly obvious except for that the fact that elderly men doesn't usually have such full and non-greying hair. An of course, the toupee falls off him (and lands on Yamada's head) in a later chapter.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The scene when Yamada has to tell Shiraishi that he cannot go on a birthday date with her looks like he's about to tell her in a very awkward way that he will break up with her and/or has cheated on her. There's a lot of stuttering, lines like "it's a long story" and "I think you already know", and both of them (especially Yamada) look like they're on the verge of tears. Of course, the real reason is harmless: Yamada forgot he had to go on the student council's winter trip the same day as the date.
• Don't Try This at Home: Two of the Flavor Texts at the end of the chapters which are removed when the chapters are released in volumes:
  • At the end of chapter 14, Kimishima has a Panty Shot when flipping Yamada over. The text warns female readers to not attempt to throw people around when they're wearing skirts.
  • When Yamada and Otsuka's group pass their exam at the end of chapter 31 by cheating through telepathy, the text warns the readers not to cheat at their own exams.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Odagiri regularly beats up Yamada and sometimes the other guys for the sake of comedy. None of the guys have ever beaten her up, and given the size difference it probably wouldn't be played for laughs if it happened.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: The first time Yamada asked Shiraishi to take some exams in his place, she scored just one point below perfect just to show off.
• Downer Beginning: While the comedic beat is the same as in the rest of the series, the story does start at the lowest point of both Yamada and Shiraishi's lives, with them being loners without any friends or purpose in life. Their lives start to get better once they befriend each other.
• Do You Want to Copulate?: G-rated example in that almost everybody either start out having almost no qualms at all about kissing or end up having no qualms. Even the ones who do have standards for who/when they want to kiss are still not that inhibited and always end up kissing Yamada. Shiraishi also seems to be an example when it comes to actual sex, not minding being seen naked and being confused as to why Yamada refuses to have sex with her in public in front of a schoolmate.
• The Dragon: Asuka who is Yamazaki's right-hand woman and swaps body with Urara in order to hold her as a hostage.
• Drunk on the Dark Side:
  • Konno temporarily suffers from this. She swears she will end her control over her teammates once the one game was over but she doesn't, and soon she gets to the point where she orders another student to do her homework and shuts up another who yelled at her for making someone do her work. Fortunately, Yamada eventually talks some sense into her.
  • The new Mind Reading witch subverts this. She may use her power to peak into people's minds but she isn't lost to it. However, when Yamada copied it, he was. He nearly lost himself to the power until the witch went to the Memory Erasing witch to talk some sense into him. He does listen to them and realizes how bad he nearly got.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Yamada initially thinks that kissing Sarushima while she is asleep would be crossing the line, but Miyamura convinces him to do it since he would have to kiss her anyway in order to find out if she's a witch - so he might as well make it easy to himself. Yamada complies, but not without a bit of bad conscience.
• Dung Fu: Odagiri is the victim of this when she gets a bit too close to the monkeys in the zoo.
• Dysfunction Junction: The Supernatural Studies Club. The first four members (Tsubaki isn't known for sure, though he's not shown hanging out with anyone but the club members) had no friends and their own unique problems when they joined. The same goes for most of the witches and the rest of the cast: It almost seems like it's a requirement that you have no or very few real friends and a troubled/different life if you want to befriend Yamada. The club and the new student council double as ragtag bunches of misfits.

E - K

• Early-Bird Cameo: Arisugawa, Kurosaki, Nancy, Sid, Yamada's mom, and even the owner of Shiraishi's local bookstore make cameos in the second OVA even before their proper introduction.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • As the image caption shows, the original splash-page illustration showed some characters who have yet to show up after over 100 chapters, unless they were early designs for ones who did appear later.
  • The first chapter can feel a bit weird on a re-read with how much emotion Shiraishi shows in that chapter. Granted, she is stoic most of the time, and much of the humor derives from her underreactions to Yamada and the body-swap, but she still has more Not So Stoic moments in this chapter than in the entire rest of the series – especially when she angrily shouts at Yamada that he shouldn’t meddle with her problems, and when she is comically crying because Yamada hit her. It seems like her character concept was changed from “stoic girl who will abruptly show full emotion in extreme cases” to “less stoic but calmer and harder to read”.
  • The first few chapters were much more similar to Yoshikawa’s former series Flunk Punk Rumble in terms of atmosphere and world-building – we got to see students from other schools and teachers, and there were more delinquent-caused street fights. Later on, especially after the existence of the witches is revealed, the series takes its own direction – it focuses solely on Suzaku High students with teachers and students from other schools being completely absent, and the conflicts become more psychological. There are still many similarities between the two series (kind of inevitable when they share the same writer and overall genre), but they are less pronounced.
• Easily Forgiven: To cite Miyamura, Yamazaki was the "smarmiest bastard he ever met" and apparently injured people to end up a club. During his time as the President and Yamada's main antagonist, he enforces ruthless policies, wiping minds on the go and allowing Asuka to lock Yamada down and torture him. It's never mentioned again and once the arc was over, he becomes an ally, giving some data and insight. One has to wonder the influence Leona actually had on him. Or if he was corrupted afterwards.
• Eastern Zodiac: The chapter covers from 191 to 204 have this as their theme, with a selected bunch of characters being shown with each their Chinese animal sign. In some cases, the signs are their Animal Motifs or just based on their name, and in other cases it seems randomly assigned:
  • Rat: Odagiri, shown as a waitress in a mouse costume.
  • Ox: Ushio, shown as a bullfighter. Also his Animal Motifs.
  • Tiger: Miyamura, shown on a throne surrounded by tigers. Also his Animal Motifs.
  • Rabbit: Shiraishi, shown in some kind of Alice Allusion. Also her Animal Motifs.
  • Dragon: Yamada, shown in a medieval world resting on a dragon. Also his Mythical Motifs.
  • Snake: Itou, shown in an Garden of Eden scene where she shares fruit with a snake.
  • Horse: Yamazaki, shown as a knight on his white horse. Also his Animal Motifs.
  • Sheep: Otsuka, shown as a shepherdess.
  • Monkey: Sarushima, shown as a Jungle Princess surrounded by monkeys. Also her Animal Motifs.
  • Rooster: Asuka, shown as a harpy/siren by a Greek temple.
  • Dog: Tsubaki, shown surrounded by dog-like Shisa statues.
  • Boar: Inose, shown chased by a ferocious boar monster. Not her Animal Motifs, but her name contains "ino" which means "boar".
• Election Day Episode: Chapter 169 focuses on the new student council election between Tamaki and Ichijo. Chapters 170 to 172 also take place on election day, but chapter 169 is the only one to focus on the actual event (the others focus on Yamada preparing to wipe everybody's memories of Ichijo).
• Elevator School: Suzaku High consists not only of the titular high school, but also an affiliated university (Suzaku University) as well as a kindergarten, elementary school and middle school. In fact, most of the students only go to Suzaku High because it's more or less a free entry ticket to the Suzaku University (there is an entrance examination, but as 98% of the students are able to pass, it's mostly seen as a mere formality). Itou even uses the "escalator" analogy at one point. It's a bit of a variation as the different schools aren't located on the same property, but rather in the same neighborhood.
• Emotionless Girl: Shiraishi seems to be this on the outside, but she's more emotional than most people would think.
• Empathic Environment: It always rains whenever Yamada and co. hold a ceremony, but when it's over, and the wish is fulfilled, Rays from Heaven tend to descend. Also, during the seeming (but untrue) relevation that the seventh witch is a teacher, a strong wind blows. A more comic example is how a gust of wind during Yamada and Rika's rather silly first meeting proves to him that yes, she is indeed Going Commando.
• The End... Or Is It?: In the live-action drama, after Yamada has seemingly made himself a happy ending by removing the witches' powers and hiding the witch notebook in the sealed room, the last episode closes with an unknown person finding the notebook and taking it with him/her, implying that the witch powers have returned or will return.
• Engineered Heroics: Subverted. When Yamada pulls a Zero-Approval Gambit in front of Hikaru and Tacchan's Gang of Bullies, Hikaru thinks this trope is in play (that he's supposed to beat up Yamada, Ushio and Noa to gain the loyalty of the bullies), but in reality Yamada just intended to expose the weaknesses of all of them.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Nene finds herself attracted to Shiraishi in Chapter 116. She theorized that it was perhaps because she was in Yamada's body and therefore inherited his emotions. Or perhaps because Shiraishi acts differently towards Yamada.
• Everybody Is Single: The only named characters to be in a relationship throughout the majority of the series are Yamada and Shiraishi. Even among insignificant, nameless characters, everybody seems to be single, the only exception being a lot of young couples which are seen when Yamada (in Shiraishi's body) and Tsubaki accidentally end up on a lovers' alley on their "date".
• Everyone Is Bi: Most characters have no qualms kissing someone of the same sex. Miyamura likes Yamada to begin with, which is kicked into overdrive when he is under the influence of Nene's powers. Yamada is fine with kissing himself, or random guys at the cultural festival. A few characters are explicitly straight or at least prefer the opposite sex more, but they are the exception and not the rule. A lot of this is for pragmatic reasons, however, as kissing is the way to utilize their witch powers.
• Evil Counterpart: The Japanese Chess Club to the Supernatural Studies Club. Both get a stoic, silent and intelligent female President, a hot-blooded delinquent who drive the plot, a man running for presidency of the council who set the goals, a tall and powerful Big Guy who can easily bash Yamada and The Heart. The only difference comes in the form of a Sixth Ranger who has yet to show what is his role. It's a variant in that their chief enemy is the student council, and they have little to do with the Supernatural Studies Club.
• Exposition Cut: Often happens whenever Yamada needs to recount something that just happened to his friends. Most times, the series confirms that an exposition cut took place by having someone ask "so what you're saying is that [brief summary of what Yamada just explained]?", to which Yamada nods and says "yes".
• Exposition Diagram: Quite often used during exposition scenes, for example when Shiraishi explains how Sarushima supplying visions will be needed to help prevent the fire, and when Miyamura explains why Tamaki needs to run for president to quell the provocation power.
• Family Business: Tsubaki's family has owned a fancy restaurant for ages, and Tsubaki is the heir.
• Family Portrait of Characterization: Rather a student council portrait of characterization. The photo of Miyamura's student council looks a lot more goofy and less professional than the other student council photos, portraying them as a group of good friends and not just coworkers.
• Fanservice with a Smile: Shiraishi and Itou are persuaded by Miyamura to wear maid uniforms while serving yakisoba bread for the culture festival.
• Fantastically Indifferent: Everyone is pretty chill on the Witches power despite the supernatural element in an everyday setting. You would believe at least one guy would alert the medias but nothing happens, nobody freaks out, and the mystery stays contained inside the school. As an example, see Itou deciding, upon discovering she got a new body, to practice some martial moves and deal with delinquents.
• Fate Drives Us Together: Yamada and Shiraishi keep meeting in unlikely way despite repeated memory losses, making Shiraishi think that it must be fate's doing. Subverted in the end when Shiraishi's past is revealed - it isn't due to fate, but due to her wish of being together with Yamada no matter what.
• Ferris Wheel Date Moment: Between Yamada and Konno when he needs to kiss her to use her power against her. Konno even dreamt about having her perfect first kiss in a ferris wheel.
• Festival Episode: Chapter 231 which ends with the Supernatural Studies Club going to a summer festival to cherish their last summer vacation in high school together.
• Fingore: Asuka's preferred "mild" torture method (she also has a worse one that involves tools, but we never find out what that is). When she interrogates Yamada, she twists his fingers into uncomfortable positions and would have broken them if he hadn't pulled his hand away.
• First-Episode Twist: Yamada and Shiraishi go through most of the first chapter having no idea why falling down the stairs made them suddenly swap bodies. At the end of the chapter, they figure out the true reason was an accidental Magic Kiss, and then magic kisses become one of the main premises for the rest of the series.
• First Kiss: This being a series where kissing happens all the time, and where very few of the characters have dated anyone before, first kisses are inevitable. Contrasting many other Japanese works, however, the trope Sacred First Kiss is often averted or downplayed, and the only ones whose first kissing partner has been confirmed are Yamada (with Shiraishi - subverted as it's actually with Seishuin), Shiraishi (with Yamada), Takuma (with Yamada), and Himekawa (with Yamada).
• Five-Man Band: The Supernatural Studies Club:
  • The Leader: Yamada, copying power and being the best asset.
  • The Lancer: Shiraishi, the president and Yamada's Love Interest.
  • The Big Guy: Tsubaki, stronger than Yamada and Miyamura together.
  • The Smart Guy: Miyamura, in charge of plans.
  • The Heart: Itou, who - despite her tendencies to complain and criticize the others - also has her heart in the right place and helps keep up the team spirit thanks to her enthusiasm.
  • The Sixth Ranger: Hikaru, who joins much, much later than the five other members.
• Flashback Effects: The series uses the typical manga effects; black panel spaces in longer flashbacks and greyed-out panels in brief flashbacks.
• Flashback Nightmare: The power of Noa, which lets people see the traumatic events in someone's past after they fall asleep.
• Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: When Nancy lets Yamada copy her memory manipulation power, she warns him to never actually use it, instead only letting it function as a Sword of Damocles. So of course fate will have that a situation arises where Yamada needs to wipe everybody's memories to save the school.
• Foreign Language Title: The German translation of the series is also called "Yamada-kun & the 7 Witches" in English instead of the more logical "Yamada-kun und die Sieben Hexen".
• Foreshadowing:
  • Miyamura easily spots the thread and makes Yamada reveal his and Shiraishi's secret. Much later it's revealed that the whole reason why he transfered himself to Suzaku High in the first place is because he knew about the Witch powers. Another hint is that when Yamada tells the other club members about the witches the first time, Miyamura - unlike Shiraishi and Itou - doesn't express surprise about their existence, but instead acts interested in one of the specific powers.
  • Tamaki wonders if - since Yamada has the copy power, and he himself has the cut (steal) power - there might be someone with a paste power. That someone turns out to be himself. Entirely logical, of course, since you can't paste anything without having cut or copied it first.
  • The revelation that Nancy's witches aren't actually the new seven witches but always existed along with the original seven witches threw both the student council and the readers for a loop - but when you reread that part of the story, you may notice how some of these "new" witches seem way too accustomed to their powers - if it was only a couple of weeks ago since they got their powers, most of them probably wouldn't even have discovered their powers (since it does take a kiss to discover them. after all), and those who did discover them already would probably still be struggling to learn to use them instead of already having made lifestyles out of them like Chikushi and Nancy.
    • The existence of more that one group of witches is also foreshadowed as Leona and Yamazaki discovered the witches one years before the story, but Shiraishi and the rest weren't made a witch until the start of the second year.
  • The revelation about that not only Itou but Shiraishi too was put under Ichijo's power is also hinted. Shiraishi has shown unusual amount of jealousy (almost to light Yandere level) when she hears the speculation from Tsubaki that Itou might have developed feelings for Yamada.
  • Early during the Summer Remedy Lesson Arc, Yamada claims that he would never pass the class exam by himself and that he had also been in the remedy class last year as well along with Otsuka and her friends, foreshadowing that he at least was involved with someone (later revealed to be Himekawa) during the first year who helped him pass the exam.
  • Before the revelation that Kaori isn't the final witch that is Himekawa, there is actually a subtle hint about it with her name doesn't follow the Colorful Theme Naming of the other witches of Nancy's group.
  • After the second memory wipe, Ushio can be seen reading a book about poetry. He would later found a poetry club along with Noa.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Chapter 119 and 120 are the first chapters to be entirely Slice of Life - no conflicts and no use (not even mention) of witch powers. The New Year hijinks are also the only activities in the series that neither take place at school or are related to school (such as clubhouse trips or trying to get a drop-out to come back to school). After the second witch war, slice-of-life chapters without use or mention of witch powers regularly pop up, making those two chapters less weird in hindsight.
• The Four Gods: The school and surrounding neighborhood are named after Suzaku, the Vermillion Bird. The narration in the first few chapters reveals there are also Seiryu, Byakko, and Genbu high schools. In fact, Miyamura transferred from Seiryu high.
• Frame Break: There are usually at least one panel in each chapter where a character's head for some reason pops out of the panel they're in (usually during a scene shift, a significant introduction or an emotional moment).
• Frame-Up:
  • Noa's M.O. back when she was still a villain. She tried to get Sarushima (and Tsubaki) blamed for the fire, and she intended to have one of her friends swap bodies with Shiraishi and cause trouble so that Shiraishi would get the blame for the trouble.
  • Subverted with Ushio and Odagiri. Yamada thought they framed him for starting the fight that Ushio started for some spiteful reason, but it's revealed much later that their memories were changed - Yamada and Ushio started the fight together, but Yamada thought Ushio started it alone, and Ushio and Odagiri thought Yamada started it alone.
