Chio's School Road is a schoolgirl comedy manga with a novel premise, it bills itself as a "dramatic extreme going to school comedy", and indeed, the vast majority of the manga's action takes place, specifically, on our protagonist's daily journey to her house of higher learning. But, a novel premise can't carry a title on its own, so how does Chio's stack up to similar manga?

Like a lot of entries into this very frantic, physical take on comedy manga, a lot of Chio's School Road's strengths lie in well-drawn closeup panels showcasing shocked expressions, ridiculous and convoluted situations played with utmost seriousness, with the occasional softer, less hectic intermission to allow the story (what of it there is) to catch up. Chio's also builds up a fairly thorough network of callbacks and recurring supporting characters who play off our protagonists in interesting ways that reward ongoing reading and make it marginally more involved than a simple 4koma might be.

Our protagonists are Chio herself, a western video game otaku (she expresses outright disdain for JRPGs) and the possessor of a very overactive imagination, and her marginally more normal friend Manana who herself seems to have something of an unhealthy fixation on appearing "normal", "adult" and so on. The two have something of a vitriolic dynamic and though we're told that they're longtime friends, whether or not it actually seems that way tends to vary chapter by chapter. The tone of the manga makes their interactions something of a knife-edge walk, and while it could fairly be said to succeed more often than it fails, it does occasionally lapse into +tic Nee-San levels of the characters seeming to just genuinely dislike each other, which is unpleasant to say the least.

The manga tends to really shine when it focuses on Chio and her harebrained misadventures. Because of the narrow scope of the premise, many of these involve her becoming stuck in some kind of situation that requires her to essentially "platform" in real life. The very first chapter has her Assassin's Creed-ing her way through her neighborhood, and through a combination of the panels--excellently-drawn and with the architecture throughout reminiscent of how actual sandbox video game levels are sometimes designed--and Chio's goofy narration, the entire scenario is tied together really nicely. It's hilarious, and later chapters that tackle similar concepts, or related "gamer nerd concerns". One chapter, in a diversion from the usual premise, focuses on her staying up too late and debating the classic "is it too late for me to go to bed and get a good night's sleep" question with herself, in another she has an extensive argument with her Inner Hardcore Gamer (who takes the form of herself dressed in a bunch of military gear and sunglasses) about whether a clear stand-in for Pokemon GO is a "shit game" or not.

Manana is noteworthy too, as the deuteragonist and Chio's more level-headed counterpart. Her fixation on appearing socially normal and adult tends to get her into just as many awkward situations as Chio's otakudom does her, but the methods by which she navigates them are different. So the rare chapter that focuses on Manana, providing it doesn't make her look like an asshole (which does happen once or twice), is a different kind of highlight, and prevents things from becoming repetitive. These segments that focus on Chio and Manana are the almost indisputable highlights of the manga, and show an uncommon command of character comedy.

It's a shame then that the manga begins to fall apart a bit when it brings in characters who aren't Chio and Manana. Some of the supporting characters are fine--a reformed delinquent provides one of the few other effective foils for Chio--but many are rather boring and lean too heavily on stereotypes and cliches to ever rise above mild chuckle levels of humor at the absolute best of times. There's a school track star who has an exhibitionist streak, a kabadi(!) club captain who is portrayed as a predatory lesbian despite the fact that "being a kabadi club captain" is infinitely more interesting a character trait on its own than a stereotype that started being unacceptable decades ago, an overweight salaryman who makes so little an impression that one tends to forget he exists, and finally there is a homeless man who lives in a park near the school who seems to exist solely to crow about how sexy and awesome he thinks high school girls are. Oh, and we're told this fellow came to his current state after groping a high schooler on a train. I have a vague idea that this is supposed to be funny (said character is probably an author stand-in, which speaks volumes in of itself), but it's mostly just kind of stupid, especially since characters like these are a dime a dozen anymore. Occasionally a backup character will get some development to make them more interesting--such as when the school goody two-shoes (she's a member of the ethics committee, goodness) indulges her love of candy with the help of our lead girls and is later able to impress her favorite teacher, and a character who we find out is an indie idol is probably the most interesting support character in the entire manga, so it's certainly not all bad.

If some of this sounds rather ecchi for what seemed like a fairly innocuous premise, that's a bit of an issue too. Since even if you have no particular moral objection to fanservice on the conceptual level (and indeed, this reviewer does not), it's kind of out of place here especially when a number of gags rely on how allegedly homely our characters are.

So at the end of the day, Chio's School Road undeniably does some things wrong. But the highlights come often enough that if you have an existing interest in this sort of story it's recommendable. Really it comes down to how well you can overlook its flaws. Buried beneath the lazy supporting characters is an expressive art style that manages to rise above many of its expression panel-focused peers, and most of all, a strong core cast who play well off each other.