In late 2023, I was introduced to a manga that was relatively obscure at the time called Kindergarten Wars. It placed third that year in the Next Manga Award for the web manga category and had 40 English chapters published in the Shueisha Manga Plus app.
The manga, which is written and illustrated by You Chiba, is popular in Japan but not quite as big in the west. The story follows the safest Kindergarten in the world, where children of important people are protected by former criminals who serve as teachers.
After reading the first twenty chapters in Manga Plus in 2023, I thought this was a great successor to anime that I liked such as Spy X Family and Buddy Daddies. The characters all have interesting backstories and the humor was superb. Each chapter was sweet and charming with just the right amount of John Wick style violence.
I remember thinking it could be the next big anime but it’s still incredibly obscure in the west 18 months later. The series now has more than a hundred chapters across 14 volumes, and all of them have been translated to English in the app. Next month, Yen Press will begin publishing print volumes in english.
In the 2024 edition of the Most Wanted Anime Adaptation poll, the series finished in ninth place. In the 2025 edition, it rose to fifth place.
With how popular the manga has been in Japan, it’s surprising that an anime adaptation has not been announced yet. With any luck, print serialization in English will change that.