• Framing Device: The entire story is, in the epilogue, revealed to be a book Yamada wrote about his time at Suzaku High and is reading to his children.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: What kicked off the plot. It was thought to be Yamada's power, but turned out to be Shiraishi's instead.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon:
  • Because the concept of "witches" isn't introduced until more than 20 chapters into the story, Yamada already knows and is on good terms with two of the witches (Shiraishi and Odagiri) before he and his friends start looking for the remaining five.
  • Similarly, after the second witch war, when Yamada needs to find all of Takuma's seven witches to hold a ceremony, he already knows four of them (Kurosaki, Ichijo, Yuri, and Takuma himself).
• Friendless Background: Yamada, Shiraishi and Itou all qualify. It's not unlikely that Miyamura qualifies, too - even though he has always been much more popular than the aforementioned three, he didn't seem to have actual friends as much as he had tons of fangirls and tried to suck up to Yamazaki.
• Friendship Moment: Loads of them - fortunately many of them are not purely sappy, but also intertwined with some comical banter. The signature example is probably the night before Yamada meets Rika where the other club members promise him that once he's lost his memory, they'll drag him back to the club no matter how much he kicks and screams.
• The Friends Who Never Hang:
  • Played for Laughs with Itou and Ushio on the last night of the summer camp. When Yamada and Shiraishi are off talking, and Miyamura and Odagiri are getting buckets of water, Itou and Ushio (who had barely talked to each other before) start playing with fireworks together and freak out upon realizing that they're alone together, and the others have left.
  • In the student council, Odagiri doesn't have many interactions with Kurosaki on-screen - the same goes for Tamaki and Arisugawa.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Used in-universe when the club throws a "welcome back" party for Yamada. There is no alcohol involved since they are in school after all, so instead Tsubaki tries to make to make Yamada down a glass of coke as if it was a glass of strong booze.
• Fully-Clothed Nudity:
  • When Leona strips down to her underwear in front of everyone to change into her school uniform, Odagiri seems to consider her to be naked given her line of "you wanna see her naked that badly?!" after she misinterprets Yamada's line as wanting Leona to put off taking her uniform on.
  • In Yamada's Daydream Surprise of him and Shiraishi finally having sex, they are both still in their underwear despite Yamada seeming ready to, well, enter her. This is probably one of the examples where you're supposed to imagine that they're completely naked, just that their nudity cannot be shown on-panel for censorship reasons.
• Funbag Airbag: One of the future visions Yamada gets from Miyamura shows him ramming his face into Shiraishi's chest. Exactly how it will happen is never explained, as it's among the visions negated by the body-swap power.
• Funny Background Event: Of The Comically Serious type. In the chapter where Itou joins the Supernatural Studies Club, she tries to impress the club by showing off her "supernatural" possessions (which are just things like normal rocks, spoons etc.). Yamada and Miyamura listen to her and have several funny reaction shots to her Blatant Lies, while Shiraishi doesn't join in. Then, in one panel, she appears in the background, reading a book and looking as somber as ever. Apparently, Itou's antics were so stupid that the serious Shiraishi didn't even bother to react, just retracting to the background instead.
• Furo Scene: The winter trip has a short one, involving the male student council members (the girls bathed in the hot springs instead), though there is one girl with them as Odagiri has swapped bodies with Yamada without telling anyone. It leads to a hilarious moment when she gets completely flushed from seeing Miyamura full-frontal naked, and Miyamura simply thinks that Yamada is getting red because the water is too hot.
• Gang of Bullies: Tacchan and his two friends make up one of these when they bully Hikaru by beating him up and humiliating him. The only thing the two friends are good for is standing around and cheering Tacchan on; they never directly interact with Hikaru.
• Gender Bender: The first switch is with Shiraishi, Yamada's female classmate who sits next to him. As they are joined by more students they all start trying out the body swapping. The series is often considered part of the gender-bendering genre because of the significance Yamada and Shiraishi's swaps have in the early part of the series, but the body-swapping gets less and less important later on, and it practically disappears from the story when Shiraishi loses her power.
• Generic Cuteness: In line with the Only Six Faces trope. Miyamura is supposedly very handsome, while Yamada is implied to be plain or even a bit ugly - at least it isn't his appearance that makes the girls fall for him. But they both have the same face and body, except for Miyamura being maybe an inch taller. The same with Shiraishi and Itou: Itou is stated to be pretty, but not out of the ordinary. Shiraishi is seen by many as the school's most beautiful girl. They also have the same face and similar bodies (though Shiraishi has bigger breasts than Itou so at least there's that difference).
• Genre Roulette: The series is a High School Comedy all the way through, but otherwise it rotates between a whole lot of side-genres: Urban Fantasy, Romantic Comedy, Mystery Fiction, Ecchi, Paranormal Investigation, and Teen Drama among others.
• Geometric Magic: The ceremony with the seven witches involves them standing in a circle equidistant from each other and the castor in the center. Somewhat subverted in that the seven witches only need to form a circle while holding hands. Rika guesses that some previous generation drew the circle for extra style points.

• Girl Posse: Sasaki has one in the first chapter. They are not given any lines, but they mimic her expressions and laugh/giggle at appropriate times.
• Girly Run: Shiraishi in Yamada's body does this in the PV, though never in the manga or anime proper.
• Going Commando:
  • Yamada does it involuntarily just before meeting Rika because he has swapped bodies with Shiraishi who takes his boxers off in the morning as she apparently believes that it is better to go commando than to wear the same pair of underwear for more than a day.
• The Golden Rule: Brought up when Kotori wants to stop Yamada from indiscriminately using her power and asks him how he would like it if other people read his thoughts without permission.
• Goldfish Scooping Game: One of the games that the club members try out during the Festival Episode.
• Gonk: The make-up exam teacher who looks more like a dog/seal with a bob cut than a human.
• Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: One of the dynamics in the second witch war since there are two witch groups existing alongside each other. Nancy's witch group, the female witches, are the Good Witches and are all on Yamada's side, helping him to initiate a ceremony. Takuma's witch group, the male witches, are the Bad Witches as several of them are on Ushio's side to help him initiate a ceremony. It's seen in their general personalities: All of Nancy's witches are friendly, the worst of them being Nancy herself who can be somewhat ill-tempered, but is still good-hearted. Of Takuma's witches, two of them are villains, Takuma himself is a Wild Card working with the villains, and the only heroic one is still a bit of a jerk.
• Gotta Pass the Class: Yamada tends to fail his end-of-term exams which usually results in him having to go to summer school or otherwise take a make-up exam. It also tends to involve some body-swap hijinks where Shiraishi passes Yamada's test for him.
• Graduate from the Story: The last chapter of the story proper (not counting the two epilogue chapters) is about Yamada and co.'s graduation from Suzaku High which also rekindles Yamada and Shiraishi's relationship.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The seventh witch was in love with Yamazaki, but himself was in love with Leona, to the point he became President to protect her club. Unable to woo him, she decided (in a sense) to Murder the Hypotenuse by wiping all memories of her, making him forget why he became President, snowballing in the whole fiasco we know of. It's likely nothing would have happened if it wasn't for her jealousy. However, a glimpse into Yamada's implied that it's only partly her fault, since it was the previous presidentess's intention to have their knowledge about the witches erased.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: One thing is that Yamada, in order to make Noa let her guard down, mentions that she wet herself - but we didn't really need to see a close-up panel of the act...
• Gut Punch: For the first witch war; when Yamada finds out that the amnesia power didn't work as formerly thought, and instead of him forgetting about the witches, his friends have forgotten everything about him.
• Hammerspace: Miyamura and Noa comically pull out toy guns, swords and chained flails from out of nowhere when they and Yamada are about to ambush Ushio.
• Harsh Word Impact: Seen a few times, like when Kurosaki makes fun of Tamaki's height, and when Yamada and Ushio jokingly give Nancy the blame for everything that happened after their fight, without her realizing it's a joke.
• Headbutt of Love: Yamada and Shiraishi affectionately bump heads after kissing a few times in chapter 96 when they think this will be the last time they can kiss normally (because Yamada is about to copy a lot of witch powers).
• Heat Wave: There is one in chapter 225, to the point that the few people want to be outside. Itou, as the Neat Freak she is, still insists that the Supernatural Studies Club members should spend the day picking trash under the scorching sun.
• Heel Realization: Upon seeing Leona, Yamazaki felt a surge of emotions he couldn't understand and realized his memories were erased and so wanted Yamada to perform the ceremony to recover all the memories.
• High School Rocks: As in all of Yoshikawa's works, this is one of the series' big messages. Of course, bullying and loneliness still exists on Suzaku High, but the series likes to hammer in the aesop that as long you are a good person, it'll pass and you'll find true friends that you'll spend a lot of enjoyable times with.
• Hilarity in Zoos: One of the first things Yamada, Himekawa, Ushio, and Odagiri do together after the formation of their friend group is going to the zoo together. It is, however, a fairly peaceful outing compared to most examples of the trope, with the zoo mostly being used for a Running Gag about their interest in completely mundane animal traits (Yamada comments the animal's color, Ushio comments the animal's size, Himekawa comments the animal's legs, and Odagiri, who doesn't like animals, doesn't get what the fuss is about).
• Hoist by Their Own Petard:
  • Nene's plans fall apart when her power is used against her.
  • The President having everyone's memory erased of Yamada ends up coming back to bite him as the Witches abuse their power and go back to their old ways.
• Holding Hands: Chapter 120 ends with Yamada trying to hold Shiraishi's hand as his first attempt of moving further in their relationship. He manages to do it after a small misunderstanding, and they are regularly shown holding hands for the rest of the series.
• Hollywood Kiss: Usually averted, given that most kisses in the series are (technically) non-romantic, and even Yamada and Shiraishi's first kiss as a couple has them bumping their teeth into each other. Played straight with Yamada and Shiraishi's wedding kiss which is as beautiful and romantic as you could expect.
• Honest John's Dealership: The three thugs that Yamada encounters a few times in the first 10 chapters run their own little business where they sell anything from the morally questionable (fake "supernatural" items sold at exorbitantly high prices) to the outright illegal (pictures of girls changing clothes taken without their knowledge or consent).
• Hooked Up Afterwards: Ushio and Odagiri as well as Yuri and Himekawa have suddenly married in the epilogue without much foreshadowing given that both Odagiri and Himekawa had fixations on Yamada. (Ushio and Odagiri did receive some Ship Tease, though, and are seen together at the entrance examinations after the Time Skip, suggesting they may already have become a couple back then, but the Himekawa/Yuri couple comes out of the blue since Himekawa always said she only saw Yuri as a little brother.
• Hope Spot: At the start of Rika's arc, Yamada wakes up in the morning after Rika used her power against him, and we're supposed to assume that he has lost his memories because he tears up a note to himself and doesn't talk to Shiraishi in class. Later, we find out that he has not lost his memory. He was simply confused by the fact that his memory was intact. He goes into the clubroom to tell his friends that he still remembers them, and that everything is well... Until he finds out that they forgot about his existence instead.
• Hostile Show Takeover: In the only openly fourth wall-breaking gag of the series, Ushio insists on becoming the series' new protagonist when he misinterprets a comment of Yamada's as if Yamada wants to quit the series to live on Guam.
• Hot Springs Episode: While not whole chapters, there is a scene with the characters bathing in a hot spring almost every time the main cast goes on a trip, usually resulting in Yamada getting a good view of some naked female bodies.
• How Do I Shot Web?: It took the characters a lot of time, creativity, experimentation and plain luck to learn how the Witch/Witch Hunter powers work. For example, only after Yamada copies another Witch power, him and Shiraishi figured out that she was a Witch the whole time. Not even the Student Council seems to know every quirk about the Witch powers.
• How We Got Here: Chapter 95 opens with Yamada hiding in the girls' bath while Odagiri and Arisugawa splash around in the buff. As a narrator, he then invites the readers to start the day from the beginning to find out why he got into such a pickle.
• Hypocritical Humor: Frequent and lampshaded accordingly. Usually Yamada is the victim. One time Yamada gets to be the one to remark on the hypocrisy of Nene making fun of Midori because of her big boobs by pointing out that it's not like she's small herself. That shut Nene up, though not for the reason Yamada thinks it did.
• Hypothetical Fight Debate: As always obsessed with paranormal creatures, Itou makes the Supernatural Studies Club discuss who would win in a fight between a ghost and a zombie.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Yamada unintentionally does this to Noa when he pushes her against a wall, insisting that she should tell him about the Witch Killer.
• I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Once her memories are restored by kissing Yamada, Nene realizes she's in love with him. Yamazaki realizes this as well and makes her an offer to be with Yamada if she stops helping him gather the witches. She confesses to Tamaki that she told Yamazaki to stuff it because she knows that Yamada is in love with Shiraishi and she'd rather enjoy what time they have together than be a nuisance to him. True to that, she doesn't try to stop him when all the memories have returned.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Or at least an embarrassed Tamaki is implied to be this when Yamada offers him a chance to join the Supernatural Club after they find a way to restore everyone's memories.
• I Know You Know I Know: At the end of chapter 197, Shiraishi thanks Yamada for taking good care of an eraser on which she wrote him a greeting, assuming that the greeting must have meant a lot to him. However, the truth is the eraser is in good condition because Yamada never used it due to his aversion to schoolwork, and as such he never read the greeting. Leads to a comical Wall of Text in which Yamada completely overanalyzes the situation and ponders if Shiraishi knows that he didn't know about the greeting, but pretends not to know, or if she genuinely doesn't know.
• Imagine Spot: Itou, frequently, due to being a Ms. Imagination kind of character.
• Imagine Spotting: Par for the course - you can probably use one hand to count the imagine spots that aren't commented on by other characters. Lampshaded in chapter 91; Yamada imagines Shiraishi undressing on a bed and soon after desperately asks Tamaki not to look at others' imagination, after which he forcibly wipes the imagine spot away.
• I'm Having Soul Pains: According to Noa and Yamazaki, feeling Wistful Amnesia is not only disconcerting; it's also downright painful. Noa describes it as a dark cave in her heart, and Yamazaki describes as his chest being wrung out.
• Improbably Female Cast:
  • Played straight in the first war. Because the main protagonist is a guy, and some of the other prominent characters are male, the male characters get just as much screen-time as the female ones, so the gender distribution may seem less skewed than it is, but it's actually pretty skewed. There are only two male witch-killers, but seven female witches. Even among the characters without powers, there are still more girls.
  • Averted later in the series: While the enhanced witches are all girls, the reborn witches are all boys, and some of the original female witches get less screen-time.
• In Another Man's Shoes: While Yamada didn't like Shiraishi at first, spending a day in her body and getting up close to her day-to-day problems made him emphatize with her much more. This has also sometimes happened with later body-swaps, for example when Yamada and Arisugawa swap bodies as part of a silly "game" and Yamada finds out how few friends she has.
• Inciting Incident: If Yamada hadn't accidentally tripped and locked lips with Shiraishi on their tumble down the stairs, nothing whatsoever of interest would have happened in his high school life, and there would be no plot. Though given his hidden past, two other moments could be counted as inciting incidents for his high school life: Himekawa bringing him dinner on the summer camp, and even earlier him accidentally being overheard by Shiraishi when he complained about high school being boring.
• Incompatible Orientation: The girls of the basketball team get (literal) heart-eyes over Kurosaki who's gay and only interested in Miyamura.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: For some reason, the class representatives of Yamada's class and Tamaki's class look completely identical, down to height, build, Opaque Nerd Glasses and bowl-cut - it must be a requirement to have that kind of look if you want to a class rep. In personality, they seem different, though - Tamaki's class rep seems fairly normal, while Yamada's class rep comes off as a bit of an oblivious geek.
• Info Drop: Nancy first mentioning that she was present during the street fight instead of Odagiri is treated as this, since it's not given the same dramatic attention as the other major reveals of the series - probably because this reveal had so much foreshadowing that the readers were expected to have figured it out already.
• Inherently Funny Words: "Boobs" ("Oppai" in Japanese) which is the only word Miyamura wants to say when using telepathy. The side notes point out that it's a childish way of saying breasts that's nonetheless loved by teenage boys.
• In Medias Res: This is probably the biggest reveal of the series. The series starts in Yamada's second year even though he already had a lot adventures, misadventures and troubles during his first year, some of which haven't been solved yet. A variation in that Yamada is just as oblivious as the readers to the fact that the story starts this way: He thinks for most of the story that his days of being bored and miserable ended, and his fun school life started, when he met Shiraishi, and it takes him more than 150 chapters to realize that he has his lost his memories of his first year.
• Insistent Terminology: Yamada and Shiraishi (especially the former) decide to pay tribute to none other than Ross Geller when they insist that they didn't "break up" during the time Shiraishi was under the provocation power - they were "on a break".
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Shiraishi was a loner and bullied by other girls before she met Yamada. Part of it might have had to do with her academic excellence or it could have also been her stoic personality. It's never clearly established why she was being bullied.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: Since the chapter titles are always quotes from the chapter taken out of context - usually some of the funnier quotes - we get a few titles that probably wouldn't look good if they were plastered all over the book cover, e.g. "Permission to rub her boobs" and "No-underwear policy".
