Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends - Volume 1-5

Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends Volume 1 - 5 by Yomi Hirasaka, 960 pages (total)

Okay, forgive me, but it's STORY TIME.

In high school, I had a classmate named Jeremy (names changed to protect the (?) innocent). A lot of people really didn't like Jeremy because he had a particular demeanor to him. He always came across as full of himself, like he thought he was cooler, smarter, better than everyone else. His screen name (back when AOL and AIM were still a big deal, yes I'm old) was even "Superior." Most people found him grating at best, and kind of a jerk at worst.

And then, in college I met Roth (again, names changed). Roth was seriously asocial - to the point that he refused to meet in person for something that could be accomplished online (and often even when it couldn't). He gave off a sort of angry/bitter aura. When you asked how his day was, he'd say "bad," even if it wasn't, just because he hated how rote "fine" and "good" had become as responses. He always had a snide comment to elbow you with.

These are real people I met. But I felt like I understood something about them that others just didn't grasp. Behind their "rough" personalities, each of them was incredibly kind-hearted. Not only would they help you out if you needed, they'd listen to your most insignificant of problems, just so you had someone to talk to. And beyond that, the personalities that most people perceived were misrepresentations - they were both really down-to-earth and self-deprecating, they just had their own way of showing it. If you weren't willing or able to see beyond their surface-level demeanor, you'd never see the wonderful souls underneath.

I feel like that is the spirit of Haganai. At first glance, this is a series about a bunch of high school students that range on the spectrum from bizarre, to conceited, to sadistic. They play horribly mean pranks on one another, mock each other with the most degrading nicknames imaginable, and fight at the slightest provocation. But even at their most offensive, underneath (and despite the title), you can tell that these characters are friends. It just resonates with me, because I've known people like this. And it also hammers home themes of loyalty, family, and (unsurprisingly) friendship.

That's not to forgive it all its faults though. Haganai is a series that consistently goes one step (or two steps, or ten steps) too far. The characters don't just playfully rib each other, they say some downright degrading stuff. It often steps beyond "tastefully offensive" (if such a thing exists) and into sleazy territory. And it revels way too much in its own perversion - it's always played for laughs, but that doesn't necessarily make it okay.

TL;DR I've always liked Haganai, and the manga version is a little tamer, less problematic, (and thus better) than the anime is. I'm not necessarily proud that I like it. Not only would I not fault anyone for disliking it, I think most people would be pretty put-off (or even disgusted?) with it.  But I think completely writing it off does it a disservice. There's some real heart here buried under the vitriol and the perversion. I just suspect most people won't find it worth digging for.