Working!!

Working!! is a Japanese four-panel comic strip manga series written and illustrated by Karino Takatsu. It began serialization in the January 2005 issue of Square Enix's Young Gangan seinen manga magazine. The first bound volume was released in November 2005 in Japan; as of March 2010, seven volumes have been released. Square Enix released three drama CDs between 2007 and 2009 with scripts written by Shōgo Mukai. An anime series produced by A-1 Pictures and directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike began airing in Japan on April 4, 2010.

Characters

 * Sōta Takanashi (小鳥遊 宗太)
 * (drama CD), Jun Fukuyama (anime)
 * The main character of Working!!, Sōta is a 16-year-old high school student recruited by Poplar to become a new employee at the family restaurant Wagnaria. He is enamored by cute things and thus favors Poplar over the other employees due to her cute appearance. He voices his thoughts out loud and occasionally offends his co-workers, often resulting in him getting punished by them. He usually finds his co-workers and the rules of the restaurant to be strange, but he still has an attachment to his job. He is able to adapt quickly to his job at the restaurant. He has three older sisters and it is because of them that caused his dislike for older women as he had been tormented by them all his life. He received hand-me-downs from his sisters when he was young, giving him the appearance of a little girl. He also has a younger sister in elementary school who is almost as tall as he is. Despite his problems, Inami asks Sōta to cross-dress, using the name Kotori, when her father comes to visit her at work.


 * Poplar Taneshima (種島 ぽぷら)
 * (drama CD), Kana Asumi (anime)
 * Poplar is a short 17-year-old high school student who works at Wagnaria. Ironically, she was named after the poplar tree so that she would grow tall. She is a hard worker, but she sometimes makes clumsy mistakes in her job. She is very sensitive about her small appearance; many customers usually mistake her to be younger than she really is. She often fails to gain respect from Sōta, who is one year younger than her, as he usually regards her as an elementary school student. She is also unable to properly call him by his surname, saying "Katanashi" rather than "Takanashi", even when corrected. She admires Kotori, Sōta's cross-dressing persona, and the Takanashi sisters because of how tall all of them are.


 * Mahiru Inami (伊波 まひる)
 * (drama CD), Saki Fujita (anime)
 * Inami is a timid, 17-year-old girl who joins the rest of the employees at Wagnaria. She has androphobia and is thus terrified of men; she punches any male that comes near her. This violent behavior arises from her belief that every man is ready to attack her, but instead she is prone to violently attacking men at a moment's notice due to this fear. This androphobia was caused by her father who did not want her to eventually wed due to jealousy and thus told her that males would rape her, which ended in her fearing men since then. As she and Sōta usually share shifts, he takes the brunt of her attacks. However, she makes considerable progress with her fear of men by taking it out on Sōta; she states that she is able to be about two meters close to guys without having the urge to hit them. Though this extends to only having fairly civil conversations (often ruined by Sōta's rudeness) or if Inami launches an attack on him. She wears a hairpin in her hair, which she changes every day due to Sōta's compliment on it (according to Sōma). At first she begins to develop a crush, but later she falls in love with Sōta when he confronts her father (as Kotori) about her androphobia.


 * Kyōko Shirafuji (白藤 杏子)
 * (drama CD), Kumiko Watanabe (anime)
 * Kyōko is the manager of Wagnaria. She usually maintains a rather apathetic attitude about how the restaurant is run and almost never bothers to do any work herself. She is not beyond using violence to deal with unruly customers and firmly believes that employees come before the customers, as the employees are the ones doing all the work. She is 28 years old, but she becomes despondent whenever her age is mentioned. Kyōko saved Yachiyo as a little girl from bullies, which is how they met.


 * Yachiyo Todoroki (轟 八千代)
 * (drama CD), Eri Kitamura (anime)
 * Yachiyo is another employee at the restaurant and is 20 years old. She usually carries around a katana which, according to her, was made by her parents who used to be blacksmiths. Yachiyo is unaware that some of the customers, and even Sōta, are intimidated by her blade. She admires Kyōko considerably. She gets angry if anyone offers Kyōko food or tries to take her away, although is willing to allow Satō to feed her because she considers him trustworthy, much to his chagrin. Yachiyo is very close to Satō, as she has worked with him the longest and considers him her closest friend, though is unaware of his feelings for her. She is often addressed as "Chief" by Sōta.


 * Jun Satō (佐藤 潤)
 * (drama CD), Daisuke Ono (anime)
 * A 20-year-old chef who works in the kitchen, Jun is a helpful but intimidating individual. He is in love with Yachiyo, though does not express it. Of course, because she is so devoted to Kyōko, she fails to recognize any hints he attempts to make. He likes to take out his anger on Poplar by messing with her or bending the truth, to which Poplar naively believes. When Sōma tries to help with Satō's development with Yachiyo, Jun unrelentingly hits him with a pan, showing that he is sensitive about his feelings for Yachiyo.