• Interclass Friendship: Yamada is born into a lower middle-class family who lives in a small, suburban house. All of his friends in the Supernatural Studies Club are stated or strongly implied to be wealthy; Shiraishi and Miyamura both live in big, fancy houses and have parents who are working prestigeful jobs, Itou lives in a high-rise apartment, and while Tsubaki's home hasn't been shown, his family owns a Michelin-starred restaurant so they can easily be assumed to be well-off.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Though the readers can figure it out from the series title right away, it's not until chapter 56 that Yamada and co. learn that are a total of seven witches. Before then, they had no idea exactly how many people with witch powers were roaming the school.
  • Yamada isn't told that Odagiri is infatuated with him until chapter 167, but it's confirmed directly to the readers almost 100 chapters before that and implied from the very start of the series.
• Intimate Hair Brushing: Shiraishi and Itou's close friendship more or less starts in the bonus chapter when Yamada in Shiraishi's body has a sleepover with Itou. The next morning, Shiraishi's hair is completely messy, so Itou brushes it and they talk about how the real Shiraishi would also like to have a sleepover with Itou sometime.
• Invisible Parents: Parents are very rarely seen and rarely mentioned except for some offhand lines here and there. When a character's home is shown, the parents are usually absent no matter the time of the day. When more than one character is needed to be at the home for plot-related reasons, it tends to be a sibling.
• Irony: Yamada almost falls victim to abusing the Mind Reading Power due to wanting to know what Shiraishi thinks because he wants to know what the person he loves think about him, fortunately, he is stopped in time by Kotori, who gives Yamada a pep talk about what would he feels if Shiraishi reads his mind too. In the past, Himekawa intends to use her Reminiscence Power to know if Yamada likes her or not. Needless to say, it didn't end well as she found out that Yamada liked someone else instead of her.
• I Should Write a Book About This: By the Distant Finale, the whole story about the school is crafted into a novel titled...Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches. What else?
• It Only Works Once: Rika Saionji's amnesia power only works on a witch once. No one, not even Rika, knew this until she failed to alter Nene's memories a second time.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Downplayed with Yamada who is admitted to Tono U. He does end up working extremely hard for it (especially since he has a lot of emotional motivation to do it), and he has shown before that he's not as Book Dumb as he seems when he puts in an effort to learn, but... with his academic record and lack of ideas what he'll actually major in, it does seem like a stretch that he would be able to get into Japan's most prestiged university.
• I Was Just Joking: When Shiraishi, after forgetting Yamada, confirms his identity by checking all of his physical characteristics she wrote down in her diary, she says that she, as a last thing, needs to check "the weird thing between his legs". As Yamada blushes and freaks out, she states she was just kidding.
• Japanese Delinquents: The series usually doesn't feature delinquents who are too stereotypically dressed (some of them even dress more like Western delinquents), but Yamada, Ushio and Noa do get into the stereotype when they have to fake being thugs in order to help Hikaru. Especially Noa pulls off a very stereotypical seifuku with an extra-long skirt and a surgery mask.
• Japanese School Club:
  • Miyamura revives the Supernatural Studies Club with Yamada and Shiraishi so they can switch bodies in private. They get more members later on. They discover that a previous batch wrote notes about the witches, and they have yet to recover all of it.
  • The Archery Club headed by Karen Kimishima. Much of one arc takes place in its clubroom, though ultimately she wasn't a witch.
  • Meiko Otsuka and her two friends comprise an Anime/Manga Club and make doujinshi.
  • Asuka and Ushio were last seen in the Chess Club, implied to be planning something.
• Japanese Spirit: Yamada claims that this was why he (in Itou's body) was able to beat up the three delinquents who sold her the fake "supernatural" merchandise when she (in Yamada's body) got easily beaten up by them. Shiraishi immediately calls that explanation nonsense.
• Jerkass:
  • Nene Odagiri started out as this, but she starts changing.
  • Noa and her friends aren't the nicest of people, but they do care about each other.
  • Same can be said for Ushio, but all of those actions were out of his love for Nene.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Yamada may be a delinquent, but he'll go out of his way to help people in trouble. Even if said people antagonized him.
  • Honestly, this trope applies to most characters in the series - it's only a selected few who are outright nice or outright jerks. Shiraishi, Miyamura, Itou, Tsubaki, Odagiri, Ushio, Tamaki, Leona and several of the witches have acted really unpleasant at times, but they've come back to show that they all have good hearts underneath. Yamada may very well have become the nicest (or at least most well-intentioned) of the main cast as long as he doesn't get carried away in the heat of the moment.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Nene never really faces any punishment for hypnotizing several people into being her obedient love slaves. Most likely because she never demanded too much from them and, as herself discovered when Yamada accidentally uses her own power on her, life is a lot more interesting for people in love.
  • Ushio doesn't really face much punishment for framing Yamada as the sole perpetrator of the street fight in their backstory. He refuses to apologize for it as well. Subverted since his memories of the incident were changed, and he really thought Yamada was the sole perpetrator. While he's never directly punished for anything, he spends the last third of the series atoning.
• Key Confusion: Subverted. Odagiri steals Asuka's keychain to get into the altar room and states that there's an awful lot of keys, most of which she doesn't know the purpose for, yet she manages to find the right key at the first try.
• Kimono Fanservice: Shiraishi and Itou are shown looking good in kimonos in chapter 120, and in yukatas in chapter 231.
• Kissing Discretion Shot: An increasing amount of kisses get off-screened the longer you get into the series, the reason being that most kisses are exchanged for practical rather than romantical reasons. In the last few arcs, the only kisses shown are the kisses that have an emotional impact on at least one of the involved characters and kisses that are meant as comic relief (for example Miyamura suddenly forcing his lips on Yamada's) - non-emotional kisses that are simply done to let Yamada copy witch powers are always off-screened.

L - R

• Lame Pun Reaction: Yamada, Odagiri and Tamaki give very exasperated Aside Glances when Rika makes a bad pun that she's in the science room because "science" sounds similar to "Rika" (this joke only works in Japanese - in the translation, she just says that students are equally likely to forget her and science, which is still a bit of a bad joke, but probably doesn't deserve the exasperated reaction).
• Landslide Election: Tamaki wins the president election by a landslide; presumably he got every single vote because Ushio wiped everybody's memories of Ichijo, the other candidate, right before the voting. Otherwise, Ichijo himself was about to win a landslide victory because Odagiri (through Yuri's manipulation power) roused everybody into thinking he was the best candidate. The day before the election day, however, Ichijo and Tamaki were equally matched in terms of popularity and expected votes.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • The power of Rika Saionji, which removes the memories of anything connected to the Witches from the targets mind if they know the last Witch's name. She herself will also be forgotten by everyone when she uses the power.
  • Later revealed Yamazaki, the student Council President, suffered from this as well. He was Leona's friend who lost all memories of her.
  • Later revealed that while the physical memories can be erased and altered by Rika's power, she cannot affect a person's genuine emotions.
• Last-Name Basis: Everyone rarely refers to anyone besides their last name. There are some aversions, though; Shiraishi and Itou refer to each other by first name, and most characters refer to Ushio, Noa, Kotori and Leona by their first names (in case of the latter, it's probably just to avoid confusion since her brother is referred to by last name). Generally, Itou and Sarushima use first names to/about girls and last names to/about boys.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • The last major arc of the series, the college preparations, is almost entirely mundane Slice of Life without any supernatural elements which is quite odd given that the main gimmick for the first 220+ chapters of the series was witch power hijinks.
  • The first half of the series, especially the first 50 or so chapters, was borderline ecchi when it came to naked skin and raunchy humor. This is heavily toned down for the last chapters, and though panty shots or boob jokes may slip in once a while, they're not as openly fanservicey or in-your-face as they used to be. It's especially noteworthy to compare one of the first hot spring scenes, in which Yamada (in Shiraishi's body) and Odagiri strut around completely in the nude (albeit with Barbie Doll Anatomy), with the last hot spring scene in which Yamada (again in Shiraishi's body) and Himekawa are completely covered up with Modesty Towels, even when washing.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In chapter 96, when Yamada and Shiraishi go into a sappy, romantic mode and kiss each other again and again, Kurosaki suddenly appears and tells them this isn't a girls' manga where they can "play kissy-face". He just about manages to stay within the fourth wall because it isn't made clear if he knows that they are characters in a Shōnen manga instead, or if he thinks that their world is reality.
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: When Ando is about to declare her love for Miyamura, Itou insists that they should leave the room, taking Yamada and Leona with her.
• Left Hanging: Due to the series suddenly being cancelled with Yoshikawa getting five chapters to finish the series, there is quite a lot of questions that are never answered after the last chapter. Among major things, Yamada never finds out how he got the copy power even though that was the Series Goal (it's only implied that he got it to be together with Shiraishi), we never really find out anything about the chairperson or Dark Takuma, Hino's character arc is never resolved (the poor girl's last appearance in the series ends with Yamada unwittingly breaking her heart), and we never find out exactly why witch powers work by kissing.
• Legacy Character:
  • According to Noa, the Witch powers are this. There is always a person who will have one of the Witch powers. If one Witch leaves the school, the powers will be passed onto another person. Noa herself got the power because the president ordered Tamaki to steal the power from her predecessor at the start of the year before the story begin. Also when Yamada wished for the Witch powers to go away only transferred to somebody else. The seventh witch is a variation since she can choose herself who her successor will be while the other powers are located more randomly.
  • The reborn witches show that even though the basic witch powers are the same from person to person, the specifics vary each time a power is passed on. For example, Noa and her successor Kurosaki can both see the past. But while Noa sees it in the form of a dream when she's sleeping, Kurosaki's mind directly travels back to the past and can interact with it.
• Lemony Narrator: The margin notes look informative at first glance, but they are fond of dishing out superfluous information. And making fun of Yamada.
• Lens Flare Censor: Used to obscure Odagiri's nipples and Miyamura's crotch during the bath scenes of the winter trip.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Happens when the Supernatural Studies Club goes searching for the seventh witch the first time. Yamada goes with Itou (being too awkward to admit that he'd like to go with Shiraishi), and Miyamura goes with Shiraishi, while Tsubaki, being the Butt-Monkey of the group, is left behind in the clubroom (though Miyamura convinces him to stay there by claiming Tsubaki is their backup who can come save them if something goes awry).
• Lighter and Softer: While the original manga is still light and soft, the live-action drama is even more so and can be rather sickly-sweet. It leaves out many of the dramatic moments and subplots (for example, in the manga, Leona and Rika are two very broken individuals with troubled backgrounds, but in the drama they're just another pair of schoolgirls (and are even friends), lacking any mean bone in their bodies). The result is pure feel-good comedy instead of the Dramedy tone the manga leans closer towards.
• Light Is Good: Himekawa's Reminiscence Power is considered good power, due to it showing people's happiest memory, and she is definitely shown to be good person which seems to be heading for Deconstruction due in the past, she intended to use the power to see who Yamada's liked most.
• Lightning Glare: Between Noa and Miyamura when they fight over who had the most romantic kiss with Yamada.
• Lingerie Scene: The series usually just goes with panty shots, but there are some lingerie scenes here and there, mostly when Yamada ends up in a girl's body, but also when Leona changes to her school uniform, when Arisugawa misunderstands Yamada's plan and thinks she doesn't have to just pretend to strip, and Shiraishi in a couple of Imagine Spots.
• Literally Falling in Love: Happens between Yamada and Shiraishi just before the moment that more or less confirms to the readers (but not in-universe yet) that their love for each other is mutual. Doubles with Suggestive Collision.
• Literal Transformative Experience: Ryu Yamada is a high school boy whose tough Delinquent reputation and poor grades leave him with no friends at his preppy school. Urara Shiraishi is a high school girl whose Shrinking Violet, Extreme Doormat personality leaves her similarly friendless and subject to lots of Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics; she is so disillusioned with her high school life that she doesn't plan on going to college despite being a bookworm out of fear it will just be more of the same. A mutual tumble down the stairs results in them discovering that they can have a "Freaky Friday" Flip whenever they kiss. So Ryu in Urara's body fends off her bullies and earns her the respect of their female classmates, Urara in Ryu's body does his tests for him and earns him the respect of the teachers, and the Supernatural Studies Club that they help restart with several other students who want to investigate and exploit the body switching power leads to them having a growing number of friends. This is explicitly brought up when Ryu notes that the powers the eponymous witches take on are influenced by what they want in life; Urara's dissatisfaction with her life resulted in her gaining the body swap ability.
• Live-Action Adaptation: The manga received an adaptation in the form of a 10-episode live-action drama an entire two years before the anime adaptation aired.
• Loss of Identity: Rika Saionji, it is revealed, lacks any real personal memories out of her duties serving the Senior Council President.
• Lost in Translation:
  • The speech pattern of Alex, the American exchange student. He formulates his Japanese sentences in a way that's technically grammatically correct, but sounds very odd and unnatural. In the English translation, he talks like everybody else except for in a few cases where his odd way of talking is lampshaded by others.
  • The Stock Ness Monster of Suzaku High's park pond is named Susshi, which is clearly a portmanteau of "Suzaku" and "Nesshi" (the Japanese phonetical spelling of "Nessie"). Thus it would make more sense if it was transliterated into English as "Sussie", but because the translation keeps the Japanese spelling, the portmanteau is lost on many of the English readers.
  • When Tsubaki lists a bunch of guys as potential boyfriends for Itou, he refers to Tamaki as "Tamakin", to which Itou replies that a guy "with a nickname like that" is definitely not boyfriend material. In Japanese, it makes sense that Itou is grossed out since "Tamakin" is Japanese backslang for "testicles" (usually called "kintama" in casual speech). In the English translation, however, it makes very little sense why she would by offended by Tsubaki adding an innocuous "N" to Tamaki's name.
  • When Yamada has rejoined the Supernatural Studies Club after the second memory wipe, Shiraishi uses the term "fuwa fuwa" (literally "fluffy, fluffy") to describe how she feels when she's together with him. The others then comically freak out over the saccharinity of it all because it's uncharacteristic for Shiraishi to use such as cutesy expression. In the English translation, she says she feels "nice and relaxed" which is technically a correct translation of the metaphorical meaning of "fuwa fuwa", yet is a much more neutral and much less cutesy way to describe your feelings, making it weirder that the others start freaking out.
• Love at First Sight: It's all but stated that this is what happened during Yamada and Shiraishi's meeting near the end of the second term of their first year. Yamada is sent to the staffroom, and later that day, Shiraishi appears in the vision Himekawa gets from him with her romance power, meaning that they must have fallen in love almost instantly when they met in the staffroom.
• Love Bubbles: These sometimes appear in comical Imagine Spots, though never in actual romantic scenes.
• Love Chart: Yamada and Miyamura envision these when they talk about Yamazaki's Love Triangle and later "love pentagon".
• Love Confession:
  • Noa gives a surprisingly casual one to Yamada.
  • Yamada gives one to Shiraishi but due to the Laser-Guided Amnesia. She turns him down.
  • Yamada tries again in chapter 90 after Shiraishi recovers her memories. This time, she accepts. For additional Awww value, she confirms that the reason why she rejected him before was because at the time she knew she was in love with someone even she couldn't remember who that person was.
• Love Dodecahedron: Miyamura imagines a "love pentagon" with Yamazaki (in love with Leona), Leona (in love with Yamazaki), Rika (in love with Yamazaki), Asuka (in love with Yamazaki), and himself (in love with Leona).
• Love Triangle: Yamazaki, Lenora, and Rika once the memories come back. Miyamura is disturbed.
• Loving a Shadow: Meiko falls in love with Shiraishi in Yamada's body. Yamada has to explain the Witches to her to show that the person she has feelings for doesn't really exist.
• Luminescent Blush: As per typical of a manga and anime, the characters always blush this way. The effect is also used whenever the characters are crying.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Zigzagged. Played straight with the regular witch powers and the witch-killer powers which have very steadfast rules for how they work (they only work through kisses, a victim can only be put under one witch power at a time, they are attached to the mind instead of the body etc.), with especially the witch-killer powers being subject to the Powers as Programs concept. The seventh witch power, on the hand, seems to change its effects and rules slightly depending on what's more convenient for the plot.
• Magic by Any Other Name: The magic that the witches and witch-killers use is never actually called ”magic”, only ”powers” or ”witch powers”. The Japanese word for witch, “majo”, literally translates into “magical woman”, so the word “magic” is used in the series that way, but that is of course Lost in Translation.
• Magic Kiss: With the exception of the seventh witch whose memory manipulation powers are activated with the power of thought and a few oddballs later in the series (such as Ichijo who uses his powers with handshakes and Yuri who uses his powers by headbutting), witch powers need to be activated with a kiss on the lips.
• Meaningful Appearance: Shiraishi in particular can always be recognized on the red, X-shaped hair pins she wears in her hair above her ears.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Takuma at one point suggests for Yamada and Shiraishi to have sex in the middle of the street. Shiraishi seems okay with it, though after a Delayed Reaction Yamada refuses.
