History Manga / Barakamon

* OneOfTheKids: [[IntergenerationalFriendship Most of Sensei's friends are still in school]]. Quite a few are still in elementary school.

** Sensei, big time. Even moreso in the prequel manga.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Obliterated, actually. The first episode starts with the Handa Force being shocked to learn that 1) there is a ''Handa-kun'' anime, and 2) they missed the first episode. They call {{Creator/Diomedea}} to get a copy, but after the studio blows them off, the Handa Force decides to make their own ''Handa-kun'' anime, with [[StylisticSuck predictable results]]. Only after Diomedea sends the Handa Force a DVD of the episode after all does the show properly start.

* CaptainOblivious: The central joke of the series. Handa is so focused on calligraphy that he doesn't notice most of the weirdness going on around him, let alone that it's directed at him, and what weirdness he does notice he misinterprets as his classmates hating him.

* GenreShift: While ''Barakamon'' is a SliceOfLife series, ''Handa-Kun'' is a GagSeries

* MistakenForBadass: Handa is perceived as more intense and confrontational than he actually is because of his intimidating stare (which is also lampshaded by his dad in ''Barakamon''), which actually wins him fights without ever engaging in them; not that he notices that he's in a fight and he won it, though...

* NeonSignHideout: The sign outside the Handa Force's secret headquarters (aka Tsutsui's apartment) reads "Handa Force Secret Headquarters."

* YokoOhNo: InvokedTrope, Handa's female classmates actually starts legitimately bullying him after they mistakenly believing that he has girlfriend.

* FragileFlower: Hina cries very easily - when she's sad, when she's distressed, when she's happy...

Sei "Seishuu" Handa is a talented young calligrapher from Tokyo who ends up punching a curator who criticizes his work, and heads to the Gotou Islands in order to cool off. However, what was meant to be a time for Seishuu to contemplate things and work on his skills is soon disrupted by the friendly, gregarious islanders, who seem intent on getting involved in his life at every available possibility.

* YamatoNadeshiko: Aside from her proneness to cry, Hina is shown to be a mountain of calmness, a nice and obedient little girl and a straight-arrow student.

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Sensei's dedication to his craft and his unintended charisma serve as an example to the kids around him to dedicate more time to their studies. His mom comes to realize that he is both loved and needed in the island, finally accepting for him to return, and even hinting that she wants to visit the island too.
** During a bout of self-deprecation, Sensei tells Naru that they would have fared better if Higashino had come to the village instead of him; [[NoJustNoReaction Naru stops him and sternly reassures Sensei]] that not only her, but the rest of their friends, love him ''because it's him'', he's special and they won't settle for ''anyone else''. She happens to be in the right track of mind, as it's shown that Higashino is not particularly kind or doting like Sensei is.

* ImpossiblyDeliciousFood: Sensei is a [[http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2015/06/27/oishii-manga-barakamons-island-pickles/ Konomon]] junkie, and argues that if he could only eat one food for the rest of his life, it would be [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Konomon]]. It's so delicious to him that it begins to affect his thinking.

* CheerfulChild: Naru, the first episode of the anime is even titled as such.

There's also a prequel series titled ''Handa-kun'', which centers around Handa as a high school student six years prior to ''Barakamon''. It's more of [[GagSeries a gag comedy]], compared with the slice-of-life tone of ''Barakamon''. ''Handa-kun'' received an anime adaptation in the [[Summer2016Anime summer 2016 season]].

%%commented out as a Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * CheerfulChild: Naru.

An anime for the series aired during Summer2014Anime season, which adapted chapters from the first five volumes. The manga itself is still ongoing, with twelve compiled volumes so far.

After 18 volumes and 9 years, ''Barakamon'' finally came to an end.

** Rino, a classmate of Hiro, has an unrequited crush on him, though her efforts to make him realize this are often foiled. Hiro himself wouldn't mind, though he thinks himself to be below her line of sight.

* DoggedNiceGirl: Ojou was rejected as Sensei's betrothed not because of anything wrong with her, or her {{Gonk}} appearance in the betrothal dossier, but because Sensei just didn't want to get married. As a matter of fact, he was considering it, not even minding her appearance at the time and even appreciating the fact that Ojou is an admirer of his work. Ojou later states that she loved Sensei's work enough to neglect eating and start exercising, ending in her loss of most of her body mass, but admits that it was premature and presumptuous of her to propose to him so surreptitiously (she had even began to arrange a house for them to live together, which only served to scare Sensei when he was made aware of this). However, Sensei's trip to Tokyo and their time spent together sparked Ojou's desire to pursue him once again, to which he seems receptive.

* CloudCuckoolandersMinder: Kawafuji is this to Handa as the person who scampers him to work. Chapter 104 further explores that Kawafuji's input is necessary for Handa, as the friend who is not afraid to tell him ugly truths and drag him down to reality.

%%commented out as a ZeroContextExample * CheerfulChild: Naru.

* MumLooksLikeASister: Handa's mom like in ''Barakamon'', to the point where a group of his fangirls actually confuse her for being his older girlfriend.

* SneezeCut: Hiroshi does this at the end of chapter 77 as the ''narrator'' is talking about him.

* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Handa's various fanboys tend to toe this line, most notably the Bisoujo Club who's members end up making a [[Rule63 Gender-bent]] version as Handa as the lead of their manga because they feel he instills all the qualities of their ideal waifu.

* GroupieBrigade: The Handa Force in a nutshell. Gets [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the chapter that introduces the Student Councile President because they literally follow behind him like they're his pose.

** Played for laughs in the case of Miwa's family, as Sensei asks them to remove their glasses. Because of the way they squint and their familiar resemblance, everyone of them looks like they're going to kill someone. [[BlindWithoutThem They all happen to have very bad eyesight]].

* RaisedByGrandparents: Naru. Her parents are never seen or mentioned, but her grandfather takes care of her, and her grandmother did as well before her death.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: The main ethos of the series. Handa's classmates put him in a pedestal due to his apparently magnanimous and inaccessible demeanor, though Handa himself is behaving in such a way in order to defuse any possible conflicts with classmates that he wrongly assumes are hostile towards him. Both sides happen to be in completely separate trains of thought because ''they just don't talk to each other''. The fact that Handa doesn't trust anyone by default only makes things worse.

** And pretty much everyone calls Hiroshi "Hiro/Hiro-nii". His lack of a real nickname, however, is lampshaded in chapter 77, which begins: "Hiroshi Kido, age 18. His friends call him 'Hiroshi'." [[note]]In the original Japanese, Hiroshi's name is in kanji characters, while the "nickname" is simply Hiroshi's name in katakana.[[/note]]

* LikeBrotherAndSister: Most of the main characters come to be as close as siblings: Hiro and Handa tend to be older brother figures, Tama and Miwa are the older sisters, with Naru, Hina, and Kentarou as the youngest siblings.

** Sensei has an awful lot more in common with the kids in the island than with the adults, seeing that he bypassed a great amount of experiences in his youth due to his sickliness and his dedication to his art. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by the Village Chief, who speculates that Handa shares the share "the same mental age".

* ReplacementFlatCharacter: Kanzaki seems to represent Sensei's old self; someone concerned with only following rote textbook calligraphy and being rather arrogant.

** Yuuichirou considers himself too immature and much too absent to be able to assume the position of [[spoiler:Naru's father as he's supposed to do]], deeming himself incapable of dealing with the prospect of to approach her as a parental figure, when he knows he's been anything but. Still, it's shown that he does love her, even when he's at a complete loss on how to reach her properly.