What does one do when you have a crush on the president of the public morals club? Well, if you're first year high school student, Yuu, the answer is turning to a life of delinquency! In a bid for the president's heart, Yuu becomes a (self-described) “Bad Girl” hoping to thrill and excite her crush. But Yuu's adorableness (despite her best efforts) outshines any attempts to come off otherwise― and the president can't see past that tiny, lovable exterior. What's a girl got to do to get in trouble around here?!

Bad Girl has a story and art by Nikumaru. English translation is done by Andrew Hodgson and lettering by Abigail Blackman. Published by Yen Press (March 24, 2026). Rated 13+.

Erica Friedman
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If you love a comedy where misunderstanding and miscommunications are the main joke, then Bad Girl is for you. Yuu Yutani is faking being a delinquent, but it so adorable that people really don't mind. All she really wants is to get close to Atori Mizutori, who heads up the school morals committee, but when she does, Yuu just falls apart. Her best friend Suzu, is always willing to offer advice, even though Yuu just overthinks everything anyway.

This has got to be a difficult manga to translate, since so much of Yuu's obsession relies on willful misreadings of completely normal situations. Andrew Hodgson does a very good job of it. In desperation, Yuu texts Suzu to come up with something “bad” to do on the train. When Suzu texts back “Do whatever,” Yuu's internal monologue turns that into “doodle” in the condensation on the train window. Of course, that is not actually a “bad” thing to do, so Atori joins her and Yuu falls to pieces.

This kind of sitcom always does better if you read it in small chunks. Otherwise, it can be a little too cloying. Yes, Yuu is cute, but is being that goofy for that long actually a cute quality? I'm far too cynical to be objective about that. This kind of gag manga can't sustain itself on one premise, despite so many creative ways the characters don't communicate, so of course, a rival character is introduced. There is no real barrier between Atori and Yuu becoming friends, so every plot complication has to tie itself into knots to work. Even so, I chuckled a few times.

If you like repetitive gag manga with a distinctly yuri focus, you may enjoy Bad Girl.

Kevin Cormack
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Sometimes an anime version really elevates its source material, and that's definitely the case with chaotic yuri comedy manga Bad Girl. I really enjoyed last year's Bad Girl anime, finding it very amusing, with its cast of demented characters and their daft interactions. The original covers the same material, but in a much more bitty way, likely due to its nature as a 4-koma comedy manga. I'm not a huge fan of the 4-koma structure at the best of times, as it's generally made to be consumed in small, pithy portions. Read all together as one volume, it quickly becomes exhausting. Pinballing from one punchline to the next makes the reading experience an exercise in endurance rather than enjoyment, and that's a shame, as some of the material here really is quite funny.

Main character Yuu Yutani is an archetypal girl failure protagonist. She's head over heels for senior high school student Atori Mizutori, while completely failing to notice her best friend Suzu carries a long-term torch for her, and that self-proclaimed “school idol” Rura Ruriha is desperate for her attention. Yuu is the dimmest disaster lesbian in an entire cast full of them. In a way, that can make her the least interesting member of the cast. Her willingness to wear dog ears and collars to cosplay as Atori's pet dog aside, I don't find her all that amusing, and her attempts to become a “Bad Girl,” indeed, the entire initial premise of the manga, become uninteresting pretty fast. It's Atori's twisted nature and Suzu's brash behaviour that bring the most laughs. Rura's cute, but she's too much of a one-note character to matter. You could remove her from the story, and not much would be lost.

Nikumaru's art is sadly not served well by the poor pre-release scans I was given access to, which look like eighth-generation photocopies. Sometimes this makes it hard to tell certain characters apart, which may not be an issue in the final print version. I do like the style, though (what I can make out of it, anyway). Overall, I'd definitely recommend the far superior anime version over the manga edition of Bad Girl.

Lauren Orsini
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The initial joke of Bad Girl is that its protagonist isn't a Bad Girl at all. Instead, she's a cutesy social misfit who is convinced that being bad is the only way to get her disciplinary board crush's attention. But instead of the “opposites attract” romance that I was expecting from the title, the two leads are a puppyish girl whose bark is worse than her bite and her big-sisterly romantic interest whose intentions are comically less pure than you'd guess. A yuri 4-koma that's a little bit naughty and a lot bit silly, Bad Girl is sure to appeal to fans of easygoing ensemble comedies like Gabriel Dropout or Yuru Yuri.

I missed this anime when it aired last year because I haven't been keeping up on Amazon Prime or HIDIVE titles, and Bad Girl streamed on both. This 4-panel comic's masterful comedic timing lends itself well to the screen. Knowing that the anime veers way off from the premise of this volume of manga, I was surprised to realize that this sharp turn is actually faithful to the source material.

Once we establish that Yuu Yuutani is, rather than the juvenile delinquent she imagines herself to be, in fact the smolest of smol beans, her Bad Girl antics become a lot less relevant to the plot. Instead it's all about her overwhelming crush on Atori Mizutori (yes, all of their names are like this). The attraction is mutual, but the conflict comes from its varying degrees of intensity. Yuu nearly blinds herself attempting to watch porn like a Bad Girl ought to; meanwhile Atori wants to put Yuu in a dog collar and leash for exactly what it sounds like. Even so, the story sidesteps anything more than a hint of the salacious due to its 4-panel-long attention span.

With a simple art style and an even simpler plot, Bad Girl is the epitome of slice of life with a yuri flavor. Gay high school girls just hanging out as gayly as possible. I'd say it fails to live up to its potential, but that's on me: Bad Girl never attempts to be anything more ambitious than the simple school comedy that it is. Unlike contemporaries like Laid-Back Camp or Bocchi the Rock! which include a secondary topic, it has very little to differentiate itself from other cute girl 4-komas—especially after Yuu stops trying quite so hard to be bad. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it's a fun little diversion.