• Malt Shop: As a rare Japanese example, the Saburo Café which is shown a few times from chapter 138 and onwards is furnished as a kitschy American diner and is very popular with the students of Suzaku High.
• Man Hug: Yamada and Sid give each other one of these, along with a fist bump and a handshake, as some sort of unspoken ritual to start off their "bittersweet alliance".
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Zigzagged with Yamada (sometimes he cops a feel, sometimes he doesn't), played straight with Miyamura. Also, unlike most examples of the trope, it's usually played straight when a girl is in a boy's body for the first time - it's a Running Gag that the girl looks at the boy's (usually Yamada's) junk and comments it in some way.
• Martial Arts Headband: The unnamed girl that Kurosaki and Arisugawa thought had become a witch because she suddenly started getting better grades (in reality, she was just starting to apply herself) is seen cramming while wearing a headband with the Japanese flag.
• Masquerade: The student council president and the seventh witch are officially the only ones at the school who should be privvy to the existence of the witches (though the president can share the secret with other student council members and witch-killers if he wants to), because the fear is that a huge ruckus will arise if the student body finds out that there are supernatural powers in their school. Hence the reason for the seventh witch to act as a one-person Memory-Wiping Crew.
• Massage of Love: Defied. Yamada tries to cheer up Shiraishi when he assumes she's mad at him by saying her shoulders must be stiff and he can massage them. She refuses by saying very matter-of-factly that they aren't stiff.
• Maybe Ever After: Three couples by the end of the series:
  • Leona and Yamazaki who are the main couple of the series after Yamada and Shiraishi. They were definitely in love with each other in high school, but Leona rejects Yamazaki at graduation because he doesn't have the guts to ask her out on his own, and says she'll wait for the day when he manages to do it. In the epilogue, they appear together, but are simply mentioned to "get along well". It's not known if they have become a couple, if they have moved on from their romance, or if Yamazaki is still not able to ask her out.
  • Itou and Tsubaki. Tsubaki falls in love with Itou after getting over his hopeless crush with Shiraishi, but she doesn't notice or reciprocate it during high school. In the epilogue, Odagiri asks Itou why she doesn't just marry Tsubaki, but it's not clear if she was joking, or if the two of them are a couple now.
  • Nancy and Sid. Sid was in love with Nancy all along, but Nancy is in love with Yamada until she gets over him by the end of the second witch war. It's unknown if she started to notice Sid, or if she even keeps in touch with him after high school - she plays in a band at Yamada and Shiraishi's wedding, but her band members aren't shown clearly.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The witch powers themselves. Yamazaki is the first person to speculate that since they cannot be physical proven given that they're all Psychic Powers, they may not actually exist in the first place. After Shiraishi leaves the school, the witch powers disappear, and ten years later, they've never appared again. Yamada himself thinks that they may just have been part of everyone's imagination, but he accepts that he'll never find out if they were real or not.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Urara Shiraishi means "beautiful" and "white stone" respectively.
  • Yamada's given name means Dragon. Miyamura's given name has the kanji of "tiger". Dragon and Tiger. The Hero and The Lancer?
  • Inverted in case of Miyabi however. Miyabi means graceful but she's the tomboy to Urara's girly girl.
  • Takigawa means "waterfall river". Noa has blue hair and blue eyes. Her power to see the past is like water, an irreversible flow. The name Noa is homophone with Noah (and that's indeed how Yoshikawa spells Noa's name).
  • The pinyin used in Rika's name means flower of truth.
• Melting-Pot Nomenclature: The series takes place in modern-day Japan, yet has two ethnically Japanese characters named Leona and Sid. Possibly justified in Leona's case, since she was born in London as the daughter of a diplomat, though her brother still has an obviously Japanese name (Toranosuke). Noa is a vague case, as while "Noa" can be a Japanese name, her name has also been given the Westernized spelling "Noah" on Yoshikawa's Twitter.
• Men Don't Cry: Somewhat present at the start of the series. The guys would sometimes do Ocular Gushers for the sake of comedy, but the girls were the only ones who occasionally shed actual tears in more serious scenes. After Yamazaki's Manly Tears during his reunion with Leona became one of the series' more emotional moments, the tendency was averted, and in the rest of the series you can see both guys and girls cry in sad or touching scenes.
• Milholland Relationship Moment: Most of the drama in Yamada and Shiraishi's relationship derives from this. Yamada constantly worries that something he's doing - for example needing to kiss other witches and hang out with Himekawa in the handicrafts club - will hurt Shiraishi, but it always turns out that Shiraishi isn't bothered in the least, and she even gives him some encouraging words. Reversely, the one time when Shiraishi is hurt by something Yamada did - spending too much time in the student council and not enough time with her - Yamada is oblivious to notice that it might be a problem.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: The older teachers of Suzaku High are all very short, the tallest of them reaching to the shoulders of the students.
• Modesty Towel: The characters always wear these when entering hot springs, but whether or not we see them without the towel varies - Odagiri has been shown naked a few times, Himekawa not so much.
• Mood Whiplash: Rika's arc regularly inserts wackiness into even the most grim moments, but also makes some comedic scenes suddenly take a turn for the worse. The rest of the series is a downplayed example as it stays lighthearted all the time, but still doesn't shy away from randomly adding drama to comedy (and vice versa), just the same way as mangas like Fairy Tail and One Piece do it.
• Morton's Fork: Kimishima gets into one such situation shortly after her introduction. The student council wants to demolish the Old School Building, in which her archery club has their clubroom, and move all of the clubrooms into a soon-to-be-built new school building. However, to do this they need to have all of the club presidents vote in favor of the new construction at a meeting. Kimishima strongly wants to vote against the development because she wants to fulfill a tradition in her clubroom which involves finishing the strokes of the character "shingi ittai" on a wall next time she wins a tournament. Odagiri, wanting to curry favor in the student council, has her henchman Ushio lock Kimishima inside the clubroom with Yamada and Miyamura right before the meeting. Yamada realizes that the only way to get out of the room is to tear down the "shingi ittai" wall since the other walls are reinforced. In short; if they tear down the wall, Kimishima can go to the meeting and vote no, but that won't mean anything since she already lost the thing that made her want to vote no, and if they stay inside the room, everyone else will vote yes, and the wall (and room) will be torn down anyway. Fortunately, Yamada takes another option by putting the last stroke on the character and having Kimishima promise that she'll win her next tournament.
• Ms. Fanservice: Nene gets a lot of shots of naked skin and underwear, although it's always unintentional.
• Muggle Best Friend: Miyamura and Itou (and later Tsubaki) have no powers, regardless the club members grow very close.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: More like genuine female intuition than a supernatural power, but in chapter 90 Nene was able to perceive the moment when Yamada and Shiraishi hooked up.
• My Skull Runneth Over: A very mild version; if a memory-wiped person gets his/her memories restored, they will need to sleep in order for their brain to process all of this new information. In some characters' case, like Leona, it simply results in them becoming very tired, but in Yamada and Otsuka's case, they outright drop asleep.
• Mysterious Animal Senses: Shiraishi's cat is able to tell that Yamada in Shiraishi's body is not the real Shiraishi, as mentioned by a side note and shown by how it becomes really aggressive and starts hissing.
• Necessary Drawback: As pointed out by Odagiri, most witch powers have at least one of these, and that's the reason why the witches generally aren't nigh-unstoppable. In the day-to-day life, the major drawback of most witch powers is Power Incontinence - you cannot kiss anyone without automatically using the power, and the powers have fixed effects that can backfire in certain situations. The lack of necessary drawbacks was why Odagiri considered Konno's power to be so dangerous; because it has to be manually activated after the kiss, and because she just plain controls people without affecting their emotions.
• Necessarily Evil:
  • Since she started having feelings about Yamada, Shiraishi has held this view about Yamada kissing people. Since he is immune to the powers, it logically makes sense but she hates it. Especially after she became his girlfriend.
  • After Shiraishi was de-powered but other Witches were revealed and Yamada had to seek them out again, he was also bothered about kissing the Witches since he'd place her under a spell if they kissed, but he figured that they'll just have to kiss twice to cancel it out.
• Never Trust a Title:
  • The chapter titles are just lines or onomatopoeias from their respective chapters taken out of context, and in 95 % of the cases they tell nothing about what happens in the chapter. (And even when they do, their meaning is often only clear after you've read the chapter)
  • Series title is a subversion after a long build-up. While it invites a plot of some sort of witches' activity around Yamada-kun, for 3 out of 12 anime episodes, the only one doing supernatural things is Yamada himself, the "witch" word is never mentioned. Those pointy hats seen on and off a number of characters in the series opening work as an artistic nod to pretense-of-a-School Club Yamada ends up in.
• New Body, Old Abilities:
  • The body-swap power is a mental power, not a physical one, and that means users of the power can always swap bodies even if they aren't in their original body, sometimes resulting in complicated switches, for example in chapter 10 where Yamada swaps bodies with Shiraishi and then swaps bodies with Miyamura and Itou while he's still in Shiraishi's body.
  • A slightly odder example is fighting skills. Shiraishi is not very athletic and not physically strong, and yet both Yamada and Asuka, who are strong hand-to-hand fighters, keep their fighting skills when they've swapped bodies with her.
• New Year Has Come: Chapter 119 is about the main celebration in the Yamada family on New Years' Eve, and chapter 120 is about the Supernatural Studies Club visiting a shrine one of the following days and later hanging out in Itou's apartment.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Yamada thought that the witches' powers will be gone for good. However, Yamazaki informs them that the powers themselves cannot be erased and consequently new seven witches will be selected.
• Nice to the Waiter: The reason Miyamura made Arisugawa and Kurosaki the vice-presidents of the student council - even though he considered them incompetent - was that they didn't treat Yamada, the secretary (and the school's most unpopular student to boot), any different than they treated Miyamura and the other interviewers. In fact, this was one of the main reasons Yamada was appointed secretary - to see which students who didn't treat him unfairly, in order to make sure that the new student council members wouldn't be impartial.
• No Antagonist: After the second witch war, there are no lasting antagonists for the rest of the series, and the obstacles are simply the troubles that the characters go through to recover the lost memories. The closest thing to an antagonist is Yuri and Dark Takuma brewing sinister plans in the background, but they're not actual villains for anything but a couple of chapters and are quickly made to cooperate with the heroes.
• Nobody Here but Us Birds: Subverted hilariously in chapter 95, where Yamada tried to use this trope to avoid getting mistaken for a pervert (once again) during a hot spring scene:
  Arisugawa: Huh? What was that? Is someone there...?
  Yamada: [hiding behind a rock] Meow... Meow...!!
  Arisugawa: Oh, phew! It's just a dog.
  Yamada: [jumping out of cover] That was a cat!!
• Non-Indicative Name: Because Rika is the last one of the first seven witches to be discovered, the characters coin the term "seventh witch" for her witch type, i.e. someone who can erase memories related to witches and track witch powers. As such, they also use the term to describe Nancy and Takuma, even though they're both the second witch to be discovered in their groups.
• Noodle Incident: When Yamada switches bodies with the new body-swap witch Alex, Alex does something unmentionable to Odagiri, and the rest of the chapter plays for laughs the fact that neither Yamada or the readers know what it was. The only hints we get was that it was something sexual that you shouldn't do to other girls when you have a girlfriend, something bad enough to make Shiraishi fairly angry, and something that was not a kiss given that Odagiri didn't wise up to the body-swap.
• No Ontological Inertia: Yamada hoped this would be the case when he wished for all the Witch Powers to vanish. And he was right as the memories of the ones affected by the seventh witch were returned.
• Nosebleed: Par for the course almost every time a male character sees some naked skin, gets physically close to a girl or has dirty fantasies.
• No-Sell: Witches' powers don't work on Yamada. However if a Witch kisses him, the power he just copied from them will instead be used on them.
• Not Brainwashed: Yamada's old friend Ushio Igarashi is under the influence of Nene's Witch power, but he knows that he's under her power and accepts it. And he's also in love with her without the power.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Yamada sometimes switches with Shiraishi so she can do his tests and homework. He uses the telepathy power in order for him, Meiko, and her friends to finish their schoolwork early in summer school.
• Not Drawn to Scale: Sizes aren't particularly consistent on Suzaku High:
  • The altar room looks pretty small when Odagiri enters it the first time, but in some later appearances - especially in double spreads - it's practically cathedral-sized! Fitting for a room that looks like a church. In other appearances, it's the same size as the student council office (which itself also varies in size from about twice as big as a regular clubroom to twice as big as a regular classroom, but usually somewhere in inbetween).
  • The room of the Supernatural Studies Club is always fairly small, but it varies from scene to scene whether the table takes up almost the entire room, or if there's some available floor space.
  • The poetry clubroom is notably bigger than the room of the Supernatural Studies Club (and it's mentioned that the clubrooms in the new school building are bigger than the old clubrooms) during its first appearance, but in later appearances it's about the same size as the Supernatural Studies Club.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After over eighty chapters, major changes to the status quo arise after all seven witches are gathered for a ritual in the same place. Yamada wishes the Witch powers would go away, but this leads to the appearance of brand new ones in different people. The subplots about the antagonistic Student Council end with Yamada and friends getting control of the Council, with Miyamura as the new President and some new blood. Yamada and Shiraishi go steady. And then the second witch war begins with two new batches of witches.
• No Title: Chapter 140 for some reason doesn't have a title when it comes out, but is given a title in the volume.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Subverted when Kurosaki wants to kiss Yamada to swap bodies with him. When he's about to kiss Yamada, Miyamura - whom he has a hopeless crush on - walks in. Kurosaki panics and yells that it was not what it looked like, although Miyamura indifferently says "I don't care what you're doing" (he usually gets excited when there's romance in the air) which suggests he knew what they were doing.
  • Played straight and for drama in Rika's arc when Yamada needs to kiss Odagiri to copy her charm power. Shiraishi sees them kissing, and due to having forgotten about Yamada and the witches, she does indeed think they are kissing for romantical reasons. Her conscious mind tells her that she shouldn't care since she doesn't know them, but her unconsciousness makes her cry.
• Notzilla: Yamazaki mentions that he skipped his university classes to see a popular movie about a giant lizard monster named "Godzoola".
• Nuclear Family: Yamada and Miyamura both live in homes consisting of a mom, a dad, a son and a daughter, although Miyamura's family is slightly more dysfunctional than Yamada's. Averted with Shiraishi and Itou; Shiraishi doesn't have any siblings, and Itou has divorced parents and is indicated to have no siblings either. Tsubaki is a vague case as while he lives with both of his parents, we don't know if he has siblings.
• Numerical Theme Naming: For the Male Witches:
  • One: Masamune Ichijo
  • Two: Jin Kurosaki (Jin(仁) contains radical for two)
  • Three: Yuri Miura
  • Six: Hikaru Suzuhara (Hikaru contains radical for six)
  • Seven: Rui Takuma (Taku(詫) contains radical for seven)
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Yamada is kind of dense about the matter, as his focus is only on Shiraishi, he doesn't realize if other girls are infatuated with him.
  • Nene is also oblivious to Tamaki's crush on her.
• Ocular Gushers: When the characters cry for the sake of comedy, they cry like this, with thick streams of tears running from their eyes and sometimes also snot running from their noses to combine the trope with Inelegant Blubbering. When they cry in serious scenes, they cry more realistically with a few separate tears.
• Oddly Visible Eyebrows: Averted for the first many chapters. The trope starts being used when Rika - whose eyebrows are covered by her bangs - needs to convey feelings. It soon starts being used on other characters with bangs, and it doesn't take long before all characters' eyebrows are Oddly Visible in every single panel.
• Official Couple: It took long enough for it to actually happen, and they still have their ups and downs, but it's become abundantly clear at this point that no power on Earth can sink the ship that is Yamada/Shiraishi.
• Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: After Yamada and Shiraishi become a couple, they can't seem to have a normal romantic relationship for more than a few chapters until something comes up to spoil their relationship, after which this something must be solved. However, since they're so happy together, it's almost always external circumstances that keep them apart rather than emotional issues, for example Yamada being too busy in the student council, Shiraishi losing her memories of Yamada, and finally Shiraishi moving away.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Shiraishi's birthday party on the winter trip. For some reason, it's never shown, but Tamaki indicates a few chapters later that it was very successful.
• Old School Building: Being a prestigious high school, Suzaku High of course has one of these. A variation is that it's seemingly built with bricks instead of wood, and that it's torn down and replaced by a nice new school building three quarters into the series.
• Once per Episode: Every time the Supernatural Studies Club is shown on a new day, it has a new mascot keychain hanging from the club sign.
• Once Upon a Time: The picture book that is the Framing Device for the entire series begins with the Japanese version of this, "long, long ago", and then corrects itself to say "well, not so long ago" (referring to the fact that the first chapter takes place in April 2011 in-universe and came out in February 2012).
• One Cast Member per Cover: From Volumes 1 to 10, each cover has a different character. Volume 11 breaks the pattern as multiple characters start being depicted on the covers.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted as there are two characters named Aiko - one-note character Aiko Gagada and the somewhat more significant Aiko Chikushi. It may or may not be intentional as they are both fortunetellers - but while Gagada is a fraud, Chikushi is a real witch who has an actual precognition power.
