Working!! is a japanese four-panel comic strip manga series written and illustrated by karino takatsu, and concerns the activities of the unusual employees at the wagnaria family restaurant. 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 2011, nine volumes have been released. square enix released three drama cds between 2007 and 2009 with scripts written by shōgo mukai. a 13-episode anime series produced by a-1 pictures and directed by yoshimasa hiraikeaired in japan between april and june 2010, and a second season began airing in october 2011. in north america, the anime is licensed by nis americaand is known as wagnaria!!.
Characters
Wagnaria employees
The main character of Working!!, Sōta is a
16-year-old high school student recruited by Popura to become a new employee at
the family restaurant Wagnaria. He is enamored by cute things and thus favors
Popura 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 dislikes older women as he has 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, but unlike his older sisters, respects him. Despite his
problems, he is occasionally forced to cross-dress as a girl named Kotori.
Despite the fact that he constantly gets hit by Mahiru, he is actually quite
skilled in fighting, as his sister taught him self-defense. He does not fight
Mahiru because his sister taught him not to hit girls.
Popura 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 their tall and mature looking.
Mahiru 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 childhood, when her father, who did not want his
daughter to eventually marry, told her that every man is ready to attack her
and conditioned her to violently attacking men at a moment's notice due to this
fear. 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 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. Thanks to Sōta her condition improved as she
states that thanks to him she became 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 Mahiru launches an
attack on him. Despite that Sōta only manages to get closer to Mahiru without
risk of being attacked when he crossdress as Kotori or by using a grabber toy.
Kyōko is the manager of
Wagnaria. She usually maintains a rather apathetic attitude towards the
restaurant she runs and almost never bothers to do any work herself, instead
constantly eating food including Yachiyo's parfaits and Otoo's souvenirs. 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 she is
called old or any variation of. Kyōko was a juvenile delinquent, and Yachiyo and Kyōko
met when Kyōko saved Yachiyo from bullies when she was a little girl and
demanded food as payment.
Yachiyo is the chief of
staff 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 after she was saved from bullies by her and has followed her ever
since. She constantly makes parfaits for Kyōko and becomes hostile to anyone
else trying to give her food, which is usually Otoo. Yachiyo is very close to
Jun, 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.
A 20-year-old chef who
works in the kitchen, Jun is a helpful but intimidating individual. He is in
love with Yachiyo, but has problems expressing 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 Popura by messing with her or bending the truth,
to which Popura naively believes. When Hiroomi tries to help with Jun's
development with Yachiyo, Jun unrelentingly hits him with a pan, showing that
he is sensitive about his feelings for Yachiyo.
Another chef who works in
the kitchen, Hiroomi 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 for Jun and Mahiru;
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 Mahiru's urges and is thankful for Sōta's existence in the
restaurant since she takes out all her urges on him instead. His biggest
weakness appears to be crying girls. Moreover, Aoi has been the only person to
ever backfire his blackmails, leaving him depressed.
Aoi is a mysterious,
self-proclaimed 16-year-old girl who Otoo meets on his travels to find his
missing wife. Her true identity and age are a mystery besides the fact that her
first name is Aoi. 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 the
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. She
goes as far as to apply to be adopted by him. She is also rather childish and
does not like to be (in her view) "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 Popura. Her favorite food is nattō.
Her ladylike manner and lack of knowledge in the kitchen makes Takanashi
suspect she is actually from a rich family. Later on, her brother appears
looking for her, but Sōma continues to prevent them from meeting.
Otoo is the top head of
the restaurant. Most of the time he is away searching for his missing wife, who
apparently is so bad with directions she got lost while running errands and is
now lost wandering Japan. He periodically returns to Wagnaria to check up on
things and bring back souvenirs. Due to his habit of bringing food back for
Kyōko whenever he returns, his life is constantly in danger from a jealous
Yachiyo. He is noted to have a light presence, and is even compared to (and
named) "air" by Sōta when the latter is attempting to convince Mahiru
not to attack him.
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 briefly appeared in volume one of the manga and did
not resurface until volume five due to readers requesting more information on
her from the author.
Video clip
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