Manga and Book Reviews by Michelle Smith
I reviewed the omnibus edition of this shoujo manga based on the Darker Than Black anime for Comics Should Be Good. Basically, all of the elements borrowed from the anime are pretty intriguing, but the manga’s storyline just doesn’t hang together very well.
You can find that review here.
Darker Than Black is published in English by Yen Press in a 384-page omnibus edition that contains both volumes of the series.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
These are the final two volumes of Honey and Clover, so there will be spoilers here. Beware.
Be sure to have some mental palate cleanser on hand—fluffy shoujo may work for you but I turned to shoot-’em-up seinen—when you finish Honey and Clover, because, man, is it depressing! It’s not that I’d expected everything to turn out rosy, since much of the plot revolves around two love triangles among friends, and someone must end up disappointed if there is to be any resolution, but I had failed to grasp the bigger sorrow in these characters’ lives: the time has come for them to go their separate ways.
Primarily, this realization affects Takemoto and Hagu, the two characters who are graduating. Hagu has said before that she plans to return home to Nagano to live a simple life and paint as she pleases, but lately it seems like she wants something else, but is reluctant to ask for it. As she articulates her dilemma, we see a more adult Hagu than we’ve ever seen before. This impression deepens when a freak accident leaves Hagu with nerve damage in her painting hand and she goes without painkillers in order to feel the first inkling of pain that might tell her there’s hope for regrowth. (If you had ever had reservations about this series because of Hagu’s child-like appearance, rest assured that she is clearly a strong, fascinating, and respected grown-up by the end.)
This accident is the catalyst for just about everything that follows. Takemoto has a job offer from the temple restoration group he’d encountered on his bicycle journey, but can’t decide whether to leave a recuperating Hagu behind. Ayu decides that Morita ought to know about what has happened to Hagu, and their reunion coincides with a frustrating lack of progress in Hagu’s physical therapy. Morita, who is sick of people loving or being jealous of him because of his talent, is ready to cast all that aside and offers Hagu the chance to do the same and just live as two people in love. She’s tempted, but when a night away from the hospital results in swelling in her hand, she realizes what is most important to her and decides to go back.
Hanamoto-sensei is ready to give everything up and stay by Hagu’s side as she recuperates, but doesn’t want her to know about the sacrifices he’s poised to make lest that knowledge influence her decision of what to do with her life. The night with Morita helps her realize that art is more important to her even than love, and in order to be able to pursue it, she needs Hanamoto by her side, to nourish her with his presence and enable her to relax and grow. It’s this that she was loathe to ask for, but nearly losing her ability to paint clarifies her desires and she ends up requesting the very thing he’s been ready to offer.
You see, though I never would have guessed this, Hanamoto is in love with Hagu, too. Through being with her, he was able to recapture some of the joy in art—and in life—that he had lost. Because of this, though she does not return his feelings in the same way, he’s willing to devote his life to staying near her. I find this inexplicably sad for some reason. Too, because Hagu chooses this path, both Takemoto’s and Morita’s romantic hopes are dashed. It’s just so awful that nobody’s love is returned in the same measure that their own is given. These are kind people, willing to keep on loving no matter what, and I can’t help but want to see that kind of devotion rewarded.
Takemoto and Morita have both been positively affected by their love for Hagu—her vow to always watch over Morita prevents him from giving up after all—but neither gets a happy ending. It seems possible that Ayu might, in time, be able to forget about Mayama and accept Nomiya’s feelings, but that’s still some ways off. The person closest to a happy ending is probably Mayama, who is making slow progress in his relationship with Rika. A lot of things are left up in the air, including the outcome of Hagu’s therapy, but this doesn’t result in the story feeling unfinished.
In the end, Takemoto achieves some measure of peace—he couldn’t have stood losing out to Morita, but to lose to Hanamoto-sensei’s “kindness and consideration” is somehow more tolerable—and takes the restoration job. Oh, how I cried when Hagu turns up at the train station with a bundle of ginormous sandwiches to bid him farewell. Each sandwich contains a four-leaf clover, and Takemoto realizes she must’ve spent ages searching for those, which brings to mind a memory (of the gang searching for clovers for Hanamoto-sensei back in volume two) that sums up the feeling of the series’ end quite well.
As time passes I guess the day will come that all of this is just a memory. But that day you were there and I was there and all of our friends were there. And we all looked for just one thing. In fact, that whole miraculous time in my life is going to keep turning nostalgically, somewhere far away deep in my heart, accompanied by a sweet pain forever.
Thanks for an awesome series, Chica Umino. I hope someone licenses Sangatsu no Lion soon.