• Only Sane Man: Yamada himself. Except for a few of his more Hot-Blooded moments, he actually seems to be the character with the most common sense and the most Meta Guy reactions, even if he isn't the smartest person out there.
• Only Six Faces: There may be subtle differences here and there, like some characters have slightly bigger eyes or rounder heads, but in general you would have a very hard time differentiating most characters' faces if their signature hairstyles were switched around. This goes for the guys as well as the girls. This adds some odd subtext to the revelation that Nancy is someone from Yamada's past, though he doesn't remember her - due to the art style, she looks exactly like Shiraishi and slightly to Odagiri when she lets her hair down. The latter is actually plot point with Yamada mistook her for Odagiri as the girl that he and Ushio rescued.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • All the students started freaking out immediately when they noticed Yamada was studying seriously.
  • Miyamura after his memories are wiped of Yamada being his friend, sees his Hair-Trigger Temper sister asks Yamada in, doesn't object when Nene and Tamaki barge in, and hears his sister laugh for the first time in a long time. He finds it disturbing but enough of a reason to trust Yamada.
• Operation: [Blank]: Yamada calls his plan to catch a peeper "Operation Decoy", with "decoy" referring to Arisugawa who has to stand by a big locker room window and pretend to take off her clothes so that the peeper will hopefully appear.
• Opposites Attract: Yamada and Urara are as opposite as they can get as one is a Book Dumb emotion-driven fighter and the other is a stoic and brilliant student, but they both love each other.
• Out-of-Character Alert: An inversion. Seeing Shiraishi doing a Roundhouse Kick made Miyamura realize it was actually Yamada in Shiraishi's body.
• Passing the Torch: Chapter 232 is about this. The third years are retiring from the Supernatural Studies Club and need to find a new president to carry on the club (also so that the club won't be shut down).
• Perception Filter: The power of Mikoto Asuka until Tamaki took it from her, which makes anyone that gets kissed be incapable of seeing or otherwise noticing that person.
• Platonic Kissing: Given that the series is about using magic powers through kisses, platonic kisses happen much more often than romantic kisses - though the fact that the kiss is technically platonic doesn't necessarily prevent any of the participants from being awkward about it.
• Playboy Bunny: Yamada (in Shiraishi's body) wears one such costume during his sleepover with Itou - just one of Itou's innumerable weird or skimpy costumes. Odagiri is also made to be a Playboy bunny in the never-translated "Yamada and Yamazaki" omake.
• Plot Hole: The series has a fair amount of them, all the way from scenes that simply seem a bit contrived to scenes that outright defy the rules already established by the series:
  • Despite that the series uses a few chapters on defining Sarushima's power and its rules clearly (you only see a short glimpse of your future, you can only see a future involving yourself, you see your future from the kissee's point of view, and you cannot change the future unless you use another witch power in your attempt to do so), it is subject to more inconsistencies than the other powers, especially in later arcs. Among others:
    • When Yamada acted as a fortuneteller at the culture festival, how did he see Ushio receiving an indirect kiss from Odagiri? The indirect kiss was Odagiri taking a bite out of a yakisoba bread and then giving the bread to him, but Yamada wasn't present at that scene.
    • The sad future in which Shiraishi becomes unlucky because she is made student council secretary: Sarushima appears in the vision, but since Yamada gets the vision from kissing her, she shouldn't be visible at it's from her point of view. Also, this vision is way too long to be considered a "short glimpse".
  • When Yamada used the charm power on the amnesiac Miyamura in order to be invited to his house, it shouldn't have worked since Miyamura was still under invisibility power at the time. Of course, it is very much possible that Tamaki lifted the spell off-screen because he had lost the president race and didn't need to use dirty tricks anymore, but it isn't explained in-universe at all.
  • Similarly to the above, it's sometimes forgotten whose power is used on who:
    • One of Otsuka's friends, Tsurukawa, and Kimishima are later established to be in the same class as Kotori who has used her power on every single one of her classmates. And yet, Tsurukawa is obviously under Otsuka's power (until she loses it), and Kimishima wasn't under any power at the culture festival since Yamada was able to tell her future in the fortune-teller stand - the only explanation being that Kotori discovered her power very recently.
  • The bonus chapter about Yamada and Itou’s sleepover is clearly part of the Canon since it has been referenced several times in the actual story, but the plot hole comes from how it doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in the timeline. It takes place after Tsubaki joins the club, and after the new term has started, but clearly before Rika’s mind-wipe occurs. Problem is that every single day between the start of the new term and the meeting with Rika is covered, and the characters are way too busy with other things for the events of the bonus chapter to realistically be able to take place.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure:
  • Happens in the first witch war, though as a more justified case than most given that the reason for the friendship failure is that Yamada's friends forget everything about him. They are very cold towards him at first and only truly warm up to him again when their memories return.
  • Subverted in the second first war; Nancy predicts that this trope might happen by saying that Miyamura's most important task is to ensure that Yamada remains loyal, alluding to the fact that Yamada may find out about the lost memories sooner or later and help the Japanese chess club recovering them. Nothing bad happens because Yamada only focuses on recovering his own memories, and Miyamura remains supportive to him.
• Plot Tumor: The memory manipulation power. In the first witch war, the memory wipe is - though an important part of Big Bad Yamazaki's backstory - mostly a final obstacle for Yamada to overcome, and the overall plot focuses more on his relationship to Shiraishi and the other witches. By the second witch war and onwards, the story is all about memory manipulation; memories are wiped left and right for a multitude of reasons, everybody is revealed to have lost their memories at some point or another in past, all characters try to ally with the seventh witches so that they effectively control the memory wipes, and the ceremony is relegated to a mere Plot Device for returning memories.
• Power Copying: What Yamada's power turns out to be. Effectively this makes him the only person who can use their powers on a Witch. All the other rules of powers still apply.
• Power Incontinence: Some of the witch powers have this as a drawback.
  • The Charm victims will end up being loving stalkers to the witch. Also not all shall fall in love with the user.
  • The body switch witch must switch when kissing someone, regardless of personal desires.
  • The two Seers must see flashes of either the future or past when they kiss.
    • For premonition witch: you can't control the future you want to see, or change it unless other witch powers are involved in the equation. The latter is not applied to Chikushi due to her be able to change it at will, albeit, by herself.
    • For retrospective witch: you are going to have nightmare every nights as part of side effect(seeing people's traumatic past). Again, this is not applied to Himekawa due to her seeing positive memories.
  • The telepathy witch cannot stop thoughts from coming in or going out. This is not applied to Kotori as she can distance herself when she doesn't want to read thoughts.
  • The invisibility witch must first trick the victim's mind into unable to see or remember her first before she is invisible. Kikuchi's version simply makes her invisible to those she kisses instead of complicated method like the former one.
  • The amnesia witch shall be forgotten as long as she still has and using her power. Nancy, or rather, Haruko gets around this by using alias.
• Power Misidentification: The student council members initially believe that Konno has the same charm power as Odagiri given that she can make her team comrades do her bidding. But then it turns out that Konno's power is simply a Compelling Voice; she makes people obey her, but unlike Odagiri's power, she doesn't make people fall in love with her, so there's no emotional strings attached and no risk of insubordination.
• The Power of Friendship: The series is generally not so in-your-face about it as some Shōnen series can be, but friendship is nonetheless an important theme. Yamada even points out that he would never have managed to help all of the witches if his friends hadn't helped him in the first place. It's also emphasized that even though the Japanese chess club members share common goals, they don't have the solidarity of our heroes, and that is one of their weaknesses.
• Power Parasite: The power of Tamaki, which steals the power of any Witch he kisses. It lasts until another girl is kissed, then the power is replaced and returns to the one the power belonged to. Leona has Tamaki return the invisibility power to Asuka so that she can participate in the ceremony.
• Powers as Programs: Magic is apparently very easily copied, but on the other hand there doesn't appear to be any way of storing it. Unfortunately for Yamada he doesn't think this through and ends up overwriting the love power, leaving him unable to reverse the love effect on Miyamura and Miyabi until he can get to Nene and copy her power again. He is not pleased when he realises this.
• Power Perversion Potential: Yamada is usually surprisingly responsible. However, this doesn't stop the other characters imagining what Yamada could do with the power, nor does it stop Itou and Miyamura from acting like complete perverts when under certain powers. It's safe to say that Yoshikawa, as the author, has considered the implications of the powers.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The two OVAs, bundled with the manga volumes, are more of an animated showcase of the manga pre-status quo shakeup than a "proper" adaptation. They comprise a Slice of Life gag story focusing on Supernatural Club hijinks instead of the search for the Witches, and the first one begins with most characters already established with minimal introductions since the readers are probably expected to know them already. All of the original Seven Witches appear but most of them are not explicitly said to be Witches. However, the OVAs do give some insight to Tamaki's Freudian Excuse (toward Yamada being happy with his friends), as well as some minor appearances for Kimishima, who doesn't appear in the anime.
• Present-Day Past:
  • Chapter 120 was released in August 2014, but takes place in January 2012 in-universe. In the chapter, Itou has a PlayStation 4 which wasn't released until late 2013 and hadn't even been announced in 2012. On the other hand, that would explain why Tsubaki is so surprised by it...
  • In chapter 123 (released in September 2014), Kurosaki accidentally travels to the past, more specifically the month of June in 2006. One of the things that make him aware that he's travelled to the past is that the Tokyo Skytree is still under construction. However, the main story of the chapter takes place sometime in January 2012, meaning that Skytree hasn't been completed in his own present either! (It wasn't completed until February 29th in 2012 and wasn't opened until May the same year)
  • In chapter 207 which takes place during spring 2012 in-universe (released in June 2016), Yamada is looking for an old mail from his first year of high school (two years earlier) in the messaging app Line. He can't find anything and Miyamura thinks he didn't use Line because it wasn't as massively popular around late 2010/early 2011 as it is now. Two slight mistakes in this... One: Line wasn't only less popular - it didn't even exist (it was released in March 2011). Two: Line wasn't massively popular yet in 2012 - the popularity started to hit in 2013.
• Prophecies Are Always Right: Zigzagged. The future shown in the visions of the precognition power can be changed if you use another witch power in your attempt to change them, but otherwise the visions are always right and the future unchangeable. Basically, prophecies are always right in a realistic world, but not always right in a magical world.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality:
  • None of their friends have any ethical issues with Yamada and Shiraishi switching bodies so she can take tests for him.
  • Nor are there complaints when Meiko uses her telepathy to help her friends and Yamada during the summer help sessions.
• Psychic Powers: What the powers of the Witches are.
  • For the first witch group: "Freaky Friday" Flip, Charm Person, Telepathy, Seers, Flashback Nightmare, Perception Filter, and Laser-Guided Amnesia.
  • For Nancy's witch group: Compelling Voice, Telepathy, two Seers (one with precognition and one with retrocognition), "Freaky Friday" Flip, Perception Filter, and Laser-Guided Amnesia.
  • For Takuma's witch group: Mental Time Travel, Emotion Bomb, Mind Control, Charm Person, "Freaky Friday" Flip, the power for a Split Personality to change between the personalities at will, and Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Psychic Link: What Otsuka's telepathy power creates. Anyone who's been kissed by her can communicate telepathically not only with her, but also with others who have been kissed by her, making it the only witch power (except for the seven witch's ability to designate a spotter) that can grant ordinary people temporary powers.
• Quitting to Get Married: The concept is brought up in the epilogue when Yamada says that he shouldn't ask Shiraishi to quit her job to go to Brazil with him because she makes a lot more money than him, and Itou later says that her students tease her about not being married, but that she doesn't want to marry for the time being because she loves her job.
• Rainbow Motif: The six normal witches of Nancy's witch group are all named after a color, and Nancy's real name (surname) is Nijino, of which "niji" means "rainbow". However, their Color Motifs aren't the colors of rainbow (there are no red, orange and yellow among them).
• Rays from Heaven: For symbolic reasons, the ceremonies (which are held in a church-like room) always end with these after starting with rain.
• Real Men Hate Affection: As a rule, averted. Yamada and Miyamura - and sometimes others - have shown being fully able to talk about their feelings with each other. Yamada can be a little uncomfortable, but generally not more than he is when he's talking about his feelings with a girl. The guys in this series generally don't mind being physical with each other either - of course, this is inevitable when people use their powers by kissing, but seeing two boys hug each other isn't a rare occurrence either.
• Red Herring:
  • Before all seven witches were accounted for, other semi-prominent female characters could be considered this - like Karen Kimishima, the archery team captain who appears occasionally.
  • Since four of the five original student council members turn out to be very important down the line despite that they may seem insignificant at first, you'd be forgiven if you thought that the fifth member, Inose (the girl with the pigtails and the hoodie), would be equally important. She even has more lines than the other members in their introductory chapter. But no, she never plays any role and hasn't been seen for such a long time that she may have left the series for good. She was probably just there to act as the normal student among two witches, a ruthless manipulator and a revengeful guy who wants to hunt down the seventh witch.
• Regal Ringlets: Yamada in Shiraishi's body wears "his" hair this way when he tries on Itou's princess dress.
• Reinventing the Telephone: Subverted with the telepathy power - Yamada and later Odagiri complain that it's a useless power because cell phones can be used for the exact same purpose, but they don't factor in that telepathy is available in certain situations where your phone is turned off or not on your person, like an exam (which allows them to cheat) or when swimming (which lets Yamada save Otsuka from drowning).
• Relationship Reset Button: Happens no less than twice to Shiraishi after she starts dating Yamada in chapter 90, because of two different types of memory-wipes. It's not overly dramatic - the first time, she is convinced by her diary that Yamada is her boyfriend and soon opens up to him, and the second time Yamada immediately restores her memories with a kiss since the witch powers have gone forever.
• Relationship Revolving Door: Yamada and Shiraishi go through several periods where they are technically not dating, but the trope is more justified here than in most cases because it's memory loss that makes them stop dating. Shiraishi even points out in chapter 225 that Yamada has asked her out four times, which becomes five times at the end of the series since she loses her memory of him one more time. They are also "on a break" at one point.
• Relationship Upgrade: Yamada and Shiraishi finally start dating in chapter 90.
• Religion is Magic: Even though no-one knows what the origin of the witch powers actually is, there are some undertones of this trope, especially when it comes to the ceremony. The ceremony can only be held in a room that looks like a church nave, the witches have to stand in a prayer-like circle and join hands, they have to stand on a pentagram that is hidden under an altar (although Rika points that the pentagram itself is just for show, and the witches just have to stand in the circles), and the first ceremony ends with a huge beam of sunlight suddenly penetrating the window.
• Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: The series is an offender of this to an almost ridiculous degree when it comes to exposition. Almost every chapter, the story cuts to a scene where a character repeats the exposition another character just told them. An example is when Yamada decides to swap bodies with Tsubaki to prevent the school fire. The next scene opens with Itou/Miyamura saying "so you want to swap bodies with Kentaro Tsubaki?!" instead of Yamada himself saying it.
• Reset Button: Rika, The Seventh Witch hits it by deleting everyone's memories of Yamada from Chapter 1 until now, reversing the Witches' character development and resulting in them blatantly misusing their powers again.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: When Alex swapped bodies with Yamada and met with Odagiri, he did an unknown thing that made Odagiri very embarrassed and made both Odagiri and Shiraishi angry that "Yamada" who already has a girlfriend would do this thing to another girl. After some chapters where the readers are left to their own imagination about the incident, it's revealed that Alex asked Odagiri out on a date.
• The Reveal:
  • Leona, Miyamura's sister, realizes Tamaki just doesn't strip the power from a witch, he could give it back to a witch or new person.
  • Leona also reveals not only was she in the original Supernatural Studies Club, Yamazaki was in it too and his original goal to be Student Council President was to keep the club alive. And then Rika joined, and out of jealousy, set Yamazaki up to erase his memories so she would have him.
  • Miyamura learns and tells Yamada Kotori and Konno had their powers long before Yamada erased the original witches' powers, and as such there are 14 witches on the school and not seven.
  • Chapter 151 turns one integral part of the series on its head: We were, through 150 chapters, lead to believe that Yamada led a lonely high school life before the start of the series other than a short-lived friendship with Ushio. But no, he was actually close to Sora Himekawa, one of the witches, back in the days. They have just forgotten about each other because their memories were wiped.
• Revenge:
  • Miyamura's a transfer student who went to Suzaku to hunt down the Seventh Witch who messed with his sister.
  • Yuri also wants to avenge Himekawa by taking his anger out on Yamada.
• Riddle for the Ages: Kikuchi is quite a mysterious character, and unlike some of the mysteries that were Left Hanging because the series was cancelled, it's clear in her case that we aren't meant to know anything about her. She acts like a secret agent who's always busy, but there's no indication what she's actually doing. Her personality isn't known except for the generic polite facade she puts on in front of others. Miki Yoshikawa won't even reveal what her birthday is! The fact that she's Younger than She Looks also raises the question if she's even a high school student or just posing as one.
