Mujaki no Rakuen

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Mujaki no Rakuen is a 2010 manga, written by Uran.

Shouta Honda is an unemployed, broke 25-year-old (he claims to be a "freelance game programmer") with few to no prospects in life. One day, during his class reunion, he falls in the pool of his old school. To his surprise, the pool is a time portal that leads him back to fifth grade, allowing him to relive this part of his life and possibly change the future.

Serialized in Hakusensha's Young Animal Arashi.

Tropes used in Mujaki no Rakuen include:
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Shouta muses that it would be nice if he could disappear into the alleged portal in the pool literally seconds before he falls in.
  • Fanservice: Lots and lots of it, featuring mostly little girls.
  • Five Second Foreshadowing: Shouta mentions something about the pool being possibly a dimensional portal a few seconds before falling into it and proving its power is true.
  • Here We Go Again: The manga ends with Shouta falling into the pool again and ending up at the same exact point in time that he ended up at in the first chapter.
  • I See London
  • In Medias Res: A small one, not very far into the action: the story begins as Shouta is apparently drowning in the pool; when he emerges in the past, the story then flashes back to the class reunion that put him there.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: All the girls from Shouta's class since they are still in fifth grade.
  • Panty Shot: De rigeur, given the subject matter.
  • Parental Abandonment: 10-year-old Shouta is a latchkey kid with only one parent.
  • Peggy Sue: Shouta is given the chance to relive his late childhood and teenage years knowing how things turned out once already.
  • Sacred First Kiss: Shouta has this opinion, saying Konomi shouldn't have her first kiss in an audition for a role. She decides to then kiss Shouta right there.
  • School Swimsuit: The first thing Shouta sees after falling into the pool is a bunch of very young schoolgirls in swimsuits.
  • The Seven Mysteries: The time portal in the swimming pool is allegedly one of the school's "seven mysteries".