Toilet-bound Hanako-kun

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun (Japanese: 地縛少年花子くん, Hepburn: Jibaku Shōnen Hanako-kun) is a Japanese manga series by AidaIro. It has been serialized in Square Enix's shōnen manga magazine Monthly GFantasy since 2014. It has been collected in fifteen tankōbon volumes as of April 2021.

Plot
Like many Japanese schools, Kamome Academy has its Seven Mysteries that are popularized by student rumors. The seventh mystery is Hanako-san of the toilet, the ghost of a girl who died in a bathroom years ago and can grant any wish for a price. Nene Yashiro, a first-year high school girl who desperately wants her senpai to return her feelings, decides to take a chance and summon the mysterious Hanako-san...only to discover that despite the very feminine name, Hanako is actually a boy. Through a turn of events, Nene becomes Hanako's assistant and helps him maintain balance between the human and spirit worlds.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It has a noticeably unique art style from almost every other type of anime or manga. This is most visible when it comes to the character designs, which look like no other ones in any other manga/anime.
 * 2) A creative story about a girl summoning a spirit rumored to haunt her school's toilets, only to end up being dragged into the role of his assistant to help him make sure that the balance between the human and spiritual worlds is maintained.
 * 3) The series has a large amount of likable and interesting characters.
 * 4) *Nene Yashiro is the self-proclaimed heroine of the series. And fittingly so, she has a kind-hearted and cheerful personality, but suffers a large amount of trauma over the course of the series. From almost dying countless times, discovering she has a limited life span, losing her best friend Aoi, to having Hanako disappear right in front of her.
 * 5) *Hanako/Amane Yugi is a ghost haunting Kamome Academy's old building's third-floor female toilet, third stall who protects the balance between the Near and Far Shores as means of atoning for his past crime of killing his twin brother, Tsukasa.
 * 6) *Kou Minamoto is a member of the Minamoto Clan (a renowned family of exorcists) with a big heart in spite of his somewhat short temper.
 * 7) *Tsukasa Yugi is the younger twin brother of Amane Yugi (or Hanako) with a sociopathic personality (as he completely lacks empathy, is manipulative of those around him, and has a key sense of sadism)
 * 8) *Aoi Akane is an polite and intelligent girl who is highly beloved by almost everyone in the school and a good friend of Nene.
 * 9) *Akane Aoi is a boy who excels in both academics and athletics, and has a crush on Aoi.
 * 10) Similar to many other anime/manga series (some examples of those here being Land of the Lustrous, My Hero Academia, and Rosario + Vampire), the story has many individual arcs. And each one of those arcs is unique from one another and introduces new compelling themes to the series' overall storyline.
 * 11) There are a large amount of emotional and downright tear-jerking moments. Some examples including the flashback in chapters 13/14 (which only becomes worse when chapter 38 comes along) and the entirety of chapter 71.
 * 12) The characters aren't just likable, but also have great chemistry with one another that makes all the shipping done in the fandom all the more believable. Some examples include the romance between Aoi and Akane and Hanako and Yashiro.
 * 13) On top of all of the emotional scenes in the manga, there are also many heartwarming ones. Some examples include (but are certainly not limited to) Hanako hugging Nene from behind in Chapter 36 and Chapters 9-10 showcasing just how developed Kou's friendship is with Hanako.
 * 14) The manga ended up getting it's own anime in 2020. And in spite of it's very limited run, it still managed to be pretty decent and the events that it retold from the manga were shockingly faithful to it's source material. The characters were still all just as likable as they are here, and the events play out just like they do in the manga as well.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The title can put some people off from reading the series, as it heavily implies that it'll be one filled with toilet and gross-out humor.
 * 2) *Speaking of which, it can also be seen as a bit misleading. As the true main character of the series isn't Hanako, but rather Nene.
 * 3) Given how there's both an Aoi Akane and an Akane Aoi in the series, it can be very confusing to decipher the two from one another. The fact that in Japan, the placement of the first and last names are reversed, doesn't help matters.