• Rivals Team Up:
  • Miyamura, Nene, and Tamaki in order to be chosen as a candidate for School President.
  • Nene organizes the Otsuka, Sarushima and Noa to capture Asuka.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: The witches are often seen wearing ribboned witch hats and sometimes robes or medieval dresses in imagery to indicate that they are witches. In the actual story, the witches (with the exception of Rika and Nancy who are a gothic lolita and a punker respectively) dress like normal people since they are (mostly) normal people with contemporary fashion senses.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors:
  • Played for Laughs when Noa desperately wants Yamada and Ushio to stop arguing, so she suggests that they settle their differences through a game of rock-paper-scissors. They don't listen and instead start beating each other up.
  • A more mundane and plot-irrelevant example is when the club members play the game to decide who is going to eat everybody's favorite ice cream, mint with chocolate chips.
• Rooftop Confrontation: The second witch war ends with Yamada and Ushio having a fist fight on the school roof to find out who gets the honor of wiping the memories of Ichijo's supporters.
• Rousseau Was Right: With the possible exception of Rin Sasaki - who disappears from the story after the second chapter anyways - there are no truly bad people in this series. With the far majority of villainous characters, we find out that they have secretly altruistic motives beneath their extreme methods, or that they used to be good people who had to take desperate measures to shield themselves from bullying or loneliness. The few who seem to be actual Jerkasses are merely jerkasses - not outright evil.
• Roundhouse Kick: Yamada likes pulling these off. Possibly they're useful for him when in a girls' body, but they're so distinctive they can give away his identity.
• Rube Goldberg Device: When Yamada is off talking to Sora Himekawa, Miyamura and Noa build a device of this type that involves making a baseball travel up a staircase and back down on a pair of scissors that cut a line which makes a "welcome back" banner fold out. Going by their song, they were inspired by Pythagora Switch.
• Rule of Cool: For some reason, every time there's a ceremony, all participators are always shown wearing their uniform jackets even though there would be reason to. It's never explained so the likely reason is that they look more stylish that way contrary to if they were just wearing plain sweaters - and since ceremonies tend to be the climaxes of certain arcs, it doesn't hurt to look stylish.
• Rule of Funny: Yoshikawa states in an interview that she did some research on gender differences and how body swaps would possibly work in Real Life before actually writing a body-swap situation. Yet, she has also admitted that she ignores her research when she thinks lack of realism will make a situation much funnier.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • When Leona tells Yamada of the Sadistic Choice he is facing regarding meeting the seventh witch, a pair of scales that hasn't been seen before suddenly appears on her desk, and she moves a coin from one scale to another. Probably to signify that even though both options are weighing down on Yamada, one of them may be weighing down even heavier. This symbolism isn't commented on in-universe and really doesn't make much sense, but doesn't feel out-of-place in that particular scene.
  • When Yamada sends Shiraishi a text message, apologizing for how he stupidly missed her signals of wanting to have sex with him, it is shown that her text message display background is... a bunch of cherries.
• Running Gag:
  • Kimishima flipping Yamada every time they meet.
  • Seishuin brutally kissing Yamada every time he needs to copy her power, leaving him bruised and with a disheveled shirt.
  • Yamada being impossibly oblivious to all of Odagiri's advances (he also has this trait with other girls, but it's exaggerated a lot more when he's around Odagiri).
  • Noa trying to get romantic favors from Yamada such as dates whenever he wants her help.
  • Itou's Imagine Spots.
  • Yamada immediately, seemingly unconsciously, grabbing a girl's boobs after a body-swap. Similarly, any girl immediately looking at Yamada's genitals after a body-swap and deeply embarrassing him.
  • Yamada accidentally seeing some girls naked any time he enters a hot spring.
  • Whenever a character acts eccentric, it's common for a puzzled onlooker to ask "is he/she under [a witch power]?", after which another onlooker will reply "no, that's his/her normal behavior".
  • Whenever the ceremony are held, the Seventh Witches (Rika, Nancy and Takuma) will always try to expose the undergarments of everyone present during the time stop portion, be it flipping up the skirts for girls or lowering down the pants for boys.
  • Odagiri uttering an exclamation split in three speech balloons (indicating she's punctuating for emphasis) when she is angry.

S - Z

• Sacred First Kiss:
  • Interestingly averted. Both Shiraishi and Yamada say that the event that starts off the manga was their first kiss for both of them... But perhaps inevitably most characters in the manga take a more flexible view to kissing. As Miyamura points out, it's a small price to pay for being able to use Witch powers.
  • Played straight in Chapter 65. Shiraishi clearly treasured the fact that she was Yamada's first kiss. She wanted to stay close to him because she didn't want to risk handing that position to anybody else after he was supposed to lose his memories about it.
• Sadistic Choice: Leona tells Yamada that he can choose not to meet the seventh witch and give Shiraishi an unhappy future, or he can choose to meet her and never see Shiraishi again because he will forget everything about her. He decides to Take a Third Option by going for the "forget Shiraishi" option, but making sure to tell her about the amnesia beforehand so that she can find him and befriend him again. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work because of the Hope Spot.
• Sanity Ball: Some of the characters hold it more often than others, for example Yamada and Tamaki, but the series likes to show us that none of its characters are truly stupid, and as such, practically everybody gets at least a couple to turns to be the only person not acting crazy or dumb in a given moment.
• Scenery Censor: Happens in the first OVA when Yamada (in Shiraishi's body) tries to look at a naked Itou in the girls' bath. Of course lampshaded:
  Yamada: [looks at Itou's breasts] Why did that branch have to be there? [looks further down] And why did that bottle of soap have to stand there?
• School Bullying Is Harmless: Zig-zagged. When Yamada, Shiraishi, Noa's friends and Kaori are bullied and/or ostracized, it's played fairly seriously, and their bullies are given no sympathy, but Tacchan's bullying of Hikaru is a typical syrupy example where he eventually reveals that he just picked on (i.e. beated up and humiliated) Hikaru to cover up his own weaknesses, after which they become good friends. Kaori's bullying of Noa is a less black-and-white case where she does get off a bit easier than she should, but still gives Noa a heartfelt apology and tries to atone.
• School Club Front: A common trope in the series:
  • The initial purpose of the Supernatural Studies Club is to have a room in which Yamada and Shiraishi can swap bodies without others looking. Later, the club is used for witch searching, and when the witch search is over, it simply becomes a place where the five friends can hang out. Itou's attempts to make the others do some actual studying of the supernatural beyond the witches are always shut down.
  • Nancy and Sid only use the light music club to keep track on the witches. When Nancy stops being the seventh witch, they do get new members and form a band, however.
  • The Japanese chess club members are smart enough to actually play Japanese chess on a high level in order to better hide their true purpose and not seem suspicious. Still, their true purpose is to take over the student council and wish for everyone's memories to return.
  • When the new school year starts, Noa and Ushio form a poetry club, and Takuma becomes the president and only member of the people-watching club. They don't actually care about club activities - Noa and Ushio just wanted to hang out in a comfortable room instead of the rooftop, and Takuma wanted a place to sleep, but they were all told that they couldn't have their own rooms unless they formed clubs.
• School Festival: The culture festival, during which the Supernatural Studies Club has a stand with yakisoba bread and a fortuneteller house with Yamada making fortunes. The festival plays a quite big role in the sense that the preparations set up Noa's arc, and the festival itself sets up the entire rest of the first witch war.
• Schrödinger's Butterfly: In the epilogue Yamada starts speculating that the witch powers may not have been real and they were just imagining anything related to them. If that's really true, it certainly makes you wonder if Yamada and co. also just imagined some of the more mundane scenes...
• Screw Destiny: This is basically Yamada's aim at one point. It's possible to change Sarushima's visions by using the power of another Witch. They attempt to use Shiraishi's to change the future where the old school building is burning down.
• Seasonal Baggage: The Time-Passes Montage variant. Most of Yamada's third year is skipped and simply shown by the trees losing leaves and snow appearing.
• Security Cling: Yamada and Tamaki shakingly cling to each other when they fear that they'll be cursed from the pentagram in the altar room.
• Seers: The Witch Maria Sarushima can see the future. Unfortunately her power only allows her to see what's destined to come to pass, unless another Witch's power is used.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: None of the Sarushima's future visions can be changed (except if they are intercepted by other witch power), making them self-fulfilling prophecies if one tries too desperately to change them. Most noteworthily when Yamada sees Shiraishi falling down a flight of stairs and becoming severely hurt; she walks entirely normally down the stairs, but gets distracted by Yamada shouting warnings (not having any idea what he's warning her about), forgets to watch her step and falls.
• Sequel Hook: The manga looks like it's about to end after the first witch war, but there are in fact three clues that there are more plotlines left (the anime, which does end after the first witch war and doesn't cover the remainder of the manga, removes two of them):
  • The first is the fact that Ushio and Asuka are the only people who know of the witch powers who aren't invited into the Supernatural Studies clubroom to hear about the powers' disappearance. And indeed, they reappear as villains in the second witch war. In the anime, Ushio is invited into the clubroom, though Asuka is still nowhere to be seen.
  • The second is the mystery about why Ushio framed Yamada for the streetfight. In the manga, Shiraishi guesses that Ushio simply betrayed Yamada so that he and Odagiri could be left alone, but it's never confirmed, and Miyamura later points out that he's sure Ushio is hiding something. Furthermore, if you look close in the flashback, you can see that the girl has a different hair color from Odagiri, which foreshadows that it wasn't Odagiri, but actually Nancy. The mystery is later solved in the second witch war. In the anime, Miyamura's line is taken out, and in the flashback, the girl is obviously Odagiri instead of Nancy, meaning the mystery is solved right there.
  • The third is the fact that Yamada hasn't found out why he got his copy power, even after meeting all seven witches. The anime just ends before he finds out, and the manga also ends without him finding out, even though the mystery is brought up again in the second witch war.
• Series Fauxnale: Nope, chapter 90 isn't the last chapter of the story, but you can easily pretend it is and stop reading there since almost all plot points have been resolved. Unless you're interested in Ushio's not fully resolved character arc and you want to know who the girl in his and Yamada's flashback really was - then please read on.
• Series Goal:
  • In the first part of the story: Find all seven witches and help them with any problems and sorrows they may have. After Rika, the seventh witch, appears, it's changed to "bring back the memories of everyone Yamada knew so that he can have his old friends back and ask Shiraishi out" (though the first goal is still partly in effect since Yamada and co. need Rika's friendship to achieve the second).
  • In the second part of the story it is: Get the seventh witch on the student council's side since she can help keeping track on the other witches. That goal is reached fairly quickly, at least until another seventh witch appears...
  • Chapter 154 makes it clear that the overall goal of the entire series is, even though it's not mentioned often, to find out why Yamada has the copy power. Subverted since Yamada never actually finds out.
• Series Mascot: Shoba, the yakisoba bread fairy, is starting to become this as of the second part of the story (he only appears briefly in the background in the first part) when he has several funny appearances. Yoshikawa also draws him a lot in non-canon artwork on her Twitter account. Going that Yamada isn't the only one to have Shoba-related merchandise (Noa also has a keychain), he's probably a Mascot for yakisoba bread in-universe as well.
• Serious Business: Yamada only wants to get the club some funding because it meant he could get a microwave in the club room.
• The Seven Mysteries: Suzaku High has their own set, and one of them is the mystery of the Witches. Two of the others is the classic urban legend about Hanako-san and "the 13th stair after school". The last four aren't known.
• Sexophone: Referenced when Yamada tries to invite Shiraishi to stay the night; the recap states that "the sweet saxophones of sexy time" are playing in his mind.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: In Yamada's Daydream Surprise of him and Shiraishi having Their First Time, the series only shows a panel of Yamada's bed shaking and creaking once they finally get going.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Shiraishi doesn't really have any problems with Yamada seeing her naked when he is in her body - she has even directly asked him to take a bath for her. However, going by the general inexperience she claims to have when it comes to relationships and boys (not to mention an early chapter when she displays a rather childish curiosity around the "weird thing" Yamada and Miyamura have between their legs), she may be an Innocent Fanservice Girl instead.
• Ship Tease:
  • Yamada and Shiraishi naturally get a lot of this before they become an Official Couple:
    • Most of the time Shiraishi smiles, it's when she's around Yamada.
    • Shiraishi refuses to kiss Miyamura, but has no problem kissing Yamada (and Itou). But it should be noted that she doesn't have any problem with him kissing other people.
    • Shiraishi also seems irked that Yamada chose Itou instead of her during a school investigation.
    • A lot in Chapter 65. Shiraishi is resolute to sticking close to Yamada despite the danger, because she is determined to kiss him right after he loses his memory because she wants to be his first kiss again. She is determined that nobody should "swipe her spot."
  • While Shiraishi and Yamada are the main source of ship tease until they get together, they are certainly not the only ones. Yamada has had reasonable amounts of ship tease with every girl he's befriended, and even a couple of the guys. Of other characters, Odagiri and Tamaki actually get a substantial amount despite that Odagiri seems to be constantly lusting over Yamada. Itou also has some with Miyamura, and later with Tsubaki.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: Generally inverted. All recurring teachers are short, with the teenaged main characters towering over them. In this world, Adults Are Useless, and it's actually the teenagers who run the school and drive the plot. Exceptions are some of the parents: Itou's mom is tall, and Yamada's mom seems to be of average height.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Downplayed since most of the story physically takes place in school, the cast are shown attending classes a couple of times, and make-up exams affect the plot now and then, but... Our protagonists seem to have an awful lot of time for extracurricular activities, often spending what seems like hours on looking for witches and talking in the clubroom. It's even worse with the student council where the members often seem to spend the whole day in the office even though they should still be taking classes. In fact, it looks like the president never attends classes and just sits at his desk all day - though since he is the highest authority of Suzaku, he may be exempted from normal school classes.
• Shout-Out:
  • Yamada's partners in the Light Music Club, Sid and Nancy (who's one of the seventh witches), are an obvious one to Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Being a nickname, Nancy is an intentional In-Universe example as well.
  • Yamada and Tsubaki's first names are "Ryu" and "Ken"taro. The latter is also a gamer.
  • When Yamada and Itou are searching for the seventh witch in chapter 60, the first girl they interview is a "stereotypical witch" named "Aiko Gagada".
  • Jin Kurosaki, one of the new Vice Presidents, is called an "Assassin" by Yamada in reference to his hoodie and demeanor.
  • When Yamada takes on the guise of the Masked DK as part of working off the 50,000 yen fee to kiss Aiko Chikushi a witch who inherited Sarushima's power and uses it both to make money and fight crime as the Masked JK his speech is very close to the one said by Kamen Rider Stronger.
  • The series' concept in general: There are seven witches, and if you find all seven, bring them together and perform a special ritual, your greatest wish will come true. What other shonen manga has a similar concept? Made blatantly obvious in the live-action series, in which it is said that the ceremony can only be held once a year, and Rika obstructs it by wishing for panties.
  • Even one to Friends: Yamada and Shiraishi's very Insistent Terminology of how they're only "on a break".
  • Takuma's evil alter ego being nicknamed "Yami Takuma" ("Dark Takuma" in the English translation) is a clear nod to all the evil alter egos in Yu-Gi-Oh!.
  • The prank pulled on Noa in the live-action drama when she is covered with red paint while performing on stage has a certain resemblance to Carrie drenched in pig's blood.
  • Also in the live-action drama, when Rika's skirt flips up and Itou as the only one gets an eyeful of what's underneath, she shockedly says "I saw pale kings". It's unclear if this is just a Non Sequitur (given that she is known to be a Cloudcuckoolander), or if she thought the sight of Rika's private parts was so horrible that she compares it to the fate of the knight in La Belle Dame sans Merci.
• Sibling Triangle: A rather unconventional example given that it involves one-sided Brother–Sister Incest. Miyamura isn't competing with Leona for a third person's affections - he's competing with Yamazaki for Leona's affections.
• Sick Episode: Episode 3 of the anime has Shiraishi wanting to kiss Yamada rather willingly. He then finds out it's because she was sick, and didn't want to get the teachers sick when turning in some papers. At the end of the episode, she's gotten better, but Yamada caught her cold. It's based on chapter 10 of the manga which features the same plotline but also shows Yamada, Miyamura and Itou experimenting with the body-swap power while Yamada is in Shiraishi's cold-ridden body.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: The whole Supernatural Club gets this vibe from Yamada and Noa Takigawa after the latter decides to stick a bit too close to him for a while. Mind you, Yamada constantly complains to her about it and he never once flirted back (knowingly, that's it), but it's just that his friends can tell he's being a lot nicer than they know he could be. Shiraishi correctly deduced that Yamada became very sympathetic of Noa after her power let him see a traumatic event from her past.
• Sitting on the Roof: Yamada, Ushio and Noa all have a habit of hanging around on Suzaku High's roof when they feel like they have nowhere else to go (for example when Yamada and Ushio were still delinquents, and after the second witch war when everyone has forgotten about Yamada and Ushio). In fact, Tamaki gave Ushio and Noa a clubroom because he took pity on them sitting on the roof in the cold.