 * Hiroomi Sōma (相馬 博臣)
 * (drama CD), Hiroshi Kamiya (anime)
 * Another chef who works in the kitchen, Sōma is a young man with an easygoing attitude. He often blackmails other workers to do his job for him and pass it off as a form of modesty from the other employees. He can blackmail anyone except Satō and Inami; the former usually responds to his blackmail with hitting him with a frying pan and the latter punches him even before he manages to talk to her. He is terrified of Inami's urges and is thankful for Sōta's existence in the restaurant since Inami is taking out her urges all on Sōta and not him. His biggest weakness appears to be crying girls. Moreover, Yamada has been the only person to ever backfire his blackmails, leaving him depressed.


 * Aoi Yamada (山田 葵)
 * (drama CD), Ryō Hirohashi (anime)
 * Aoi is a mysteriously, self-proclaimed 16-year-old girl who Otoo meets on his travels to find his missing wife. He brings her back to Wagnaria where she starts working as a waitress and lives in Wagnaria's attic. While she has great confidence in herself, during work she is an unhelpful troublemaker who gets yelled at by other staff members, especially Sōta. Since she is in training, her position among the staff is low, which she complains about. She is bad with dealing with Sōta's constant complaints about her, but she does write down some of his suggestions (along with idle complaints). She yearns for the idea of having a family, especially towards Otoo whom she sees as an ideal father figure, and goes as far as to apply to be adopted by him. She is also rather childish and does not like to (in her view) to be "left out", in that sense she goes so as far so as to ask Kyōko to drive her home (even though she "lives" at Wagnaria) or ask for Sōma to poke her, as he and Satō poked Inami and Poplar. Her favorite food is nattō.


 * Hyōgo Otoo (音尾 兵吾)
 * (drama CD), Jōji Nakata (anime)
 * Otoo is the top head of the restaurant. Most of the time he is away searching for his missing wife, but periodically returns to Wagnaria to check up on things and bring back souvenirs.


 * Maya Matsumoto (松本 マヤ)
 * Maya is an 18-year-old glasses-wearing girl who works at Wagnaria. She professes that she is a "normal person" striving to be completely ordinary in work and life in general. She has a hard time understanding the other employees seeing how awkward all of them are and tries not to be too familiar with them. The irony is that because she tries too hard to be "normal", she ends up being pretty weird herself.
 * Maya is an 18-year-old glasses-wearing girl who works at Wagnaria. She professes that she is a "normal person" striving to be completely ordinary in work and life in general. She has a hard time understanding the other employees seeing how awkward all of them are and tries not to be too familiar with them. The irony is that because she tries too hard to be "normal", she ends up being pretty weird herself.

Manga
Working!! had its origins in a web comic written and illustrated by Karino Takatsu also called Working!!, which she published in irregular intervals on her personal website. The web comic's setting and characters are different from the later four-panel comic strip manga, which began serialization in the January 2005 issue of Square Enix's Young Gangan manga magazine. While the restaurant in the web comic and manga are both called Wagnaria, they are different establishments. The first bound volume of the manga was released on November 25, 2005, and as of March 25, 2010, seven volumes have been published in Japan. Ten additional chapters have been released via mobile phones. The manga has been licensed for release in Chinese in Taiwan by Tong Li Publishing. Takatsu launched a biweekly web version of Working!! on October 16, 2009 to commemorate the anime series and posts the manga on the anime's official website.

Drama CDs
Square Enix have released three drama CDs under the title Young Gangan Book In CD Working!! with scenarios written by Shōgo Mukai. The first volume, released on January 25, 2007, came bundled with a 96-page booklet with bonus manga and the scenario included. The second and third volumes, released on April 25, 2008 and March 25, 2009 respectively, also came bundled with similar booklets.

Anime
An anime television series produced by A-1 Pictures and directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike began airing in Japan on April 4, 2010 on Tokyo MX. The first episode had a special pre-broadcast on March 6, 2010 on Tokyo MX. The voice acting cast for the anime is different from the drama CDs. The anime's opening theme is "Someone Else" by Kana Asumi, Saki Fujita, and Eri Kitamura. The ending theme is "Heart no Edge ni Idomō Go to Heart Edge" (ハートのエッジに挑もう Go to Heart Edge) by Jun Fukuyama, Daisuke Ono, and Hiroshi Kamiya. The ending theme of episode nine is "Golden Day" (ゴールデン・デイ) by Saki Fujita.

Reception
The fourth manga volume of Working!! was the seventh highest selling manga volume in Japan for the week of October 23 and October 29, 2007. The sixth manga volume was the sixth highest selling manga volume in Japan for the week of March 24 and March 30, 2009, having sold over 73,000 volumes that week.