This is my favourite manga. I'm saying this first, because it doesn't have a lot of features that bring people to read manga. The art is very different and reminiscent of older shounen manga, even though it is obviously written for a female audience. The guys are mainly ugly bruisers.
The main couple doesn't even kiss.
There are a lot of omakes that don't make any sense at all (There's suddenly a dog wearing clothes. He's in many of the extras, and I have no idea why.)
However:
This manga is about outcasts and societies rejects.
It's about the problems you face when you look different, behave differently, have an accent, or a dialect. It's about how people that have let you down, should not have.
It's about hope in the face of prejudice.
Every single character in this manga has a different face, different mannerism, and you can tell. The art may be simplified, but it makes the ugly bruiser that much more distinct from each other, and also other manga. The main love interests are pretty to look at, but they get plenty of backlash from that anyway.
This is a manga that makes friendship and love between characters obvious, without resorting to telling
(or showing, to reiterate: The main couple does not even kiss. But despite that, there's absolutely no doubt that they end up together.)
Of course, there's plenty of high-school shenanigans and (dirty, sometimes funny, but most often really hilarious) jokes, but there's also the trouble of going to university, finding a job, being accused of yakuza, actually becoming a criminal -- there is so much depth in every page (and then they draw a beard with marker on their sensei. Or photoshop a hot bod on their headshot picture)
I have so much love for this goddamn manga. I loved it when I was 14, and I love it now that I'm 24. And it was definitely written just for me.
Just so you know: Of course I watched all of the adaptions. And there are some touching moments, and all the live-action stars are pretty cute. But the manga made me cry and a page later laugh out loud in hilarity.