Manga / Tsurezure Children

Tsurezure Children (徒然チルドレン, also romanized as Tsuredure Children or Tsure-dure Children, meaning "Tedious Children") is a Yonkoma webmanga written by Toshiya Wakabayashi. It started off in 2012 as a collection of various doujinshi stories involving the love between students at a particular high school (with some stories sometimes intersecting), until Wakabayashi gathered them all and got them officially published, first being serialized in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine from 2014 to 2015 and then in Weekly Shonen Magazine from 2015 to 2018, complete with redrawn art.

An anime adaptation was announced for 2017 and premiered during the Summer 2017 Anime season. It is available for legal streaming with subtitles on Crunchyroll here, and with an English Dub on Funimation here. The Simuldub premiered on August 16th, 2017.

The series is completed at 212 chapters, with the 12th volume released in Autumn of 2018.

Beware of non-marked spoilers for the later chapters.

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Tropes:

• Aborted Arc: Hints of Katori's illness were made throughout his strips, culminating in "Santa Claus" where he's shown to be hiding it from everyone else. By his final serialized strip, the most that information gets elaborated on is the character description; never once is it brought up itself.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the anime, several characters get different eye colors due to everyone except Gouda having blue eyes in the manga.
• All Men Are Perverts: Akagi, Chiaki, the Light Music Club, Keisuke, just to name a few. Examples include the Light Music Club responding to surveys with sex or "my dick", and the second year boys reacting with stunned expressions and beet-red faces when they see their girlfriends in swimsuits.
• All Women Are Prudes: Discussed and regularly defied by the girls, who are just as often interested in sex as the boys. However, they tend to be a bit Closer to Earth in this field than their love interests.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Kamine's younger sister Reika in one instance. Hotaru Furuya constantly.
• Arc Symbol: Spica, for the Astronomy Club. Sasahara and Yukawa share their knowledge of the star as one of their big relationship points, and their first strip as well as a Kaga/Nanase strip is named after it. Sasahara also tries to win her new club members over with it, the constellation becomes symbolism in the school festival arc, and eventually Kaga and Nanase begin dating under it.
• Art Evolution: Big time for this series, especially considering its origins. Compare the "Confession" chapter as it came out first to its tankoubon version, for example.
  • Also tends to show up when a particular scene is redone for the tankoubon releases. Nashimoto's confession to Sonobe is a good example of this.
• Bait-and-Switch: In "Disappearing into the Night", Toujou tries to confess as quietly as possible, and given that Ogiue was looking at the snow during it, and it takes almost a full strip for him to respond, it sets up the reader to think that he really didn't hear as is standard for this development. Nope. He heard the whole thing. They're dating now.
• Beach Episode: The main characters from class 2-4 go to the beach together for a stretch of strips.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ubukata and Erika's tension is so obvious that everyone teases them about it. Even when they're about to kiss each other, it's born out of a squabble.
• The Big Damn Kiss:
  • Between Sasahara and Yukawa before the latter has to leave on the train.
  • Also between Gouda and Kamine in "I want more", taking up three entire panels/pages.
  • Then in "Present" with Furuya and Minagawa at Christmas, when he has gathered enough courage to kiss her. Shortly after, she kissed him back.
  • Combined with "Shut Up" Kiss, Ubukata with Erika in their final strip. He throws away her fox mask as she sobs about his leaving school and his being confessed to by another girl, but he lays all her fears to rest by planting a kiss on her in the middle of her speech. Again, we don't exactly see it.
• Book Ends: Generally, any chapter with a title like the early ones will be seen as that particular couple's resolution chapter. And usually, to show how far everyone has come, the chapter's scenario is directly parallel to the first's.
  • "Senpai, You're Annoying", which not only concludes the Drama Club's (Matsuura, Urara, and Katori) story but also sends off the club upperclassmen with a near exact recreation of that first Katori/Matsuura strip.
  • Since the final chapter's come out, we see that the first and last chapters of the manga are both called "Confession" and feature Kanda calling Takase outside with the intention of confessing to him. The first time she chokes up and Cannot Spit It Out, but when they find themselves in the same situation in the last chapter she succeeds in confessing her love and they become a couple.
