YMMV / Sakigake!! Otokojuku

• Ass Pull:
  • Rather infamously, the reveal that Gekkou has been blind his whole life. This flies in the face of his battle against Eikei, where he needed to reveal Eikei's crystal boomerangs and was seemingly killed because he didn't notice the second one.
  • Jinshou is a woman.
• Awesome Music: The opening theme. The ending theme also counts as well.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: The anime gives greater focus to the students who were relegated to becoming side characters after the Three Trials of Terror arc with additional filler scenes and is overall a VERY good adaptation of the manga, aside from unfortunately reducing the length of the battle between Date Omito and Toramaru Ryuji versus Baron Deino and Rasetsu, but it sadly ends before the Great Heaven-Challenging Olympic Tournament arc, which is arguably the single best arc in the original series.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Edajima Heihachi is this, due to his over the top badassery and hilariously macho nature. One of the most notable examples of this is when one of the Mooks of the Kanto Great Student Alliance lunges at him with a knife, which he deals with simply by growling and headbutting the knife so hard that the blade is shattered into pieces, and then he screams his catchphrase at the top of his lungs into the Mooks face before tossing him like a ragdoll.
  • Some of the out-there fighting styles and techniques are this, such as Daigouin Jaki's Wind-Dancing Cranes of Disaster attack, where he uses many paper cranes with blades on them as projectiles by propelling them with his Deadly Wind Vacuum Wave attack. It winds up being much cooler than it sounds.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Hien, no surprise here.
  • Akashi, the head of the second-years who only appears in a handful of chapters, places surprisingly high in popularity polls.
  • J, thanks to being a cool, Deadpan Snarker, the sole American student to get any major characterization, which makes him stand out among the mostly Japanese and Chinese cast, as well as the great fights he gets.
  • Heihachi Edajima is popular enough to get a prequel about him, and is definitely the character that the series is known for.
  • Oni-Hige is probably the most well known instructor thanks to being a lovable Jerk with a Heart of Gold who gets into amusing antics because of his selfish and immature personality.
• Estrogen Brigade: Surprisingly, despite being a series that's premise is quite literally being Rated M for Manly, Otokojuku has a notable female fanbase, thanks to the notable amount of good-looking male characters that make up the main cast, such as Momotaro, Hien, and Date Omito, among other characters.
• Evil Is Cool: Naturally, due to the fighting styles revolving entirely around Rule of Cool, there are plenty of badass villains in the series.
  • Akashi Gouji. He's notable for being the first character to genuinely challenge Tsurugi Momotaro, and later establishes himself as a Master Swordsman once he finally beings to fight on Otokojuku's side, as he shows just how powerful he really is by effortlessly cleaving through a gigantic rock as if it were butter during his fight with Zhang-feng of the Baolong Black Lotus Pearls, complete with an Ass Kicking Pose.
  • Date Omito, for his utterly badass scars, Impossibly Cool Weapon in the form of his Serpentine Spear, a mix between a spear and a nine-section staff, as well as how his ego and high opinion of himself are rendered practically non-existent mainly due to the fact that he is more than capable of backing up every boast he makes.
  • Daigouin Jaki, the head of the third years and the main antagonist of the The Great Trembling Conquest of the Unified Eight arc. He's consistently portrayed as one of the most powerful students in Otokojuku, even after he makes a Heel–Face Turn, as he fights some of the strongest opponents in the The Great Heaven-Challenging Olympic Tournament arc, such as his rival Zeus, the leader of Olympus and one of the few people who can stand toe-to-toe with him in one of the most memorable fights in the series.
  • Rajah Mahal, a member of the Hades Phoenix Island Sixteen Warriors, and a master of Lama Yoga, which gives him borderline Pillar Men ability to shift his own body, down to manipulating his own hair and nails to use them as a weapon. He also starts out fighting Otokojuku on the back of his elephant steed Punjab, who he trained to be faster and more agile than an ordinary elephant, not to mention teaching it how to use weapons in the form of a bladed "glove" for his trunk.
  • Todo Gouki, the adoptive son of Todo Hyoei and the general of the Hades Phoenix Island Sixteen Warriors. He is basically a mirrored version of Momotaro, down to being a swordsman and having his own version of Momotaro's Rising Ki Tiger Spirit in the form of the Rising Ki Dragon Spirit, not to mention his Noble Demon portrayal makes him a genuinely likeable character.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of the series do get along with other fans of Rated M for Manly manga and anime series such as Fist of the North Star, Goblin Slayer, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Kinnikuman (as well as Kinnikuman Nisei aka Ultimate Muscle), City Hunter and Berserk.