Review copy for volume ten provided by the publisher.
Like Yazawa’s later series, NANA, Paradise Kiss is the story of a normal girl who wanders into the path of young people with ambition, becomes invested in seeing their dream come true, and must ultimately find her own path to happiness.
The Basic Story
Yukari Hayasaka is a hardworking high school student who has never been in trouble. Since early childhood her main preoccupation has been studying, trying to please her demanding mother by getting into desirable private schools. She has largely proved to be a disappointment in this area, and though she has managed to get into a prestigious high school, she finds it difficult to keep up with the coursework and worries about her college prospects. One day, as she’s crossing the street, she’s spotted by a suspicious pair—a punk with safety pins in his face and a man in drag—and carried back to their “studio.”
The punk (Arashi), the crossdresser (Isabella), and the diminutive pink-haired Miwako explain that they are students in the fashion design class at Yazawa School of the Arts and need a model for their project for the school festival. Yukari is disdainful of these “freaks,” and storms off without any intention of helping them. On her way out, she drops her student ID, which is found by George Koizumi. It’s George who’s the leader of the group of students—they’re working as his support staff—and he’s determined to get Yukari to agree to model his elaborate design.
Yukari bristles at his suave and confusing attentions, but all the same must admit to herself that before this moment, “I was just running with blinders on through a dark tunnel, heading toward a light at the end. But that light was only a portral to a vast, empty, and lonely space.” Yukari is weary of days spent memorizing dates and formulas, and eventually comes to be impressed by the skill and dedication of the Yazawa students, who create clothes under the label “Paradise Kiss.” She also grows more and more intrigued by the engimatic and inscrutable George, and by the end of volume one, not only has she agreed to the modeling job, she and George share a passionate kiss.
Preparations for the festival continue while Yukari and George’s relationship deepens and evolves. This is the first time Yukari has ever been part of anything, and she’s eager to contribute in any way she can, despite the repeated urgings from the others that she shouldn’t be slacking in her studies. George, meanwhile, grows frustrated by her tendency to blame all of her problems on other people—she has to study because of her mother, but she can’t concentrate on studying because of him—and asks, “Where is your drive and determination in all of this?”
In order to be the kind of independent woman George prefers, Yukari runs away from home and stops attending school so that she can begin working and figure out what she wants to do with her life. George continues to encourage her to make her own decisions and she assures him she’ll take responsibility for the fallout of her actions. This advice, coupled with a convenient opportunity to model for Miwako’s sister (also a designer), helps launch Yukari on the path of becoming a model, something that eventually becomes a dream and a goal so important to her that she’s willing to make any sacrifice to achieve it.
The Characters
A story about the metamorphosis of an unhappy schoolgirl into a successful model might be intriguing under any circumstances, but what really makes Paradise Kiss special are the layered and flawed characters. Yukari, for example, is stubborn and full of prejudices as the story begins, traits largely inherited from her overbearing mother. While she’s able to overcome these for the most part, a deeper level of influence results in a fixation with winning that brings down the group when the festival doesn’t go as planned and in insecurities that lead to ugliness when she’s confronted with other people who are important figures in George’s life. Her journey from unhappy high schooler to fulfilled adult woman is hard-fought, believable, nuanced, and satisfying.
The supporting characters are quite interesting, too. My favorite of these is Arashi, who is initially quite nasty to Yukari, but eventually begins to respect her and even become somewhat protective. He’s got some pretty vicious insecurities of his own involving a love triangle between him, Miwako, and their childhood friend (and Yukari’s classmate), Hiro. The root of this unease is only unveiled in volume five, and though I’m glad this storyline sees some resolution, it would’ve been nice if a bit more time could’ve been spent on it. Hiro, too, plays a far greater role than I initially expected, and serves to temper Yukari’s rebellious impulses.
It’s inevitable, though, that a hero designed to compel and fascinate the heroine would also do so to his audience. George is a fantastic character. At first, readers don’t know if he’s simply toying with Yukari or is really serious about her. He doesn’t call when he says he will, forgets dinner engagements, and claims on more than one occasion to be an “equal opportunity lover.” In bits and pieces, though, we begin to see not only how much he truly cares for Yukari, but his very real vulnerabilities. He’s so insistent that Yukari decide everything on her own, for example, because his mother, mistress to a rich and powerful man, constantly blames her lover for all of her unhappiness. He doesn’t want Yukari to feel that way about him, so he always avoids making the first move, even when it’s something that he wants to happen, because he doesn’t want to be blamed for her misery down the line.
Although he’s drawn to Yukari’s spirited personality, the way they interact also makes it difficult for him to confide his feelings and worries to her. For that, he turns to Kaori Aso, a fellow designer for whom he had feelings but who never took him seriously. The first moment Kaori appeared, I groaned inwardly, thinking she’d be just another last-minute love rival, but I must say I ended up liking her a lot in the end. Even though Yukari is the protagonist, it was really interesting to see George interact with an ambitious girl who is less reactionary than Yukari; I couldn’t help but think that she would be a better match for him.
Why Ai Yazawa is Awesome
There are so many emotionally resonant moments in this series that it would be impossible to list them all. Yazawa captures so many stops along the formation and disintegration of relationships that I feel she simply must have gone through this kind of thing herself. I’m not only talking about the exhilaration as Yukari and George connect for the first time, but also some of the problems that ensue later on in their relationship.
I recall, for example, a scene between Yukari and Hiro in volume three. She hasn’t been to school in a while and he’s worried about her. He’s the one who makes her realize that she’s trying become the kind of woman who isn’t influenced by others because she was influenced by George’s preference. Yazawa absolutely nails the desperate panic of someone who doesn’t want to hear another verbally confirm their own innermost doubts and insecurities. “Shut up already!” she shouts. “Just leave me alone.” Still, she knows that everything he said is true.
Too, there’s the heartbreaking moment that occurs after Yukari has behaved horribly to Kaori and earned George’s displeasure for treating someone so important to him so shabbily. Desperate to close the sudden gulf between them, she submits to being nothing more than a sex toy, all the while thinking, “Nothing can be done. I’m this way no matter how long it’s been. And you’ll probably be that way forever.” That’s such a painful and true realization—one I think all couples must eventually face in one way or another—and it’s ultimately the issue that causes their relationship to dissolve. It’s not that they don’t love each other, because they do. It’s just that when they get together, they end up becoming someone they don’t much like. This doesn’t stop them from wanting to cling together, especially when faced with the scary prospect of following a dream alone, but they don’t give in to the temptation, knowing that it would ultimately result in misery for both of them.
This ties in with how well Yazawa presents the ambitions of all of the characters coupled with the realities of what lies ahead. Oh, Paradise Kiss gets their moment of triumph, alright. The school festival chapter is probably my favorite in the series because of how happy everyone gets to be. Yukari realizes that George is incredibly nervous and the time has come for her to be strong for someone else. As a result, when she takes that runway, she is radiant. His overwhelming and sincere gratitude when she returns from her turn on the runway is one of the most touching moments in the series. The series really could have ended there, but Ai Yazawa is not interested in deluding her audience with happy endings.
Despite how well it goes and how beautiful the dress is, the vote is based on audience judging and the victory is awarded to someone else. No boutiques will buy their clothes, and only one dress—accepted on consignment because of Miwako’s famous sister—ever sells. George must face the fact that his tendency to ignore trends and design whatever he feels like is not an economically viable option, and briefly considers giving up designing altogether until Kaori, and not Yukari, makes it possible for him to continue to create according to his own preferences.
In the End
Any human emotion you can possibly think of is present in Paradise Kiss. Characters are seen at their best and at their worst. Some achieve their dreams, some come close, and some must resign themselves to helping others achieve theirs. It’s not a particularly happy story, but it’s not a particularly sad one, either. The overall feeling I take away from it is one of hope. After all, even though things sometimes don’t go as you planned, “nothing will happen if you don’t believe in your own possibilities.”
Paradise Kiss is published in English by TOKYOPOP. All five volumes are available. Note: the first printing (with the pretty purple covers) contains a couple of significant errors that appear to have been corrected for the second printing (with the less pretty white covers). I’d recommend setting aside aesthetic concerns and procuring the latter.
For more on Paradise Kiss, visit the MMF Archive.
I reviewed this one-shot BL story for the new BL Bookrack feature at Manga Bookshelf. It’s less of a romance than it is a character study of a really crappy person, and I liked it all the better for that!
You can find that review here.
I reviewed this collection of short stories, some BL and some not, for the inaugural edition of a new feature at Manga Bookshelf called BL Bookrack. A couple of the stories are really quite weird, but I truly loved the final story, “The Pianist,” about an aging musician who has convinced himself he’s a “debauched fallen genius” rather than someone who simply didn’t have the talent to succeed.
You can find that review here.
In some ways, I don’t really need to write another review of One Piece. Its virtues remain the same—a likeable core cast of characters who show how far friends will go to help friends and Oda’s sure hand guiding what might otherwise devolve into scenes of chaos—as does its one chief flaw: a tendency for fights to go on and on. And yet, I enjoyed this trio of volumes so much that it seems wrong not to chronicle that in some way.
