School Judgement brings the courtroom to the elementary classroom in volumes one and two. When you think of a manga series about child lawyers, you’d think of cute cases that involve some light bullying and the like right? Well that’s not the story you’re getting in School Judgement, in this ‘kid lawyer’ story, there’s murder, drug usage, and other mature themes included.

School Judgement is an 2014 shounen manga, it is published by Weekly Shonen, and licensed by Viz Media. It is currently available in print and digital in English.

Main character: Abaku Inugami, Hobby: ronpa.

When you read School Judgement, you can’t help but have video game series Ace Attorney come to mind. The premise is quite similar, and some of the tropes in Ace Attorney are in the series, such as the “OBJECTION!” exclamations. However, perhaps the most interesting thing about School Judgement is the fact that these are children solving cases of murder, and more.

This isn’t your regular mystery solving kids.

THE GOOD: The characters are fun and likable throughout the story, especially series lead Abaku. New rookie mangaka author Nobuaki Enoki fleshes out this story really well, especially with the aide of Death Note mangaka Takeshi Obata providing the illustration artwork. While it’s rather odd that Obata opted to go for cheery art work for a story dealing with kids solving murder cases, this doesn’t make the art any less fun to look at.

The new student transfers, and school rivals.

THE BAD: While only on volume two, it’s rather sad that School Judgement didn’t live long enough to live out some of it’s potential, the third volume is it’s last.

The courtroom of School Judgement.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: School Judgement is the perfect manga series for Ace Attorney fans and manga readers who like a bit of silliness with their maturity. Nobuaki Enoki and Takeshi Obata are a perfect team, unfortunately the partnership doesn’t last long as School Judgement ends with just two volumes. Otaku Dome gives School Judgement Volume 1 an 82 out of 100, and Volume 2 an 86 out of 100.