Danica Davidson
May 24, 2025 
Kindergarten Wars opens with an assassin being given a really cold-blooded assignment: killing a kindergartner because of who his parent is. But the assassin will kill whoever he’s told to kill, and killing a kid sounds easy enough. He goes to the kid’s kindergarten with his sniper rifle and discovers it’s not as simple as it seems.
The school is highly guarded. It has kids of all sorts of influential people, from politicians to celebrities, and it’s not uncommon for people to want to assassinate these children. As a result, the school is staffed with criminals who are told that if they take on this job and keep these kids safe, they’ll get reduced sentences.
Rita, the star of Kindergarten Wars, used to be an assassin herself, but now she keeps assassins at bay — brutally. The manga is full of explosive action (sometimes quite literally), gunfights, and take downs. There’s a lot of bombastic action and heavy lines in the artwork to indicate it. Still, at the end of the day, it really feels more like a funny gag manga than an action manga, because the premise, which can sound so serious at first (people being assassinated) is actually done in a humorous way.
Rita, for instance, is mainly obsessed with getting a boyfriend, and she’ll come on to any hot man she sees, even if he’s an assassin. But woe to anyone who eats ramen differently from how she does, because she will react violently, even if the guy is hot. While Kindergarten Wars is definitely its own story, it does have some elements that feel reminiscent of SPY x FAMILY (see our review here) or Murciélago, what with its humor mixed with assassinations, and its criminals going after the bad guys to save their own skin. It’s not really clear yet if Kindergarten Wars is going to develop anything of a deep background or plot for its characters, but the first volume is definitely amusing and purposefully excessive.
Story & Art: You Chiba
Publisher: Yen Press
Translator: Christine Dashiell
____
Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