  • The last omake comics follow the cast at the start of a new school year, where the first chapters started in the early school year. And overall, where the series starts with Takase's confession to Kanda, the series ends with Tohru being confessed to by her classmate Akitsuki.
• Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Chiaki and Kana have one when Chiaki gets drunk to get the courage to finally kiss Kana and she gets mad and breaks up with him. Then he tries to apologize only for Kana to break her phone at the worst time so it seems she refuses to accept his apology. They do get back together soon after, after he "breaks up" with her and then asks her out again in order to restart their relationship on a better note.
• Bros Before Hoes: In the reprise of "We Don't Need Women", Yamane is stuck wanting to talk to and comfort Motoyama after he got his heart broken, and spending time with Chiyo the same day. While he does initially pick Chiyo, he kept agonizing over Motoyama to the point where he decided to go to him in his time of need after all. Chiyo was more than understanding of the situation, since she felt for him too and appreciated the work Motoyama put into getting them both together.
• Christmas Episode: Everyone gets their day on Christmas Eve, but not all is satisfactory for certain people.
• Class Trip: One arc has all the second years go on a trip to Okinawa. Of course, many of the couples get to have their moments.
• Cliffhanger: All of the arcs occurring during the school festival are left like this deliberately in the serialized version, with their resolutions promised in the seventh volume.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Ryoko gets into a spat with her mother while she studies. When her mother chastised her for being seemingly dependent on Akagi and warning her not to end up like her (i.e. divorced from a sweet talking lover that gave her a shotgun marriage), Akagi shoots back that she doesn't really act like a mom and calls her mother out on her irresponsible love life.
• Cannot Spit It Out: One of the biggest obstacles in the paths of many would-be couples. And even if somebody does spit it out, the chance of something messing it up to blur the message is high. Look no further than Takase and Kanda.
  • Takano and Sugawara are even worse, since at least Takase and Kanda have confessed in some form, but are simply unable to seal the deal completely, whereas Takano and Sugawara are yet unable to verbally admit their feelings over a hundred chapters in.
• Cerebus Retcon: Katori's illness is brought out more in the open while he has a conversation with Akagi. While his condition is treated seriously by the latter, the former acts as his usual self and the scene is treated much like any other of his wild and hammy encounters. Come "Santa Claus", and the series treats it more seriously, given it confirms his ill condition and he's decidedly not happy about it.
  • The way he treats his illness is much the same, as back in his first strip with Kazuko he refers to the blood coming out of his mouth (that came out after Kazuko landed on his stomach) as food he ate for lunch and laughing it off. He doesn't have the excuse of injury in "Santa Claus" or in his conversation with Akagi, but he treats it very similarly there.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Enomoto actually mentions that she has a friend in Kansai that wanted to go to Comiket in "Asking for Too Much". He comes back in a big way in "Protagonist", given that this old friend is also her old crush.
• Compressed Adaptation: The Anime only adapts up until Chapter 81 of the manga, the start of summer vacation. In addition, only about half of the overall cast gets prominent focus, with the others either being reduced to cameos or not appearing at all.
• Continuity Nod: At the end of one strip, Takano imagines Sugawara hugging her from behind and confessing his feelings for her. Come their final strip, after Takano confesses to him, he does exactly this.
• Control Freak: Erika describes her mother as a person who wants her children to go down the same path that she's gone, and doesn't tolerate deviation. "Animal Trail" shows how tight her influence is on her.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Sometimes, couples just don't get together, no matter how hard you may want them to. It's nobody's fault when it doesn't happen, it's just how it is. Chiba learns the hard way that her love for Kirihara just wasn't meant to be.
