Igano Kabamaru

Igano Kabamaru (伊賀野カバ丸) is a shoujo manga by Yuu Azuki, which was serialized in Bessatsu Margaret from 1979 to 1981 and had 12 volumes. An Animated Adaptation ran from 1983 to 1984, in 24 episodes. It also had a live-action film in 1983, which had people like Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba and Hiroyuki Sanada among its cast.

The main character is Kagemaru Igano, a teenage ninja raised and trained in the mountains by his grandfather Saizo. He's rebellious, annoying, naive, QUITE dumb in anything not related to fighting and one Hell of a Big Eater, which has earned him the nickname Kabamaru ("hippo mouth"). One day Saizo dies all of a sudden, and coincidentally an old lady from Tokyo shows up in the village: her name is Ran Okubo, she was Childhood Friends with Saizo (and he was her First Love), and Saizo's will states that if anything happens to him, Kabamaru should go live with her.

With some prodding, Kabamaru accepts Ran's offer and goes to Tokyo with her. He must now adapt to living in a huge city, staying at her Big Fancy House and attending the Kingyoku School that Ran leads as its headmistress. Even more, he's not the only teen she takes care of: Ran's beautiful granddaughter Mai lives with her after her parents' deaths, and while Kabamaru near immediately develops a crush on her, from the very start she really hates how uncouth and crass he is.

As Kabamaru goes through this new life, he discovers that things are a bit more complicated than he believed. Kingyouku Highschool has a bitter, BITTER rivalry with another one named Ogyouku High, coming from the just as bitter and long-standing rivalry between Mrs. Ran and the Ogyouku headmistress, Suu Matsuno. So now Kabamaru, Mai, Mai's crush/Kingyouku's idol Shizune Mejirou, Shizune's followers Kaoru Nonogusa and Shirakawa, and many others get caught in the middle of this enormous mess. . .

Tropes used in Igano Kabamaru include:

• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Sibling version: Shizune has two older brothers, Kaname and Futaba, who play this role to him.
• Anti-Villain: Hayate is The Rival to Kabamaru and all, but is rather torn over it.
• Batman Gambit: Saizo was NOT deceased, at all. He was merely Faking the Dead, since he wanted Kabamaru to take further steps into his ninja training and see the outside world. He went as far as following him to Tokyo and disguising himself as the old man from Kabamaru's favorite yakisoba shop to constantly keep a eye on him.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Kabamaru Igano as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Mai Ookubo as the Tsundere.
• Big Brother Worship: While Kabamaru has no blood siblings, when he was a child he considered a boy named Hayate Kirino as his adoptive brother. And then he turns out to be the Big Bad Friend...
• Big Eater: KABAMARU.
• Big Fancy House: Ran is a very rich lady and lives in a really nice mansion with Mai and then with Kabamaru. 
• Cloudcuckoolander: Kabamaru, as the local Ditzy Genius. Mai has to be his Cloudcuckoolander's Minder more than once. 
• Country Mouse: Kabamaru has lived all of his life in the mountains, so he's this big time when Ran takes him in.
• Ditzy Genius: Kabamaru is excellent at fighting, gymnastics, Ninja techniques... and few else.
• Driven to Suicide: A flashback episode has a young Kabamaru and his friend Hayate finding a Broken Bird girl named Hoshiko Wakabayashi in the mountains. She has come to kill herself via a pill overdose, but the boys keep innocently and obliviously foiling it...
• Genki Girl: Sumire, the local Meganekko.
• Hate at First Sight: Unfortunately for Kabamaru, he left an horrifying first impression on Mai. She does try at times to go past it, but... well, it's Kabamaru. It takes her quite a while to be able to go past this.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: How Saizo raised Kabamaru and Hayate, mixed with Training From Hell.
• Idiot Hero: Again, KABAMARU.
• Interrupted Suicide: Subverted when a child Kabamaru and a just as young Hayate keep interferring with the suicide of a teenager named Hoshiko Wakabayashi without realizing that she's about to kill herself. Heck, at some point Kabamaru almost dies retrieving the pills Hoshiko intends to poison herself with and she ends up saving him! Later Saizo talks to Hoshiko, lets her vent about the huge problems that led her to be suicidal, and succeeds to convince her to live.
• Innocently Insensitive: One of Kabamaru's biggest flaws is that, due to his No Social Skills, he really can put his foot on him mouth while talking to people. i.e., in episode 10 he greatly embarrasses an innocent classmate who wants to give Kaoru a Christmas present via loudly teasing him for it in front of everyone; Mai gets sincerely angry at him and slaps him across the face, which it's not treated as the usual Amusing Injuries.
• Keet: Kabamaru shows some traits of this
• Love at First Sight: The moment Kabamaru sees Mai is the moment he falls for her. Being an Idiot Hero with No Social Skills, he can barely understand that at first.
• Love Dodecahedron: Kabamaru is head over heels infatuated with Mai. Mai holds an Unrequited Love towards Shizune Mejirou, like near all the other girls in Kinyouku school, but she's also Tsundere to Kabamaru. Shizune's right-hand man Shirakawa has a crush on Mai and so does the Student Council President of Oogyouku High, Shuu Maejima (who is The Rival to Shizune), whereas Kingyouku's own Student Council President Kaoru Nonogusa initially wants to seduce Kabamaru both to follow her beloved Shizune's instructions and to assert herself as unfailingly beautiful... 
• Man Behind the Man: There is a "puppet master" student who controls the Student Council of Kingyouku in secret, holding lots of power to themself and being a potential threat to Ran's authority. If their existence is revealed to the public, it'd bring lots of shame to Kingyouku... The Vice-Principal believes this "puppet master" is Kabamaru... but in reality, it's Shizune. (The audience finds out pretty early, but it's under spoilers due to how it's revealed in-story)  
• OOC Is Serious Business: When the usually energetic and perpetually hungry Kabamaru stays in bed AND says "I'm Not Hungry", it's a sign that he has problems. He's just found Hayate, his former friend  
• The Ojou: Mai, of the Spoiled Sweet type. (Unless Kabamaru's around)
• Parental Abandonment: Mai deeply misses her parents, especially her Missing Mom since she was there when the lady passed away.
• Raised by Grandparents: Both Kabamaru and Mai. 
• Rescue Romance: This trope, Snow Means Death and Snow Means Love mark a very important turning point in Mai and Kabamaru's overall relationship. 
• The Rival: Only one person can make the normally sweet and calm Ran get seriously upset: her rival and the Oogyouku headmistress, Suu Matsuno.
  • Shizune Mejirou has one in Shuu Maejima, the Student Council President from Oogyouku, with the rivalry escalating more and more as time passes.
  • Maejima also tries to be this to Kabamaru, especially after chapter 10 where Kabamaru's hijinks make him a huge Butt Monkey.
  • The above mentioned rivalries bleed into the actual relationships between students of the two schools. Schoolers from one academy tend to really hate the kids from the other one and viceversa; in fact, Kabamaru "met" Shirakawa when he and other boys were bullying some Kinyouku guys for dating girls from Oogyouku.
• Sailor Fuku: The girls from Kingyouku Academy wear fukus with white blouses, dark green collars/skirts and red scarves, while the boys wear the typical blue/black gakuran.
  • The Oogyouku students wear blazer uniforms, averting the trope and marking yet another difference with the Kingyouku ones.
  • Kabamaru also has a gakuran, but he wears the blue jacket open and uses a sort-of chainmail as a shirt and either goes barefoot or uses geta sandals.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Genderflipped with Savvy Girl Mai and Energetic Guy Kabamaru.
• Secret Keeper: Around the same time Kabamaru saved Mai's life during a blizzard, Ran was also caught in the snow and rescued by... Saizo, who as said above had been Faking the Dead. Ran keeps it to herself, thinking that he surely has good reasons to hide himself. And he does.
• Shipper on Deck: Mai's Genki Girl friend Sumire ships Mai with Kabamaru, and Shizune with Kaoru.
• Subordinate Excuse: Kingyouku's unnamed vice-principal has a very obvious crush on Ran.
• Tsundere: Mai is a Type B: she's normally kind to near everyone, and even shy in front of her crush Shizune, but Kabamaru is great at rising her hackles. It really doesn't help that Kabamaru is FAR from being a gentleman.
• Tomboyish Name: Inverted - Shizune, Kaname and Futaba Mejirou are guys
• Truth in Television: The deal with Hoshiko going to the mountains to commit suicide via pills is actually a reference to one of the most common suicide methods in Japan, taking place in the Iga mountains rather than in Aokigahara aka the better known "suicide spot".
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Ran Ookubo is a kind-hearted, old-fashioned lady who wears a kimono. She often parodies it, as her strong devotion to her beloved Saizo totally blinds her to his grandson Kabamaru's antics.