High School! Kimengumi is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Motoei Shinzawa. A first series Third Year Funny-face Club was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1980 to April 1982. High School! Kimengumi was serialized in the same magazine from April 1982 to July 1987. An anime television series aired from October 1985 to September 1987 and an animated film premiered in July 1986. A sequel to the manga titled Flash! Funny-face Club was published in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan from 2001 to 2005.
Summary
High School! Kimengumi is an episodic chronicle of the bizarre adventures of a group of misfit junior high school boys who form a club known as the "Kimengumi". All of the character names in the series are puns. For example, "Kawa Yui" is another way of saying "kawaii", and "Uru Chie" is a slang form of "urusai", meaning "obnoxious" or "annoying".
Media
Manga
High School! Kimengumi is written and illustrated by Motoei Shinzawa. A first series titled Third Year Funny-face Club was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 13, 1980 to April 12, 1982. Shueisha compiled the individual chapters into six tankōbon volumes published between August 15, 1981 and January 8, 1983. High School! Kimengumi was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from April 19, 1982 to July 6, 1987. Shueisha released the individual chapters into twenty volumes published between April 8, 1983 and February 10, 1988. Another series titled Return of High School! Funny-face Club was published by Popeye on December 1, 2000. Shueisha later released the series into a single volume on February 4, 2004. A new series titled Flash! Funny-face Club was serialized in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan from 2001 to 2005. It was compiled into three tankōbon volumes published from July 22, 2002 and July 22, 2005.
The theme songs, with the exceptions of the fifth ending and insert Nakuko mo Warau Kimengumi, were performed by various sub-groups or former members of Onyanko Club:
Kimengumi has been released on DVD in Japan in two different box set releases. The movie was released as part of the second DVD set in 2008. ;High School! Kimengumi DVD Box 1 ;High School! Kimengumi DVD Box 2 ;High School! Kimengumi DVD Box 3 ;High School! Kimengumi Complete DVD Box 1 ;High School! Kimengumi Complete DVD Box 2
Video games
There is a traditional boardgame based on the series titled High School! Kimengumi Game, released by Bandai. Three video games have been based on the series:
