Back Street Girls Manga Volumes: All 12 Books Guide

Back Street Girls Is 12 Volumes of Finished Yakuza Comedy

Back Street Girls is a completed manga by Jasmine Gyuh (ジャスミン・ギュ). The series ran for 12 volumes in Japan, published under Kodansha’s Young Magazine KC label from August 2015 through January 2019.

The premise is about as wild as manga gets: three yakuza — members of Japanese organized crime — mess up badly enough that their boss gives them an ultimatum. They must undergo full surgical transformation and become a pop idol group (a manufactured singing-and-dancing act, a huge part of Japanese entertainment culture), or die. What follows is a relentlessly absurd dark comedy about these former gangsters navigating life as the “Gokudols,” an idol group built on the most ridiculous foundation imaginable.

A note before you go further: The series’ central premise involves forced gender reassignment surgery played for comedy. This is handled as dark absurdist humor, not as a sensitive exploration of gender identity. If that concept is a dealbreaker for you, this isn’t the manga to pick up — and there’s nothing wrong with that. For readers who are fine with boundary-pushing comedy, read on.

The humor is transgressive, deliberately uncomfortable, and completely committed to its premise. Jasmine Gyuh never holds back from pushing the concept to its most absurd conclusions, which is exactly what makes the series work for the audience it’s aimed at.

If you came to Back Street Girls through the anime adaptation (released in 2018), you should know that the anime covers only a portion of the manga’s material. The 12-volume manga goes well beyond what the anime adapted, so manga readers get significantly more story and comedy than anime-only viewers.

The bottom line for collectors: 12 volumes, done. The series is complete and the volume count will never grow. You know exactly what you’re getting into before you spend a single cent, and that’s one of the best things about picking up a finished manga.

How to Read Every Back Street Girls Manga Volume in English

All 12 volumes of Back Street Girls are available in English in digital format. Here’s what you need to know about actually getting your hands on them.

Digital Is the Way to Go

The English edition of Back Street Girls is a digital-only release — there is no widely available physical English edition. If you’re an English-language reader, digital is how you’ll read this series.

You can find the volumes on:

• Kindle (Amazon)
• BookWalker (a manga-focused ebook store)
• Apple Books
• Kobo

Of these, Kindle tends to be the most convenient for readers already in the Amazon ecosystem. The complete digital set from Volume 1 through Volume 12 is available and ready to purchase right now — no hunting for out-of-print copies, no waiting for restocks.

Cost Considerations

One advantage of a digital manga collection is affordability. Without physical printing and shipping costs, picking up all 12 volumes digitally is significantly cheaper than collecting a comparable physical manga set. Individual volumes are typically priced in line with standard digital manga rates, and completing the whole series won’t require a major investment.

What About the Japanese Volumes?

The original Japanese collected editions were published by Kodansha under the Young Magazine KC label — 12 volumes total, matching the English count one-to-one. If you read Japanese or collect original editions, these are the ones to look for, though availability on the secondhand market varies (more on that below).

Volume-by-Volume Breakdown of Every Back Street Girls Manga Volume

Here is a guide to all 12 volumes of Back Street Girls. Five key volumes get detailed descriptions as milestones, and every volume in the series is listed so you can track your reading progress.

Volume 1 — The Setup

This is where everything begins. The three yakuza protagonists receive their impossible punishment, and the absurd premise of the Gokudols is born. Volume 1 establishes the comedic tone immediately — if the concept makes you laugh (or at least makes you curious enough to keep reading), the series has hooked you. If it doesn’t land here, the rest of the series probably won’t change your mind. The first Japanese volume released in August 2015.

Volume 2

The Gokudols concept expands as the three former gangsters begin adjusting (poorly) to their new reality. The comedy deepens as specific personality clashes and absurd situations pile up.

Volume 3 — The Formula Hits Its Stride

By Volume 3, Jasmine Gyuh has fully locked in the comedy formula. The initial shock of the premise has settled, and the series starts finding increasingly creative ways to mine humor from the Gokudols concept. The escalation kicks in here — each chapter finds new angles on the central absurdity, and the gags get more confident and layered.

Volume 4

The series continues building on its established rhythm, introducing new comedic scenarios that test the Gokudols’ ability to maintain their cover.

Volume 5

More complications arise for the group as the demands of idol life and their yakuza origins continue to collide in unpredictable ways.

Volume 6 — The Midpoint

Halfway through the series, Volume 6 represents Back Street Girls at its most comfortable. The satire has deepened — the manga isn’t just laughing at its own premise anymore but is taking sharper aim at idol culture (Japan’s massive manufactured pop-star industry), yakuza tropes, and societal expectations. The comedy stays relentless, but there’s more going on underneath the surface jokes.

