Working!!, released in English territories as Wagnaria!!, is a Japanese four-panel comic strip manga series written and illustrated by Karino Takatsu, which follows the activities of the unusual employees at one of the units of the Wagnaria family restaurant chain. The series was serialized in Square Enix's Young Gangan seinen manga magazine between January 2005 and November 2014. Square Enix released three drama CDs between 2007 and 2009 with scripts written by Shōgo Mukai. An anime television series was produced by A-1 Pictures and directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike, airing in three seasons in 2010, 2011, and 2015, respectively. In North America, the first two anime seasons are licensed by NIS America while the third is licensed by Aniplex of America.

The series has a spin-off webcomic titled Web-ban Working!! set in another Wagnaria restaurant and following a different group of characters. It is being adapted into an anime series titled WWW.Working!! in 2016. It is licensed by Aniplex of America.

Wagnaria employees[edit]

Sōta Takanashi (小鳥遊 宗太 Takanashi Sōta?)

Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (drama CD), Jun Fukuyama (anime)

The main character of Working!!, Sōta is a 16 year-old high school student who was recruited to work at the family restaurant Wagnaria by Popura. He is enamored by small and cute things, and thus favors Popura over the other employees due to her cute appearance. He occasionally voices his thoughts out loud and so offends his co-workers, who punish him in various ways. He was able to adapt quickly to his job at the restaurant and although he usually finds his co-workers and the rules of the restaurant to be strange, but he still has an attachment to his job. Sōta lives with his four sisters (three older and one younger). He expresses a dislike of older women, brought about by his treatment at the hands of his older sisters. His younger sister, who is in elementary school and is almost as tall as he is, respects him.

Despite his problems, he is occasionally forced to cross-dress as a girl named Kotori (小鳥?) (derived from the first two kanji in his surname). Even though he constantly gets hit by Mahiru, he is actually quite skilled in fighting, as his sister taught him self-defense. He does not fight back against Mahiru because his sisters taught him not to hit girls.

Popura Taneshima (種島 ぽぷら Taneshima Popura?)

Voiced by: Mai Kadowaki (drama CD), Kana Asumi (anime)

Popura is a short 17 year-old high school student who works at Wagnaria. Ironically, she was named after the poplar tree, so that she would grow tall. She is very sensitive about her short stature, and many customers believe her to be younger than she really is. Similarly, Sōta, who is one year younger than her, usually regards her as an elementary school student. She is also unable to properly call him by his surname, saying "Katanashi" rather than "Takanashi", even when corrected. She admires Kotori, Sōta's cross-dressing persona, and the Takanashi sisters because of their tall and mature look. She is a hard worker, but she sometimes makes clumsy mistakes in her job. Despite that, she is chosen to replace Yachiyo as chief of staff near the end of the series.

Mahiru Inami (伊波 まひる Inami Mahiru?)

Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (drama CD), Saki Fujita (anime)

Mahiru is a timid, 17 year-old girl who works at Wagnaria. She has androphobia and is thus terrified of men; she punches any male that comes near her. This violent behavior was revealed to have arisen from childhood, when her father, who did not want his daughter to eventually marry, told her that every man is ready to attack her and conditioned her to violently attack men at a moment's notice due to this fear. As she and Sōta usually share shifts, he takes the brunt of her attacks. However, she makes considerable progress with her fear of men by taking it out on Sōta. She wears a hairpin in her hair, which she changes every day after Sōta complimented it (according to Sōma).

At first she begins to develop a crush on, and later falls in love with, Sōta after he confronts her father (as Kotori) about her androphobia. With Sōta's help, over time her condition improves, and she is able to come within two meters of a guy without having the urge to hit them. Nevertheless, Sōta can only get closer to Mahiru without the risk of being attacked when he crossdresses as Kotori or by using a grabber toy.

Kyōko Shirafuji (白藤 杏子 Shirafuji Kyōko?)

Voiced by: Junko Minagawa (drama CD), Kumiko Watanabe (anime)

Kyōko is the manager of Wagnaria. She usually maintains a rather apathetic attitude towards the restaurant she runs and almost never bothers to do any work herself. Instead, she is seen constantly eating food such as Yachiyo's parfaits and Otoo's souvenirs. She is not beyond using violence to deal with unruly customers and firmly believes that employees come before the customers. She is 28 years old, but she becomes despondent whenever she is called old or any variation thereof. Kyōko used to be a juvenile delinquent and she met Yachiyo when she saved her from bullies when she was a little girl and demanded food as payment.

Yachiyo Todoroki (轟 八千代 Todoroki Yachiyo?)

Voiced by: Shiho Kawaragi (drama CD), Eri Kitamura (anime)

Yachiyo is the 20-year-old chief of staff of Wagnaria. She usually carries around a katana which, according to her, was made by her parents who used to be blacksmiths. Yachiyo is unaware that some of the customers, and even Sōta, are intimidated by her blade. Sōta often addresses her as "Chief". She admires Kyōko considerably since she once saved her from bullies as a child and has followed her ever since. She constantly makes parfaits for Kyōko and becomes hostile to anyone else giving her food. Yachiyo is very close to Jun, as she has worked with him the longest and considers him to be her closest friend, but is unaware of his feelings for her and spends most of her time talking to him about Kyōko, much to his dismay, but unaware that she usually talks about him to her.

Later in the series, she reciprocates his feelings and they begin dating, eventually appointing Popura to replace her as chief of staff. In the crossover drama CD bundled with the Servant x Service limited edition Blu-ray/DVDs, she and Jun go together to enter their names into the family register, and instead of babbling about Kyoko to others, she now boasts about her husband, Jun.

Jun Satō (佐藤 潤 Satō Jun?)

Voiced by: Hirofumi Nojima (drama CD), Daisuke Ono (anime)

Jun is a helpful but intimidating 20-year-old chef who works in the kitchen. He is in love with Yachiyo, but has problems expressing it. However, because she is so devoted to Kyōko, she fails to recognize any of his hints. He likes to take out his anger on Popura, by messing with her or bending the truth, which Popura naively believes. Whenever Hiroomi tries to help Jun progress with Yachiyo, Jun unrelentingly hits him with a pan, showing that he is sensitive about his feelings for Yachiyo. However, later on in the manga, Yachiyo reciprocates his feelings, and they begin dating.

In the crossover drama CD bundled with the Servant x Service limited edition Blu-ray/DVDs, she and Jun go together to enter their names into the family register, and after the process is completed, Jun refuses to stop bullying Popura by changing her hairstyle, saying that he is too happy being a newlywed man.

Hiroomi Sōma (相馬 博臣 Sōma Hiroomi?)

Voiced by: Yoshinori Fujita (drama CD), Hiroshi Kamiya (anime)

Another chef who works in the kitchen, Hiroomi is a young man with an easygoing attitude. He often blackmails the other workers to do his job for him and passes it off as a form of modesty from the other employees. He can blackmail anyone, except for Jun and Mahiru; the former usually responds to his blackmail with hitting him with a frying pan, while the latter punches him even before he talks to her. He is terrified of Mahiru's urges and is thankful for Sōta's existence in the restaurant since she takes out all her urges on him instead.

His biggest weakness appears to be crying girls. Moreover, Aoi has been the only person on whom his blackmail attempt backfired, leaving him depressed. However, he somewhat dotes on Aoi, trying to protect her whereabouts from her brother and buying her a stuffed bear named Daisy which becomes Aoi's most beloved possession.

Aoi Yamada (山田 葵 Yamada Aoi?)

Voiced by: Kana Ueda (drama CD), Ryō Hirohashi (anime)

Aoi is a mysterious, self-proclaimed 16 year-old girl whom Otoo meets on his travels to find his missing wife. Her true identity and age are a mystery, besides the fact that her first name is 'Aoi'. He brings her back to Wagnaria, where she starts working as a waitress, and lives in the attic. While she has great confidence in herself, during work she is an unhelpful troublemaker who gets yelled at by the other staff members, especially Sōta. Since she is in training, her position among the staff is low, which she complains about. She is bad with dealing with Sōta's constant complaints about her, but she does write down some of his suggestions (along with idle complaints). She is obsessed with the idea of having a family, especially regarding Otoo whom she sees as an ideal father figure. She goes as far as to apply to be adopted by him. She is also rather childish and does not like to be (in her view) "left out" of what the others are doing. For example she asks Kyōko to drive her home (even though she "lives" at Wagnaria) and asks Sōma to poke her, since he and Satō had poked Inami and Popura. Her favorite food is nattō. Her lady-like manner and lack of knowledge in the kitchen makes Takanashi suspect she is actually from a rich family.

Later in the series, her brother, Kirio, appears looking for her, but Sōma prevents them from meeting. When the two eventually do meet, Aoi reveals that she ran away partly due to her family situation: her father had died and her mother is described as 'robotic', but largely because Kirio had eaten the nattō she had been saving in the fridge. In the crossover drama CD bundled with the Servant x Service limited edition Blu-ray/DVDs, she wears the same school uniform as Touko Ichimiya, indicating that they attend the same school.

Hyōgo Otoo (音尾 兵吾 Otoo Hyōgo?)

Voiced by: Daiki Nakamura (drama CD), Jouji Nakata (anime)

Otoo is the owner of the restaurant. He is away most of the time, searching for his missing wife, who apparently is so bad with directions that she got lost while running errands and is now wandering Japan. He periodically returns to Wagnaria to check up on things and bring back souvenirs. Due to his habit of bringing food back for Kyōko whenever he returns, his life is constantly in danger from a jealous Yachiyo. He is noted to have a light presence, and is even compared to (and named) "air" by Sōta, when the latter is attempting to convince Mahiru not to attack him. He finally reunites with his wife, and they live together once again. He keeps a very close watch on her so that she will not get lost again.

Maya Matsumoto (松本 麻耶 Matsumoto Maya?)

Voiced by: Akiko Kawase (anime)

Maya is an 18 year-old girl who works at Wagnaria and wears glasses She professes that she is a "normal person" striving to be completely ordinary in work and life in general. She has a hard time understanding the other employees, seeing how awkward all of them are, and tries not to be too familiar with them. The irony is that because she tries too hard to be "normal", she ends up being pretty weird herself. Maya briefly appeared in volume one of the manga and did not resurface until volume five due to readers requesting more information on her from the author.[citation needed]