• Diet Episode: Nashimoto's is "Unlikable", and as you can guess by the title, it's Played for Drama. She decides that she wants to go on a starving diet and eat less food than the normal because she's that desperate to lose weight for herself and for Sonobe.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: After Chiaki makes Kana mad by not noticing her feelings while she was in pain, he apologizes and then asks if her anger is the result of period cramps. She only gets madder and tells him that he's the reason she's so angry that time.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Sunagawa and Toda, over the course of the series. They start out as very similar characters, but we later see that Toda is a bit more abrasive about her emotions, while Sunagawa is more expressive but falls under Dull Surprise more.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Noro towards Alice. He's completely infatuated with her, but she wants no part of his feelings because she devoted herself to Takase. Despite her repeatedly stating she doesn't like him and blowing him off at a hangout, he keeps waiting and pursuing her.
• Double Date: "Asking for Too Much" sets up one for Yamane/Chiyo and Motoyama/Enomoto at Winter Comiket.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: While Sunagawa is sick, Toda attempts to kiss him while he's asleep and delirious, but he wakes up just as their faces were close enough.
• Ensemble Cast: Who is the main character? Well, whoever the current chapter is about. Which is to say, pretty much everyone! Though some pairs can come across as a Spotlight-Stealing Squad due to the number of their focus chapters being so close together.
• Everyone Must Be Paired: Every main character gets paired up, with very few exceptions. The only truly single person in the story is Ryoko's divorced mother, and that's portrayed as a bad thing.
• Fan Convention: One of Yamane's chapters has him go to Comiket with Chiyo, and properly confess to her while they're walking around the premises. They also plan on going to the Winter Comiket in Chapter 158.
• Held Gaze:
  • Kirihara and Chiba have one when they try to hide from passersby in Chapter 159. According to Chiba, Kirihara's starting to show expressions that hint that he's falling for her.
  • Ubukata and Erika share one in "Animal Trail'' while he's wrestling her mask off. As soon as they end up on the floor, they make eye contact for a while, and then Ubukata decides to go in for a kiss.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Urara and Matsuura have this, at least in comparison to all the other characters. They're the only ones not in a heterosexual pairing, and unlike Yamane and Motoyama, they're never eventually given one. Most of their chapters have to do with interacting with each other, and Urara's admiration of Matsuura coupled with Matsuura thinking only of Urara as a "beloved kouhai" brings to mind similar romantic drama with the other students. They both confess their feelings to each other (whatever they may be) after the school play is successful.
• Hope Spot:
  • Just when Nashimoto is finally given the chance to date Sonobe after he asks her out, and just when she's so elated about the act that she couldn't care less about her problem for this one moment, she just so happens to overhear Chiaki and Kana talking about the weight gain on her legs. And her insecurities all come crashing back down again.
  • In "Protagonist", when Motoyama started to get interested in Enomoto, it turns out that she has a crush on her friend before moving to his school. Subverted when they get together later.
• Indirect Kiss: Teased in "Dry's" reprise, where Toda offers Sunagawa an indirect kiss from her coffee cup when he asks for an actual contact kiss. As soon as he's off guard, she kisses him for real.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: During the Beach Episode, Sugawara tries to confess to Takano again near the ocean, but being the magnet for romantic stagnation Takano is, the ocean waves cover his confession.
• Just Friends: Takase and Kanda enforce this trope on each other whenever their feelings get out in the open. They're always one step from confessing, but they always fall back.
• Last Episode, New Character: Akitsuki, Tohru's designated love interest, is only introduced in the absolute last omake strip.
• Long-Distance Relationship: Sasahara and Yukawa are forced to date this way, since the latter is a college student that lives a way's away from where everyone else is. This in no small part contributes to the Love Triangle that's going on back in high school.
• Lost in Translation:
  • In one of Onizuka's chapters, he and Katori somehow mention kendo somewhere along the lines, and gets brought back as a Brick Joke at the end with Onizuka thinking "MEEEEEN"^note Japanese word for face, usually used when going for a face strike in kendo. It doesn't quite have the same impact in the translation.
  • The anime translation's changing of Patty's word for "like" to "lice". In the manga, the word she uses is "sushi" since it's phonetically similar to suki, and a joke in the manga involved one of the characters making nigiri in response to the word, which can't be done with lice, at least not easily.
• Love Hurts:
  • Motoyama in "Protagonist" goes through one big time. He slowly comes to fall in love with Enomoto, despite his long lived love for the 2D realm, only to find out that she has someone else she likes in her old hometown, has been very recently in contact with him after he confesses long distance, and only thought of Motoyama as a friend at Winter Comiket. The triple whammy hits him hard.
