EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

The pecking order of a classroom is a drama in itself. School Caste renders that drama with an overwhelming density of drawing, and it stands in the hall as a book that sold its way to the top of a year's print chart.

The title story is a seven-chapter serial from Comic Anthurium, an ensemble school drama set in a class split between a popular crowd and a group of overlooked girls. Blackmail is among its themes, and readers have taken the way the hierarchy gradually loses its meaning as a story of the bottom overturning the top. The six accompanying stories range widely, from a university club to a corporate spy.

Its reputation rests on the sheer quantity of work on the page. The creases of clothing, single strands of hair, the gradations of shadow are drawn without shortcuts, and many readers say this density is what gives the panels their depth. The pages lean toward weighty realism, yet faces can break into cartoon deformation when the moment calls for it. The short stories mostly close lightly, on a laugh.

It was the second collected volume by Okayusan, who has worked in adult manga since around 2011, and reviewers note how far the artist had come since the first. The publisher presented Okayusan as the realist flagship of its magazine, and store-exclusive editions were put together.

It topped DMM's annual mail-order chart of adult comics for 2016 and stayed in the chart at 16th the following year. It also placed high in annual charts at Akihabara shops. It stands 254th among the hall's commercial works.