• Sixth Ranger: The series quickly settles on the Supernatural Studies Club having four members. Quite a few chapters later, would-be accidental arsonist Tsubaki joins them after a subplot where they prevent the fire from happening. Much, much later - when Tsubaki has become part of the True Companions - Hikaru joins the club and fills this role.
• Skinship Grope: Poor Shiraishi cannot bathe with other girls without having them fondle her boobs... Except that Shiraishi herself has never been seen bathing - all the times, it has been Yamada in her body, which just made it even more uncomfortable.
• Sliding Scale of Proactiveness: Pretty much every character in-the-know is almost ridiculously proactive and much of the plot happens because one's actions quickly ends crossing with another's plans.
• Slippery Soap: Yamada ends up in a rather compromising position with Arisugawa when he's accidentally in the hot springs at the same time as her and slips on a bar of soap that happens to be lying around.
• Smarter Than You Look: Yamada, while not as brilliant as Shiraishi or Miyamura, can be very astute and keen on how to get close to some people. He is the only one noticing that Tsubasa Konno's power doesn't exactly match up with any of the old ones.
• Snowball Fight: Kurosaki starts one when the student council arrives on the winter trip, with Tamaki, Odagiri, and Arisugawa soon joining in.
• Social Circle Filler: When Shiraishi starts becoming popular and admired — due to Yamada swapping bodies with her and beating up a group of peepers that the girls were scared of — she quickly befriends a trio of girls. In the first 20 chapters, she seems fairly close to these girls (although she sometimes gets a bit annoyed about them wanting to hang out when she's studying) and enjoys staying up all night on the Class Trip just to chat with them. Then, as she starts falling in love with Yamada, and the Myth Arc about the witches becomes more and more apparent, they are unceremoniously written out of the plot.
• Social Services Does Not Exist:
  • Shiraishi is neglected by her parents and even made to live alone for several days at a time while they travel for work. Justified because she can handle the practical things like cooking and laundry on her own, so she does not look neglected, and since she generally covers up all of her problems with a stoic attitude, it's likely that any social services that might exist wouldn't be able to spot the neglect.
  • When they lived in London, the Miyamura siblings were often left alone in their house at night time, even when they were hardly school-aged. Apparently social services does not exist in the UK either...
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: None of the witches are actually evil, but in the first witch war, each new witch causes a new problem that takes more effort and more chapters to solve than it took with the previous witch. Shiraishi's arc and problem was solved in one chapter. Odagiri's arc and problem in about five chapters. Otsuka's in about five chapters, too. Sarushima's in seven chapters. Noa's in about 10 chapters. Rika's in more than 20 chapters. The exception is Asuka and Tamaki whose arc is relatively short as the hunt for the seventh witch begins soon after.
• Sound Defect: When Tsubaki and Miyamura point out how weird it is that Yamada no longer wants to kiss Shiraishi in the clubroom, Yamada's body gives off a start, making the sound effect "urk". In the same panel, Itou is shown being puzzled by the sound effect, saying "urk?".
• Spanner in the Works: Yamada has played this a few times by being immune to the Witch's powers. He reversed Nene's love kiss on her without knowing it would affect her, and it prompted character development in her. With his quest to undo the massive erasing of memories of the student population because he learned the seventh Witch's name. Then by helping Nene get her memories back, and the discovery the seventh Witch's power only works once, the Student Council President will put all of his attention on Yamada.
• Speak of the Devil: Anyone who finds out the Seventh Witch's name (with the exception of the President) will find themselves being forgotten by everyone else. Happens to Yamada and Tamaki.
• Speech-Bubbles Interruption: Done by Arisugawa when Tamaki starts blabbering about how the student council's got the upper hand on Konno.
• Spice Up the Subtitles: The fan scanlations by Mahou-X (which were dropped at chapter 82) ramp any swearing up to eleven and has any character who's not Shiraishi throw around constant F-bombs. The language is also made much more explicit in other regards, for example Sarushima asked Yamada if he has a boner (in the original, she simply mentions he seems aroused) and Noa yelling at Yamada not to rape her (in the original, she simply yells at him not to come near her). In the original Japanese version, no harsher language than "kuso" ("crap") and "ketsu" ("ass") is used, and sex is almost only mentioned through euphemisms.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening of the anime shows all the key characters of the manga's first half, including the Seven Witches. The ending is even worse since it only showcases the witches and nobody else, while in the opening Leona is shown right after the witches in a way that can make it seem to an anime-only viewer that she is the last witch, thus not spoiling the surprise that Rika is the last witch.
• Spoiler Title: While the origin of the body-swap power in unknown in the first few chapters, the title still spoils that it may have something to do with "witches". The title also spoils from the very start that there are seven of these witches even though the characters themselves don't know how many witches there are until much later.
• Staircase Tumble: In the very first chapter, which results in Shiraishi and Yamada switching bodies. Happens later on during Sarushima's arc, but thanks to it Yamada figured out other Witch powers can change the future.
• The Stakeout: When Arisugawa and Kurosaki look for new witches, they go on an extra silly stakeout in the quad by hiding under cardboard boxes. Arisugawa, being the Cloudcuckoolander she is, keeps wearing her cardboard box over her head for the rest of the chapter.
• Stepford Smiler: Several of the characters in the story are actually pretty broken inside, despite their outward appearance. Prominent examples are Noa and Miyamura.
• Stock Ness Monster: Itou claims that a Nessie-like monster named "Susshi" lives in a pond near Suzaku High and even tries making a fake picture of it. While Susshi probably doesn't exist, it's unknown if there actually is a legend about a lake monster, or if the legend itself was also made up by Itou.
• The Stoic: At the start of the series, Shiraishi's facial expression rarely changes. Even when she body swaps for the first time, she isn't alarmed about it at all.
• Stood Up:
  • An amnesiac Odagiri asks Yamada to meet her after school to kiss him and make him part of her followers. After she leaves, Yamada forgets everything about Odagiri's offer since he has other things on his mind. When he goes home from school much later, he sees her still waiting for him even though they were supposed to meet two hours ago, and realizes he stood her up.
  • Yamada also accidentally stands up Shiraishi when he's busy playing around with Kotori's mind-reading power.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: In the Gender Flip omake, Yamada and Shiraishi (now known as Ryuko Yamada and Orara Shiraishi) have this dynamic. Ryuko is a hothead with a penchant for roundhouse kicks just like Ryu, and Orara is a studious ace student just like Urara.
• Story Arc: There are basically three arcs:
  • The first one, called "the first witch war" in-universe, depicts the Supernatural Studies Club's quest to find and help all seven original witches while they cross ways with the antagonistic student council.
  • The second one, logically called "the second witch war" in-universe, details the new student council's meetings with the two new group of witches and their fight against the Japanese chess club which tries to overthrow them.
  • The third and last one doesn't have an in-universe name. The first part details the search for the remaining memories of all students, and the last part focuses on Yamada and co. preparing for college.
  • All arcs can be considered "super-arcs" and be divided into smaller arcs, some of which are easier to classify than others. For example, Otsuka's arc is clearly chapter 25-32, Sarushima's arc is chapter 33-41, and Noa's arc is chapter 42-51.
• Straight Gay: New guy Kurosaki may look like Yamada 2.0 at first glance but he's hinted to have a crush on Miyamura, and applied for the Student Council to be close to him. He's also unfazed by the other new Council member, the generously endowed, (deliberately) cutesy Arisugawa.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: The characters experiment a whole lot with newly discovered witch powers for this reason. Going by the notebooks, all members of the Supernatural Studies Club throughout the years have had this modus operandi.
• Suggestive Collision:
  • When Shiraishi and Yamada literally fall in love, they practically end up in a clothed missionary position. Unlike the standard example, Shirashi doesn't mind and starts talking to Yamada, resulting in them staying in that position for a suspiciously long time.
  • Also happens between Yamada and Arisugawa some time later, made worse by that this time they're both naked. (Because they accidentally entered the hot springs at the same time, but still...)
• Suicide as Comedy: When Ando goes all crazy over Miyamura's rejection, she treatens to kill herself after killing Miyamura. No one takes her remotely seriously except that Yamada has a minor freak-out about how she shouldn't kill herself while she's in his body.
• Superpower Lottery: There is a notable difference on how harmless and/or useful the witch powers are: ^note However, in this series, the lottery isn't entirely random, as the witch power you get is based on your desires and troubles. Those who have grown tired of their lives and want a fresh start will get the body-swap power, those who desire popularity will get the charm power, those who are too shy to speak normally will get the telepathy power, and so on.
  • The future and past sight powers are harmless, as they affect the kisser instead of the kissee. The future sight power is actually pretty much useless as you cannot change the future you see unless another witch power is in play.
  • The telepathy power is relatively harmless, too, as it is two-way, and you don't automatically read thoughts, but have to share them willingly (that said, it can still be used to annoy people as one cannot "hang up" a telepathic message).
  • The body-swap power can be incredibly useful, but it can also be incredibly risky, especially if you're giving your enemy room to manoeuvre in your body.
  • The charm power is very useful and dangerous, but also carries the huge downside that the people who fall in love with you may not want to leave you alone.
  • The amnesia power even more so, since the cost of inducing amnesia upon others is that everybody will forget about you.
  • The invisibility power is quite dangerous and has the least downsides - when you're invisible, and your victim doesn't know you're invisible before it is pointed out by other people, you can practically do what you want to them.
• Supporting Harem: Yamada and Shiraishi are the Official Couple of the series and each other's One True Love. Doesn't prevent almost a dozen other girls from carrying a torch for Yamada.
• Surprise Party: The Supernatural Studies Club members throw a "welcome back" surprise party for Yamada once everyone's memories are restored.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Yamada asks Takuma to give him the names of the other witches in his group, he refuses to do so. Not because of his perpetually secretive personality... But because of the Japanese privacy protection act.
• Sweat Drop: This trope is used very often when characters are puzzled by other characters' eccentricies. Especially Shiraishi is likely to get sweat drops given that she doesn't usually have comically exaggerated reactions like the other characters.
• Sword of Damocles: Shortly before her power is stolen by Ushio, Nancy lets Yamada copy it so it can function as a deterrent - believing that Ushio will be hesitant to wipe everybody's memories of Tamaki if he knows that Yamada may wipe everybody's memories of him - but she insists that Yamada shouldn't actually use the power.
• Symbolically Broken Object: Odagiri tears up her Precious Photo of Yamada to indicate that she has moved on from being stuck between him and Ushio and no longer needs a photo to confirm that he's the one she loves.
• Symbol Swearing: Shobami (voiced by Miyamura) initially swears like this in chapter 136 when Miyamura wants to exemplify the anger of the students. When the chapter is released in volume form, it's for some reason changed to her yelling a partially-bleeped out "fuck" instead.
• Synchronization: Happens when Yamada copies the seventh witch power. If the seventh witch lets himself/herself be forgotten by wiping memories, Yamada will be forgotten too - and vice versa. They will also share the spotter that one of them designates. Why the seventh witch power is the only power to synchronize when copied is never explained.
• Taken During the Ending: The live-action drama ends with an unknown person breaking into a locker and stealing the hidden-away witch notebook, raising the question if the witch powers really did disappear from Suzaku High.
• Take Off Your Clothes: The first prediction Sarushima gives is that Yamada will soon take off his clothes. She cannot predict why he will do it, just that he will. Yamada, being like other guys in this series, of course thinks this means some kind of sexual activity, but soon Sarushima's brother bumps into him and spills drinks all over his clothes, meaning that Yamada would only take off his clothes to put on a change of dry clothes.
• Tamer and Chaster: There are tons of panty shots and sexual humor early on in the series, but it starts to get toned down later on, especially because the body-swap ability (which is the main source of panty shots and boob-grabbing) gets used less often. Justified because the series starts to focus on slightly more serious matters, and as such constant silly Fanservice would feel out of place. There are still underwear shots and boob jokes here and there to lighten the mood, but it's a much rarer occurrence in the second witch war than in the first 50 chapters. In the last arc of the series, ecchi elements are practically absent.
• Tareme Eyes: Of those who fit the personality we have Shiraishi, Otsuka, Sarushima, Arisugawa, Kotori, Seishuin, and Tatsumi. Itou and Rika switch between Tareme and Tsurime Eyes depending on their mood.
• Target Spotter: The spotters that the seventh witches designate are named after this concept and effectively function as a non-military, non-sniping version of the trope along with being the seventh witches' human Familiars. More precisely, the spotter can tell where each witch is located thanks to an inner-eye coordinate system, and then the seventh witch can approach them unexpectedly and wipe their memories.
• Team Power Walk: When the student council walks through the school halls to confront the Japanese chess club.
• The Tease: Noa is very flirty towards Yamada, especially when she tries to cover up her insecurities. She dials this up when she starts to fall for him.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It's implied on several occasions that Ushio and Yuri outright dislike each other, but they have still chosen to work together to hold a ceremony because that's the easiest way for both of them to reach their individual goals. Even the more cordial Japanese chess club members are still stated to not consider each other friends - they just work together because that's handier.
• Telepathy: The power of Meiko Otsuka who creates a Psychic Link similar to a cell phone call and requires one to picture that person in their head to send messages to them.
• Tension-Cutting Laughter: When Yamada and Miyamura are investigating Yamada's hidden past because Miyamura wants to find out who Yamada dated, they find an unknown mail address that they presume belongs to the person Yamada dated. Yamada sends a mail to this unknown person, and at the exact same time Miyamura receives a mail. It does turn out that Miyamura's mail was from Leona, so that he wasn't the person Yamada dated, but both of them still break into a nervous laughter in an attempt to relieve the awkwardness.
• Terrible Artist: Yamada, to the degree that people scream or ask him to see a doctor whenever they see his drawings. It's something of an Informed Flaw - his artstyle is more simplistic and chibi-like than it's objectively bad (for example, he always manages to draw people's hairstyles correctly).
• Their First Time: Yamada and Shiraishi don't exactly hurry to have a sex life after they become a couple. The trope is subverted in chapter 185 and 186 which focus on Shiraishi staying at Yamada's place with both of them preparing do to the deed, but they end up doing nothing because they miss each other's signals. It's subverted again in chapter 217 when Yamada invites Shiraishi over with the ruse of studying, but she brings the entire Supernatural Studies Club. Since they have two children at the end of the epilogue, they must have done it at some point or another.
• There Are No Adults: Downplayed. Teachers and parents are sometimes seen, and the teachers do foresee the classes and tests, but (with the slight exception of a Red Herring when Yamada thought a teacher was the seventh witch) none of them involve themselves in the plot. The student council is the go-to authority on the school.
• There Are No Therapists: A recurring problem of the series – you would think that someone would have done something before, say, Shiraishi and Noa ended up as miserable as they were, but no. Somewhat justified in that the series is incredibly teenage-centric, and adults are generally invisible. Even if there were therapists, we still have characters like Leona and Rika whose problems are caused by the witch powers, which are unknown to everyone but selected Suzaku High students, and since All Therapists Are Muggles, well...
• There Is Only One Bed: When Yamada stays the night at Itou who logically only has one bed in her room. Initially, they just automatically lie down together and even share the same blanket, but then Yamada has a delayed and very shocked realization that he's a guy (even though he's in Shiraishi's body), and she's a girl, so they shouldn't share a bed. Itou however insists that they share the bed, awkwardly forgetting that Yamada's not actually a girl. They end up sleeping in each their end of the bed (Itou puts up a line in the middle) and with separate blankets.
• Third-Person Flashback: The flashback from chapters 157 to 161 is about Yamada's lost memories, but for some reason also features a few scenes from the student council office where Yamada wasn't present.
• This Is a Work of Fiction: All chapters start with a disclaimer that the story is completely unrelated to Real Life even though you would think most readers would figure that out on their own, given that it's a story about magic and witches.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Of the three most significant female characters in the first witch war and anime, we have Shiraishi as the Wife (reliable and stoic), Odagiri as the Seductress (gets loyal followers through kisses and charms), and Itou as the Child (shows an innocent enthusiasm for the paranormal). It's downplayed a bit as Odagiri is more insecure than your typical Seductress and Itou is more hot-tempered and stern than your typical Child.
• Three Plus Two: Yamada, Shiraishi, and Miyamura are the ones who revive the defunct Supernatural Studies Club. Itou and Tsubaki join later (though in Itou's case, only one and a half chapter later).
• Tickle Torture: Just like Yamazaki's student council, Tamaki's new student council is no stranger to torture. However, Tamaki probably isn't the kind of guy who'd ask his subordinates to break people's limbs, so instead he makes them tickle the victims. They're not above stripping the victims and using ropes to keep them in place, though.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: Ryu Yamada ("ryu" means "dragon") and Toranosuke Miyamura ("tora" means tiger) are a variation of this. They both have respectively dragons and tigers as their Animal Motifs, and they do have a dynamic where they can be wildly different and at the same pretty similar, but they're Vitriolic Best Buds instead of mortal enemies. Also, Yamada is actually personality-wise more similar to the tiger, while Miyamura is more similar to the dragon.
