History Manga / OsuKarateClub

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: When an English teacher asks Takagi to read from a book in class for dozing off, everyone is baffled at how a musclehead like him can speak English just fine.

* ArtifactTitle: The early chapters revolve around Matsushita's woes at the titular Karate Club, but as focus changes to Takagi the story becomes more about delinquent gang wars even though he sets up a second Karate Club in Tokyo with a TitleDrop by its door.
* AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: In chapter 3, the Boxing Club starts pushing everyone around after Takagi loses a duel to Ando, but as soon as Takagi settles the score Matsushita and Saito suddenly become able to humiliate the boxing students in revenge.

* TheBusCameBack: Kitamura from the Sumo Club shows up a hundred chapters later as one of the strongest Osaka fighters looking to dethrone Takagi, complete with a 4th wall break joke to him first appearing in volume 1. He remains a WarmUpBoss, though...

* DistantFinale: 16 years after the Saga of Good and Evil, a tougher-looking Matsushita goes to a reunion party with his former classmates and other people who cared for Takagi. Everyone briefly talks [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue about what they've been doing]] since graduation, and it's said that every surviving antagonist has become a good person. Morigami informs them that Takagi, who's been missing since he was briefly arrested for his part in the final battle, is living somewhere in Africa [[HappilyEverAfter with Momochiyo]] and working as a merc [[AndTheAdventureContinues to take down criminal organizations]] in conflict zones.

* DumbMuscle: Takagi is the sort of guy who starts bleeding from the nose if he reads anything for more than four minutes. Him being BookDumb and not getting history or even vocabulary right is a running gag.

** The first time Takagi is seen in his berserk mode, he laughs like "Gehehehe" instead of "Tralala".

* GunsAreWorthless: When David is introduced as a threatening villain, he fights dirty by immediately shooting Takagi down with a gun. As soon as he turns to the good guys' side, that gun is knocked out of his hand by some dude with whip-like hair.

* SerialEscalation: Takagi starts out facing opponents from Osaka and Kobe and defeats Jinrai before faking his death and leaving to Tokyo. In that city he faces several more factions of fighters who are as strong as Jinrai and claims the title of First Soul of Tokyo by uniting them all under his authority. This draws the attention of big shots from all the other six Kanto prefectures, who all come to menace him.

* CerebusSyndrome: The story gets increasingly serious as it goes on, and arcs such as the war between Osaka and Kobe and the following revenge of the Bad Girls gang on Takagi have little to no comic relief. Characters like Momochiyo were even [[ShooOutTheClowns noticeably absent]] during that war.

* DistantFinale: 16 years after the Saga of Good and Evil, a tougher-looking Matsushita goes to a reunion party with his former classmates and other people who cared for Takagi. They're told by Morigami that Takagi, who's been missing since he was arrested for his part in the final battle, is living somewhere in Africa [[HappilyEverAfter with Momochiyo]] and working as a merc [[AndTheAdventureContinues to take down criminal organizations]] in conflict zones.

** When Takagi recklessly sends his forces against Shuzo's yakuza organization, the villain merely sics 20000 heavily armed policemen on the delinquents and lets the public's opinion turn to his side.

* RapidFireFisticuffs: Downplayed with Sagawa's Four-hit Thrust, which Takagi improves into a five-hit combo.

The series was influenced by ''Aa!! Hana no Ouendan'' and influenced stories like ''Manga/CromartieHighSchool'' in turn. It spawned a four episode OVA mini-series released from 1990 to 1992, a 1990 live action movie, and a 1994 UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom fighting game. In 2013, there was also a short Mahjong-themed spinoff titled ''Osu! Maajanbu''.

* CrucifiedHeroShot: In volume 23, Takagi has a nightmare of Takeuchi and Igari being executed by the Tokyo Alliance while he is chained to a cross. It then turns out the two have been kidnapped for real and are restrained with their arms tied and nailed to planks.

** One saga involves Takagi searching for a "Rising Dragon" technique. So then one chapter cover has him [[Franchise/StreetFighter dressed like Balrog (Boxer)]] and Momochiyo cosplaying as Chun-Li. It's neat because it's most likely in reference to Takagi that Balrog has the same star-shaped shave as him. Later, Takagi beats one yakuza thug with a ''Shoryuken'' (Rising Dragon Fist) just for the pun's sake.

** On volume 29, Takagi points out to Kira that no reader believes [[YoungerThanTheyLook any of them are high schoolers]].