  • The Sasahara/Kaga/Nanase triangle, more specifically the latter two parts of it.
    • Nanase has been in love with Kaga for years, but puts on a front for it. By high school, she joins the Astronomy Club like Kaga because she likes him, but for the whole year she watches him as he falls in love with Sasahara, and doesn't do anything about it despite her pining.
    • During the school festival, Kaga confesses to Sasahara and gets rejected. Kaga finds that he's not as upset about it, seemingly averting this trope...but as soon as he sees Sasahara's happy face upon reuniting with Yukawa, he instantly bursts into tears without realizing it.
• Love Triangle: Not as much as you'd think, given the huge cast, but the series doesn't quite get into No Loves Intersect, due to the presence of Nanase, Kaga, and Sasahara (and technically, Yukawa). And Takase, Kanda, Alice and later Noro.
• Lovable Jock: A lot of the characters like Takase, Noro and Sugawara play sports but are very kind.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Urara isn't good at acting, but she tries. Matsuura desperately wants to tell her what's wrong with her, but she doesn't want to downplay and dismiss all of the hard work Urara puts into her acting, so she lies about her progress.
• Maybe Ever After:
  • For Noro/Alice, given that Alice feels more alive after heartbreak when Noro confesses to her again, and while they don't hook up in her second "My Bloody Valentine", he says he'll wait as long as it takes for her to reciprocate. Their panel in the final volume's omake all but says that they got together.
  • Also for Chiba/Kirihara, as their main strip ends with the former being rejected yet still in love, but the latter still mentioning he doesn't hate her, and the narration teasing the relationship with the phrase "the flowers will blossom soon".
• Moment Killer:
  • Chiaki and Kana can be this unintentionally on occasion. Played for Laughs with interrupting Keisuke and Patricia (marking a rare instance where Patty actually gets angry), Played for Drama with Nashimoto and Sonobe.
  • Patty herself does it one time to Takano and Sugawara.
  • Back when Yukawa was a third-year, Katori somehow chose the absolute worst time to interrupt his and Sasahara's moment on a rooftop.
  • In "Animal Trail", Ubukata and Erika end up on the floor after she teases him for checking up on her. Ubukata tries to wrangle her "Miss Wabisabi" mask off, and it does so just where her lips would be. In the heat of the moment, Ubukata decides to go in for a kiss ... right about when Mr. Kirihara opens the door and discovers them, causing them to jump and move. Now what's not clear is whether or not they actually kissed, given that the strip cuts to Kirihara right before Ubukata tries something, but because he's covering his mouth in the very last panel, it's safe to say that something happened.
• No Periods, Period: Averted in "Luna, Luna". The entire conflict of the chapter (whether Chiaki and Kana can have sex that day) is due to Kana being on her period at the moment.
• Not What It Looks Like: Kanda ends up finding Takase and Alice in an intimate embrace at the end of Chapter 161. She came in at the worst time possible though; the only reason they're hugging is because Takase just turned Alice down for Kanda, and Alice is distraught about it.
• Only Six Faces: The characters try to do a good job of giving themselves distinguishing characteristics, but it's somewhat hard to tell them apart when the majority have the same face structure and expressions, especially in monochrome. Takase and Sugawara are known to cause confusion in readers when side by side.
• Opposites Attract: Quite a few of the couples couldn't be anymore different, such as the Otakus falling for completely normal girls, a student council president with a delinquent, or a classic Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy pair in Soma and Saejima.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything:
  • Aside from one-upmanship contests between Ubukata and Shibasaki, the Light Music club isn't shown practising very often. Lampshaded in a student's remarks in an omake chart.
  • After Sasahara takes over as the Astronomy Club president, the things they do in the club have nothing to do with astronomy. The closest they ever get to involving stars is when Sasahara tries to figure out Kaga and Nanase’s compatibility using astrology.
• Platonic Declaration of Love:
  • The reprise of "My Brother's Girlfriend" has Minagawa give one to Hotaru, asking her to act as her little sister as well. It acts as the climax of the whole chapter.