• Time-Passes Montage: Occurs in the five-month Time Skip in chapter 238 when three panels of a tree outside Yamada's windows show the transition from late summer to fall to winter (first the tree is nice and green, then the leaves are falling, and finally the branches are naked with snow around them).
• Time Skip:
  • Chapter 238 skips from early September to early February, and as such most of Yamada's third year isn't showcased.
  • Chapter 242, the first chapter of the Distant Finale, takes place ten years after the graduation. Chapter 243 presumably takes place 6-7 months after chapter 242 (Yamada mentions in chapter 242 that he's going on a business trip to Brazil in six months, and in chapter 243 he and his friends talk about the trip as if it happened relatively recently).
• Time Stands Still: During a witch ceremony, from the time the ceremony officially starts, and until the wish is made, time will stand still for everyone except for the one making the wish and the seventh witch. The Running Gag is that the latter will always makes use of it to expose everyone's underwears.
• To Be Continued: As with most other mangas, the chapters end with "to be continued in the next chapter!".
• Too Dumb to Fool: Yamada gets this sometimes. Whenever somebody has a "wait a minute..." moment, it's usually Yamada.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Nene becomes a lot nicer (but still hot-tempered and somewhat rude) thanks to a good dose of Love Redeems.
• Torture Technician: Mikoto Asuka knows a whole slew of torture methods which she'll use on anyone who tries to mess with the President.
• The Tragic Rose: Shiraishi is shown laying on a bed of roses in an Imagine Spot during the late-series reveal that she has sacrificed her memories to ensure Yamada remembers her - the depressing fact that she has left Suzaku High forever along with the uplifting fact that Yamada might find her and restore her memories makes for a very bittersweet scene.
• True Art Is Angsty: In-universe example: Ushio only writes poems about sad and cynical things, for example that Growing Up Sucks.
• True Companions:
  • The Supernatural Studies Club members end up being very close friends who are extremely loyal to each other despite that they spend a reasonable amount of time bickering and making fun of each other.
  • Noa's friend group are possibly an even stronger example: Even though they look like a mean little girl and her goons at first, they constantly look out for each other and are willing to sacrifice anything and make everybody hate them in order to better each other's lives.
  • The student council is a downplayed example. The members do care about each other as friends, but the council as a whole never quite gives off the same "close-knit friend group" vibe as the Supernatural Studies Club does. Possibly because they haven't gone through the same troubles together as the club did, but instead tend to act individually. An exception is Odagiri and Tamaki who are just as close as the club members are.
• Tsurime Eyes: Of those who fit the personality we have Odagiri, Noa, Nancy, Leona, and Kimishima. Itou and Rika switch between Tsurime and Tareme Eyes depending on their mood.
• Two First Names: Mikoto Asuka. Mikoto is her first name but it's never used due to Last-Name Basis.
• Two Girls and a Guy:
  • In the second part of the story, the remaining members of the Supernatural Studies Club are Shiraishi, Itou, and Tsubaki. Officially, Yamada and Miyamura are still members, but they never have time to show up anymore due to their student council work.
  • Yamazaki's friend group, consisting of him, Leona, and Rika.
• Two Girls to a Team: The Supernatural Studies Club has two female members (Shiraishi and Itou) throughout the whole history until the very end when the third-years retire, leaving two male members (the Suzuhara twins) and one female member (Noa).
• Two Guys and a Girl:
  • The new main character team after the new presidency run has begun, consisting of Yamada, Miyamura, and Noa.
  • Also the Supernatural Studies Club which is initially made up by Yamada, Miyamura, and Shiraishi, though Itou joins soon after.
• Two-Teacher School: A total of four Suzaku High staff members have been shown in the series, and of those the short man with the toupee is the only one who seems to do any teaching in day-to-day life. The other three have more specific functions (the counselor who suspended Yamada, the counselor Kiku Sonoyama who was thought to be the seventh witch, and the dog-like man who's in charge of summer school).
• The Unmasqued World: In the present day, only a selected few students know about the witches. However, back in Yamada's first year, Dark Takuma apparently discovered the existence of witches and shared the secret with everyone he met. This forced the student council to intervene and wipe everybody's memories about the whole third term of the year to keep up the masquerade.
• Unperson:
  • The "Witch Killers", Yamada and Tamaki, were this for a time, courtesy of the 7th Witch who can mindwipe people at will, except them. It only works once on Witches though.
  • Yamada and Ushio become this again after Ushio's memory wipe.
• The Unreveal:
  • Chapter 153 ends with the implication that there will be a huge reveal about Yamada and Himekawa's shared past in the next chapter, told by Himekawa herself. But the next chapter opens with her accidentally tripping, falling into his arms. Suddenly, she finds the situation too awkward to tell anything and runs off instead.
  • The unreveals don't end there. Even though Yamada wishes for his memories to come back so he can know what happened between him and Himekawa, he still doesn't find out. Well, he does find out how he met her, and how they became close enough for her to fall in love with him, but the memories of the dramatic incident that made her ask Nancy to wipe their memories didn't return, and as such we and all the characters are in the dark about what really happened to them for a long time.
• Unsound Effect: Since this is a comedy manga with a relatively modest amount of action scenes, but still a lot of sound effects, most of the sound effects describe character reactions rather than sounds.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In this verse, an Indy Ploy thought up in the heat of the action generally works much better than a meticulously thought-up plan. The most noteworthy examples of this are Miyamura's plan to keep Tsubaki away from the old school building and Shiraishi's plan to make Yamada have her warm up to him at the graduation after she's forgotten everything about him. The former plan does work fairly well until Yamada is forced to leave the "date", while the latter plan immediately fails as none of Shiraishi's conversation suggestions for Yamada work. In case of the former plan, the solution simply is for Yamada to swap bodies with Tsubaki, and in case of the latter plan, the solution is for Yamada to call out Shiraishi on being boring.
• Unwanted Harem:
  • Almost all the Witches have been or are interested by Yamada. He couldn't care less since he only has Urara in mind.
  • Yamazaki also got one, albeit way more dysfunctional, since it included a Green-Eyed Monster and a Torture Technician. Still, at the core, he's the same than Yamada, only interested by Leona who also happened to be the Only Sane Woman.
• Uptown Girl: It's rarely brought up in the story, and it hasn't created any tension in their relationship, but Yamada is nonetheless from a lower middle-class family with a housewife mom and a dad who's implied to have a blue-collar or white-collar job, while Shiraishi is the only daughter in a wealthy business family.
• Vacation Episode: The Guam arc is mostly about Yamada and co. enjoying the beaches and activities of this tropical island, though the arc also serves the further the plotline about the lost memories.
• Vice President Who?: In the Suzaku High student council, a "vice-president" is just a member that the current president has chosen as a potential successor (thus there needs to be at least two of them). They don't have more power than the other student council members, and they don't have any official duties, so a vice-president essentially just spends the year sucking up to the current president so that he/she will hopefully be appointed as the next president.
• Visible Sigh: An oft-seen trope whenever the characters are relieved or mildly annoyed.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Most friendships in the series have this to some degree, but Yamada and Itou exemplify it best. They spend most of their time bickering and insulting each other, but they are still good friends who are perfectly capable of enjoying each other's company. The bonus chapter shows it best. This is also how Yamada figured out that Itou was under a witch power in chapter 127. He knows she would never be so affectionate with him, but he also knows she supports him and his relationship to Shiraishi and would never lie just to drive them apart.
• Voices Are Not Mental: The body of someone affected by Shiraishi's "Freaky Friday" Flip retains their voice, with the mental voice only heard while thinking. A switch between Shiraishi and Yamada will give the former a Tomboyish Voice (when Yamada isn't trying to be cute) and the latter a soft, calm tone.
• Walk and Talk: Often done by Yamada and Shiraishi when they need to discuss something after school.
• Wall of Text: The panel in chapter 197 in which Yamada completely overanalyzes whether Shiraishi may be ignoring the fact that he didn't read a message from her.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Sometimes done with towels or swimsuits, when body swapping is active.
• The War Has Just Begun: As Miyamura's student council is unseated, Ichijo thinks he's already guaranteed a spot as the new president. Asuka, however, mentions that the unseating is just the beginning, implying that they have a whole long election campaign in front of them.
• Watching the Sunset: Yamada ends up doing this twice on the Guam trip. First somewhat unwittingly with the chairperson and later in a traditionally romantic fashion with Shiraishi.
• Weak, but Skilled: Lampshaded. Yamada has shown to be a very good fighter in Shiraishi's and Itou's bodies even though they are smaller, weaker and more inexperienced than him. On the other hand, Itou loses miserably when she tries to fight in Yamada's more muscular and powerful body. Yamada points out that physical strength is not the factor that makes a good fighter - skills and spirit are.
• We Are "Team Cannon Fodder": In the first witch war, all members of the Supernatural Studies Club would help out during the witch search. In later chapters, Miyamura is the only club member who helps Yamada search for witches, and Shiraishi, Itou and Tsubaki only have roles to play in more Slice of Life-oriented scenes and chapters. After Yamada asks all of his friends to help him recover the lost memories, Tsubaki even points the trope out by saying that the only help he can provide is cooking meals.
• Wedding Finale: The prologue consists of two chapters, first about Yamada wanting to propose to Shiraishi, and the last about their actual wedding some months later.
• We Need a Distraction: When Yamada needs Ushio to give Kotori back her power, he doesn't expect that Ushio will do it without coercion. Thus, he enlists Miyamura and Noa in his plan which goes like this; Yamada will walk into the Japanese chess clubroom and distract Ushio with smalltalk while Miyamura and Noa will wait by the open window and ambush Ushio and tie him up once Yamada gives the signal. Unlike most plans in the series, the plan actually works as intended, but still comes to a halt when Ushio says that he'll give the power back without coercion.
• Wham Line:
  • Chapter 57. "I love Shiraishi."
  • Chapter 134. "The one who stole my power was Ushio Igarashi". Not that it was hard to see coming due to plenty of Foreshadowing, but it still changes the course of the story and the characters' motivations.
  • Chapter 151. "The male student who's been erased from Himekawa's memory... That student is me, isn't it...?"
  • Chapter 235. "Who is Shiraishi?"
• Wham Episode
  • Chapter 60 & 61. The Seventh Witch has been at the school for over eight years - and no, she's not a teacher.
  • Chapter 66: The Seventh Witch has made her appearance, but she didn't erase Yamada's memory of Witches... she erased his friends' memories of him.
  • Chapter 75: Saionji attempts to use her memory-wiping power again... but she discovers It Only Works Once on witches. Yamada gets the attention of the Student Council President.
  • Chapter 172: Yamada is forgotten by everyone again - even though Ushio tried to take the fall for him.
  • Chapter 236: Shiraishi has left the school, and everybody except for Yamada has lost their memories of her.
• Wham Shot: Shiraishi being the girl Yamada dated in the past is revealed this way. Yamada is looking at an unknown girl, he reaches out his hand and asks her to go out with him, and then a panel taking up the whole next page shows Shiraishi's face.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: An odd in-universe meta-example. The series is a Shōnen which means its audience is boys aged 8-18. However, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches also exists in-universe as a book about Yamada's high school life that he reads aloud to his three-year-old son in the epilogue. While there's not anything in the story that would traumatize a three-year-old, most aspects of the humor (which is often mildly sexual) and intrigue (which is based on teenage drama) would probably fly over a toddler's head so you have to wonder why Yamada thought a kid that young would be the prime audience.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Shiraishi's unnamed trio of friends don't appear after chapter 20. She may have stopped hanging out with them because they only knew and admired her as the girl who stopped the peepers (which was really Yamada), while the Supernatural Studies Club members know and respect Shiraishi's actual personality... but then again, she did seem to enjoy their company as she stayed awake all night to talk with them on the field trip. It's not known for sure why they stopped appearing.
• When She Smiles:
  • Almost all of the antagonistic Witches give this to Yamada after some conflict-resolution occurs.
  • Shiraishi also fits this bill.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The last two chapters of the manga show (or rather, mostly mention) some of the characters' life roughly ten years after graduation.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • Yamada's first flashback takes up most of chapter 22.
  • Leona's flashback takes up most of chapter 84 and the start of chapter 85.
  • The flashback showing how Yamada met Himekawa and Nancy is the longest one of the series, lasting from chapter 157 to chapter 161.
  • All of chapter 190 covers Hikaru's flashback.
  • Shiraishi's past is shown throughout the whole of chapter 239.
• Wild Take: Being a comedy manga/anime, the series loves these. Yamada is the series' king of wild takes and will usually have at least 5 in a given chapter. Other characters, like Odagiri and Tamaki, are also fond of doing them. Shiraishi is the only major character who doesn't do wild takes, though once in a while she'll still have a cartoonishly dumbfounded gaze when she feels Yamada is being stupid.
• Wingding Eyes: Female students in the background are often shown with hearts for eyes when Miyamura is around.
• Wistful Amnesia: As Noa Takigawa tells Yamada after recovering her memories in chapter 78:
  What… took you so long?
  There's been this… big, black hole in my heart. I was so confused. I couldn't understand why I would suddenly feel that way.
  • And given Shiraishi's tears after Yamada kissed Nene she feels this too.
  • Later revealed President Yamazaki had his memories erased by Rika so he would forget about Leona. When they meet again a year later, despite not knowing who she is, he finds himself crying.
• Witch with a Capital "B": In the English translation, once Yamada finds out how many yen Chikushi charges for a kiss and is thrown out of her clubroom for refusing to pay, he calls her a "money-hungry witch". In the original Japanese version, he simply calls her money-hungry, so the implication in the English translation is obvious, though she is a literal witch.
• Work Off the Debt: When Yamada has no money to pay for a kiss, Chikushi is willing to let him work off the payment for a kiss by having him help her with her hero business.
• World of Buxom: Not as extreme as in certain other mangas, but most girls in the series have relatively large breasts, with only Itou (average), Noa and Himekawa (small), and Kotori (flat) serving as the exceptions. However, since the school uniform sweaters give a case of Hidden Buxom, it's usually not too obvious (except Arisugawa), mostly becoming apparent when the characters are shown in their underwear/bikinis/naked.
• World of Ham: The series is full of emotion, Hot-Blooded characters, over-the-top humor, shouting, loud declarations and all that sort of stuff. Even a calm and soft-spoken character like Shiraishi can sometimes seem hammy from how Comically Serious she is. The major exception to the rule (at least some of the time) is Yamada and Shiraishi's relationship where a lot of the "d'aww" factor comes from the little moments (like Shiraishi writing a message on Yamada's eraser to make him smile) instead of grand romantic gestures.
• World of Technicolor Hair: The characters have hair in all the colors of the rainbow — colors that often symbolize something about their personality — and the named characters with realistic hair colors can be counted on one hand.
• Written Sound Effect: The series loves using them, and it often becomes rather silly given that most of them are un-sound effects.
• Years Too Early: According to Odagiri, Arisugawa is 10 years too young to wear sexy lingerie. Cue Yamada finding out that Arisugawa's underwear is actually much more scanty than Odagiri's.
• You Are Not Alone: Yamada tells Rika Saionji this in chapter 82. She confesses that when her power activated, people forgot her. She was truly invisible to anyone and everyone, save the Student Council President. He was the only one who could speak with her and be friends with her. That was what made her trust him. But then Yamada counters that Nene, Tamaki, and he also know about her and can be friends with her. She doesn't have to rely on the president to no longer be alone.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Inverted. When Miyamura and Leona were estranged from each other due to Leona being a Hikikomori, Miyamura called her by her name whenever he needed to talk to her. When she comes out of her shell again, he starts calling her by the more affectionate "sis".
• You Fight Like a Cow: Yamada and Ushio start their big fight on the roof by insultingly pointing out how their respective fighting skills have deteriorated since they were delinquents.
• You Must Be Cold: Played for Laughs during the winter trip. Odagiri - who has swapped bodies with Yamada - tries to act the way a romantical boyfriend would do in front of Shiraishi. She concludes that she should do the things that she herself would want a boyfriend to do. One of these things is saying that Shiraishi must be cold and giving Shiraishi her hoodie (even though Shiraishi is already wearing a coat and a scarf), leaving her wearing only a t-shirt in freezing cold. Shiraishi subverts and returns the favor by saying that Odagiri must be the one who's cold and gives her the hoodie back along with her own scarf.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Happens twice at the start of the second witch war:
  • At the very start, shortly after the ceremony, Yamada and co. think all is well because the witches lost their powers and can't cause troubles for themselves or others anymore. Then it turns out that a new witch group has been born...
  • Some chapters later, when Yamada has met and made friends with Nancy and most of her witch group, it seems like the problem with the new witches was resolved easily and peacefully. Except that Nancy's group wasn't the new witches Yamada was looking for. They existed on the school all along. And so a new and much more difficult witch search begins...
• Youthful Freckles: Rika Saionji who also has a somewhat childish demeanor.

---