  • Surprisingly, it's starting to become this as well with the Love Live! fan community, of all anime fan communities as if JoJo's Bizarre Adventure isn't the only Manly Anime series to form a friendship with a Japanese Anime series in the Idol Genre enough, then think again (complete with Nico and this Heihachi saying their two of their MOST MEMETIC Catchphrases ever in the history of Anime and Manga). However, it's in the Humble Beginnings phase as Emman did his very first Youtube upload in months where he recorded a Crossover version of the MANLY Phone Call scene (albeit in English Audio).
  • And again with THE iDOLMASTER series with this, because of the Hilarity Ensues if Edajima is a part of 765 Production.
• Funny Moments: Keith Jackson giving the students of Otokojuku the gift of chocolate and chewing gum, as a gesture of allegiance between the American school of the Super Police Academy and the Japanese school of Otokojuku, explaining his choice with a heartfelt story of how his father told him how popular those two items were with the local Japanese kids, only for Genji to angrily point that chocolate and chewing gum are now commonplace goods, and describing his gift as being shoddy and wondering who would want such a gift. Cue the three instructors, with the goofiest expressions of excitement consisting of tiny round eyes and great big smiles excitedly yelling and begging for chocolate and chewing gum with open hands in Gratuitous English like small children, which causes every Otokojuku student to preform a simultaneous Face Fault.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Very popular in Thailand, China and Taiwan. Even the former President of Taiwan Lee Teng-Hui cosplayed as Heihachi Edajima.
  • It is also popular in the Philippines even though there was no Filipino Dub. This is unlike with other anime series that are really popular in the Philippines such as Voltes V and Slam Dunk (though, there are some YouTube channels from there who remastered the entirety of the 1988 TV anime).
  • Alleged to be popular amongst Asian- and African-Americans.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Daisuke Gōri, who had served as the voice actor for Edajima Heihachi in the anime adaptation, would later go on to be the voice actor for another well-known and famous Heihachi many years later, with the latter Heihachi's last name being Mishima.
  • One of the jokes in the early gag arc has Edajima Heihachi delivering an address that consists of him saying his signature catchphrase, then leaving after saying "That's all." afterwards, many years before the Gigachad "Refuses to elaborate further. Leaves" meme became a thing, which is quite literally what Edajima did.
  • In the second chapter of Akatsuki!! Otokojuku, published in 2001, Tsurugi Shishimaru suggests changing the name of the school to Onnajuku when he's unimpressed with the other students in his class. 14 years later, Kurenai!! Onnajuku started, where the school has indeed become Onnajuku after a chemical weapon weakened the males of Japan and main character Tsurugi Momoko is implied to be Shishimaru's own daughter.
• Memetic Badass: Edajima Heihachi, naturally, given that he's quite literally the most powerful character in the setting and prone to fits of over-the-top awesomeness, it seems like Akira Miyashita deliberately aimed for this trope.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • I AM THE PRINCIPAL OF OTOKOJUKU, EDAJIMA HEIHACHI!!!!!!!!!/WASHI GA OTOKOJUKU JUKUCHOU, EDAJIMA HEIHACHI DE ARU!!!!!!!!!
  • Of course, how can we forget that one time when Tazawa attempted to threaten J.J. George with some good-old fashioned Engrish? After all, this scene ended up giving us such great lines as:
    • I AM A BOIII!
    • BOISU BE AMBITIOUSU!
    • ...and many more. But it doesn't even end there! There's also a second one, this time starring Momo! ("Sorry. I got sweat in my hand." "I'd rather be good at beating you up.")
• The Scrappy: Spartacus, from the Great Heaven-Challenging Olympic Tournament arc, thanks to his jerkass personality and coming across as underwhelming yet still somehow managing to defeat Daigouin Jaki, a fan favorite.
• So Bad, It's Good: The live-action movie, which was done in under two weeks and with a budget of $400,000. And yet despite the disjointed plot and B-movie hilarity in terms of quality, you couldn't help but admire the acting and sheer affection towards the source material.
• Spiritual Successor: To Miyashita's earlier manga Ultimate Path Private High School, about a school for yakuza-to-be. Many prototypes of Otokojuku characters and concepts can be found in it, and of course the setting is near identical.
• Squick: Just about everything relating to Sayoko in The Legend of Edajima Heihachi.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The blossoming romantic relationship between Zhang Wukong and Benzaiten in Akatsuki!! Otokojuku, including them going on a date together at the park while it snows. The mini-arc ends with Benzaiten even joining Otokojuku under her male form, which leads one to believe that their relationship would developed more focus, however, it winds up never really being brought up again, with Benzaiten being reduced to a background character.