  • The school festival arc shows Urara and Matsuura confessing to each other like this, after their school play is successful.
• The Promise: Saejima promises Soma that she'll date him if he wins his next tournament. This is right before she fights with him, causing him to sprain his ankle.
• Relationship Upgrade: Soma's final appearance ends with him asking Saejima out, much to her surprise.
• Right Behind Me: During the Beach Episode, Takano is convinced by her friends to admit that she "sushis" Sugawara. Yoshinaga takes that moment to tell her that he's standing behind her.
• Rule of Symbolism: The constellation Spica, as the model shown in the school festival, is made to look like a triangle with four points, with two points meeting at the end. It's a perfect visual metaphor for the Astronomy Club's love triangle, as Nanase and Kaga have unrequited feelings for Kaga himself and Sasahara, while the latter already has Yukawa.
• Running Gag: Kazuko's almost pathological reaction to Katori calling her kitten, namely, her meowing at the mere mention of the word from his lips.
• School Festival: Comes in both the cultural festival and athletic festival flavors. The light music club has been preparing for the cultural festival for most of their arc. The entirety of the tenth volume covers the cultural festival arc.
• Shipper on Deck: Quite a few characters ship the other characters. A larger example is all of class 2-4 shipping Takano and Sugawara.
  • The whole school voted Kana and Chiaki for "best couple".
  • The light music club pretty much accept that Ubukata has a crush on Erika and do their damndest to push them together, even if both sides don't realize the attraction yet.
• Shout-Out:
  • Katori makes some famous JoJo poses^note specifically Josuke's, Johnathan's, and Dio's while he's turning down Kazuko's advances.
  • One of the volume extras has everyone draw a picture of their favorite Yo-kai Watch character. Among the characters shown were Jibanyan, Komasan, Pikachu, Kitaro, and Frieza.
  • Tomoe mentions a "ballroom dance manga running in Shonen Jump" when Itsuki expresses interest in the sport.
  • When Sunagawa is asked what he wanted to be when he was a child, he says Kamen Rider.
  • Katori claims he's just a passing-through Love Master several times.
• Sick Episode: "Mischief", where Sunagawa is stuck in the nurse's office with a fever while Toda comes in to visit him.
• Smash to Black: The animated version of "Death to Senpai" has the dropkick that ends the chapter interrupted by a cut to black before Matsuura makes contact.
• Snow Means Love:
  • The anime changes the order of things a little. Instead of a vague moment in the school year, the first episode sets the "Confession" chapter in the wintertime, when it's still snowing outside.
  • "Disappearing into the Night" has Toujou and Ogiue finally getting together during a light snowfall.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: For the most part it's avoided since the series has an Ensemble Cast, but occasionally the manga will devote several weeks to single storyline and couple in a row. The Sports Festival three-parter largely focuses on Kana and Chiaki. Water's Edge four-parter focuses on Sugawara and Takano. The Leading You Three-Parter focused on Yamane and Chiyo.
• This Is Reality: Chiaki's parents remind him that romances like his aren't going to be perfect and drama-free like in manga or movies, citing their own experience as an example. Realizing this makes Chiaki finally able to apologize to Kana for his earlier behavior.
• This Loser Is You: Yamane and Motoyama are young otakus who couldn't land dates before their respective Love Interests come into their lives, and they're always constantly questioning how their loves came to like such weird people like they are. This continues even after Yamane properly confesses to and dates Chiyo.
• Weight Woe: Nashimoto does not get over her weight issues very easily. In fact, just because her friends tell her that she's not nearly as fat as she thinks she is and her crush Sonobe is interested in trying dating with her doesn't make her any less ashamed of her own self image.
• What Would X Do?: Matsuura decides to imitate Katori before the school play begins, seeing him as an example of a good and helpful upperclassman despite his eccentricities.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The last omake chapter gives one panel each to all the couples in a new school year, and also opens up a new romantic arc for Hotaru with her classmate Akistuki.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Onizuka's chapters are always done with his inner monologue rapping in some way, shape or form.