* {{Cliffhanger}}: Volume 31 ends with Koichi, who's been throughly brainwashed and broken by torture, about to shoot Momochiyo in the face. The next volume opens with him resisting and pointing away at the last instant.

It began as a comical SliceOfLife series about Japan's teenage delinquent gang subculture told from the perspective of Matsushita Tadashi, a 2nd year student at Kangokou High and a constant target of numerous bullies who beat him up routinely after school. He is accompanied by his best friend Saitou Takaki, who is also constantly harassed.

As the pair grows tired of being victimized they decide to join the titular Karate Club, which is notorious throughout Osaka's youth gangs for training and producing the city's most hardened teenage thugs while maintaining the facade of a legit school sports club. But when they join, they find themselves picked on just as much if not worse by their new upperclassmen.

The story gradually changed its tone to a more serious and violent martial arts manga, with the perspective changing from Matsushita to his mentor Takagi Yoshiyuki, the streetwise, tough-as-nails captain of the Kangokou Karate Club as he faces the power struggles between delinquent gangs in both Osaka and its neighbouring cities.

The series was influenced by ''Aa!! Hana no Ouendan'' and influenced stories like ''Manga/CromartieHighSchool'' in turn. It spawned a four episode OVA mini-series released from 1990 to 1992, a 1990 live action movie, and a 1994 UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom fighting game.

** The 100-step God Punch is then turned against Takagi just as suddenly by Osamu only a few chapters later, forcing the hero to go climb a mountain and learn a new set of secret techniques to use against the Kanto Slaughter Group.

** When Takagi is undergoing deadly training from Keiji to master the Wicked Fist, he turns to the readers and asks them to send letters about what he should do to stay alive in the chapters to come.

* PoliceAreUseless: Zig-zagged; most incidents in the story happen without the police even getting involved but on multiple occasions Takagi and other characters do use their presence as a threat to get villains to back off.

** Once Takagi takes over Tokyo, four fearsome fighters from Kanto assassinate Mutsuo, a then bedridden man who once united the region, and then it's their turn to make a joke out of the Tokyo Alliance's captains. Raiden and David get the worst of it, [[DownplayedTrope but at least]] Sabu gets to defeat one of the Slaughter Group's captains and has a well-disputed fight with Teramoto before going down.

-->"Well, I'll be damned!! You see, we Osakans tend [[LampshadeHanging to make jokes even at important times]]... But I drank an Alinamin V, so I won't miss this time!"

** One saga involves Takagi searching for a "Rising Dragon" technique. So then one chapter cover has him [[Franchise/StreetFighter dressed like Balrog (Boxer)]] and Momochiyo cosplaying as Chun-Li. It's neat because it's most likely because of Takagi that Balrog has the same star-shaped shave he does. Later, Takagi beats one yakuza thug with a ''Shoryuken'' (Rising Dragon Fist) just for the pun's sake.

** One saga involves Takagi searching for a "Rising Dragon" technique. So then one chapter cover has him [[Franchise/StreetFighter dressed like Balrog (Boxer)]] and Momochiyo cosplaying as Chun-Li. Later, Takagi beats one yakuza thug with a ''Shoryuken'' (Rising Dragon Fist) just for the pun's sake.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Interestingly, Takagi starts doing this regularly after setting a TitleDrop signboard on his new Karate Club in Tokyo.

* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Because of Takagi hiding away during the war against Kobe until he recovered, the other strongest brawlers in Osaka start a ruckus fighting amonsgt themselves to take his place as the Soul of Osaka.

* YoungerThanTheyLook: Most of the male highschoolers in the story look far older than they actually are.

* SoLastSeason: The Fa jin is a mighty Ki manipulation techquine that Takagi is forced to learn to even stand a chance against Jinrai, the first major antagonist in the series. Once Takagi moves to Tokyo, it turns out everyone and their dog now knows the Fa jin exists and attempts to keep the man from performing it properly. During the conflict against the Tokyo Alliance, Katsunari is able to fire a Fa jin even stronger than Takagi's for unexplained reasons, only for Takagi to suddenly reveal he had been taught a counter to the technique at some unknown point and use that to win the fight.

** Once Takagi takes over Tokyo, four fearsome fighters from Kanto assassinate Mutsuo, a then bedridden man who once united the region, and then it's their turn to make a joke out of the Tokyo Alliance's captains -- starting with Raiden.

** After defeating Sabu and proclaiming himself the First Soul of Tokyo, Takagi is dramatically framed under [[CutTheSun a sunny sky]] in the same way it was back when he defeated Jinrai.