Volume 7

The series pushes into new territory as the Gokudols’ popularity creates fresh problems that their yakuza instincts are completely unequipped to handle.

Volume 8

Consequences from earlier volumes start compounding, and the comedy takes on higher stakes as the characters’ double lives become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Volume 9 — Late-Series Escalation

As the series enters its final quarter, Volume 9 ramps up the consequences. The accumulated absurdity of everything the Gokudols have been through starts catching up with them, and the comedy takes on a slightly more frantic energy. You can feel the series building toward its conclusion here.

Volume 10

The momentum toward the finale builds. Storylines that have been running across multiple volumes begin converging.

Volume 11

The penultimate volume sets the stage for the series’ conclusion, tying together remaining threads while maintaining the comedy that defines the series.

Volume 12 — The Finale

The final volume, released in Japan in January 2019, wraps everything up. Back Street Girls tells its complete story across these 12 books — there are no cliffhangers, no “read the sequel” endings, and no cancellation cuts. Whatever you think of the series’ humor, it gets a proper conclusion, which is more than a lot of comedy manga can say.

Availability and Out-of-Print Concerns

Here’s the good news: if you’re reading in English, availability is not a problem.

English Digital — Fully Available

All 12 English volumes remain purchasable through major digital storefronts as of now. Digital manga doesn’t go “out of print” in the traditional sense — as long as the publisher’s licensing agreement with the storefront is active (meaning the legal deal that keeps the digital files available for sale), the books are there to buy. For a series like Back Street Girls, the digital release is stable and accessible.

This is actually one of the underrated perks of a digital-only English release. You’ll never deal with the frustration of finding 11 out of 12 volumes and then discovering the missing one costs three times its original price from resellers. Every volume, same availability, same ease of purchase.

Japanese Physical Volumes — Trickier

The original Japanese collected editions are a different story. As a completed series that wrapped up in 2019, the physical Japanese volumes are no longer in active print runs. You can still find them through secondhand sellers, Japanese bookstores, and import services, but availability will depend on what’s currently in stock. Popular volumes might be easy to grab; others might require some patience and searching.

If you’re a Japanese-language reader or a collector who wants the original editions, it’s worth checking sooner rather than later — secondhand manga availability only gets spottier with time.

No Physical English Edition to Worry About

Since the English release is digital-only, there’s no English physical edition going out of print or becoming scarce. This removes one of the biggest headaches in manga collecting entirely. You don’t need to race to buy volumes before they disappear from shelves, and you don’t need to worry about a publisher deciding not to reprint.

Who Should Collect Back Street Girls

Let’s be real about this one: Back Street Girls is not for everyone, and it knows it.

This Is For You If…

• You love dark, absurd comedy. The series lives and dies on its willingness to go to ridiculous places with a ridiculous premise. If you enjoy manga comedies that push situations to outrageous extremes — where the humor comes from how far the story is willing to go — Back Street Girls operates squarely in that space.
• You want something short and complete. At 12 volumes, this is a very manageable collecting project. You can read the entire series in a weekend, or spread it across a week or two of commute reading. There’s no 50-volume commitment here.
• You appreciate a finished story. No cancellation, no hiatus, no “maybe someday they’ll continue it.” Jasmine Gyuh told the story from beginning to end across 12 volumes. Done.
• You’re comfortable with digital manga. Since the English release is digital-only, this series is ideal for readers who already buy manga on Kindle, BookWalker, or similar platforms.

This Might Not Be For You If…

As noted at the top of this article, the series’ central premise involves forced gender reassignment surgery played for comedy. The humor is deliberately transgressive and uncomfortable throughout all 12 volumes. If that sounds like something that would bother you rather than make you laugh, this isn’t the manga for you.

For readers who are okay with the premise and enjoy boundary-pushing comedy, Back Street Girls delivers on its promise consistently across all 12 volumes. It’s a weird, wild ride from start to finish, and there’s really nothing else quite like it in manga.

The Collector’s Perspective

From a pure collecting standpoint, Back Street Girls manga volumes are about as low-stress as it gets:

• 12 volumes — small digital library addition
• Completed series — no waiting for future volumes
• Digital availability — no hunting for out-of-print books
• Affordable — digital pricing keeps the total cost reasonable
• One-to-one volume matching — the English and Japanese editions both have 12 volumes, so there’s no confusing collected-edition math to deal with

If you’ve been curious about this series, grabbing Volume 1 digitally is the lowest-risk way to find out if it’s your kind of comedy. You’ll know within a few chapters whether Back Street Girls is going to make you laugh or make you put it down.