Volumes 22 and 23 see the end of the civil war plaguing Princess Vivi’s kingdom, Alabasta. This arc has been rather slow for me, and that still holds true here, with a very lengthy final showdown between Luffy and the evil Sir Crocodile. Too, Crocodile’s convenient tendency to gloat over his evildoings makes it easy for the rebel leader to see that he and his followers were manipulated into their conflict with the king; I wished for a little more ambiguity here, but I guess that doesn’t really fit the spirit of One Piece.
Still, the conclusion is satsifying, and there’s a lot of great follow-up. We get a full chapter on the Navy officers who not only let Luffy go, but also realized he had a better chance of saving Alabasta than they did. Captain Smoker and Sergeant Tashigi may be trying to capture our heroes, but they’re both honorable people fighting for what they believe in, and I like that we are allowed to like them. There are also scenes of the townspeople undertaking repairs, our heroes taking some time to recuperate, and Vivi having to ultimately decide whether she wants to rejoin the crew or remain at home, which results in some extremely touching final pages for volume 23.
With volume 24, the Skypiea arc begins, but not before a stowaway—archaeologist Nico Robin, former second-in-command of Sir Crocodile’s criminal organization—is discovered and allowed to join the crew. After a 200-year-old ship falls from the sky and promptly sinks, Luffy, Zolo, and Sanji are sent down to look for clues as to how it seemingly came from the sky, the direction to which Nami’s log pose—the instrument that guides them from island to island along the Grand Line—is currently pointing.
Robin directs them to a pirate island called Jaya, where they make inquiries about Skypiea and are ridiculed for continuing to believe in superstitions and dreams. It’s all pretty fun—I especially loved the near-wordless scenes of the guys exploring the shipwreck, where they find a mysterious feather that I’m sure will be important later—but definitely still in its expository stages.
A few other random observations:
* You know a series is good when you finish a volume and think, “Yay! I still have thirty more to go!”
* Oda often impresses me by the little things. I love, for example, the recurring character of the camel and its sole line of dialogue, “Grmpf!” I also love that Oda has not forgotten Chopper’s inability to effectively hide; it comes up several times during these volumes but nobody comments on it.
* This being One Piece, I predict Nico Robin has a tragic backstory.
Sigmund Freud. Florence Nightingale. Napoleon Bonaparte. These are not merely the names of eminent historical figures. They are also the names of students at a certain high school. These children are the fruit of leading-edge genetic engineering technology. In other words… they are clones.
It’s the year 2XXX A.D. and St. Kleio Academy is home to many students, all clones of famous historical figures. All, that is, except for Shiro Kamiya, son of a professor at the school and the only regular kid in attendance.
The students are expected to not only live up to the “monumental legacies of [their] originals,” but to strive to surpass their achievements. While some students are seemingly content with this arrangement, others strive to be their own person. Marie Curie, for example, lacks passion for scientific study and instead wants to be a pianist. When the school’s first graduate, a clone of John F. Kennedy, is assassinated while dutifully following in his original’s footsteps and campaigning for president, the astute Sigmund Freud does some digging and confirms the existence of a group whose agenda is to kill all of the clones.
Like me, you might find this concept very intriguing. Like me, then, you’ll likely be disappointed to discover that the tone of this volume is quite erratic. After some ominous hinting that Marie Curie—who the students believe has been allowed to transfer to music school—has been scrapped (“Another do-over,” according to Shiro’s dad), the story abruptly veers into fanservice territory, with Shiro and Freud shoved into the girls’ changing room by their friends. So, now we’ve gone from “Ooh, creepy!” to “Ooh, boobies!”
As the story progresses, it wanders seemingly without direction. There are still some hints about the anti-clone organization sprinkled throughout, but the focus becomes more on a sort of cult operating within the school whose members carry around plush toys in the likeness of Dolly, the famous cloned sheep. Also, because Mozart disdained Marie Curie’s musical ambitions, Shiro decides he needs to get fit so he can challenge him to a fencing match after which Mozart seemingly hangs himself to teach Shiro what it’s like to be a clone. Or something. It’s very odd.
In the end, I’m still interested enough in the story to read the next volume. I have suspicions about Shiro’s origins, for one thing, and the fact that the anti-clone folks have their faces hidden can only be significant. There’s a lot of potential here—I just hope the various elements coalesce into something more purposeful.
This review was originally published at Comics Should Be Good.
Afterschool Charisma is published in English by VIZ and serialized on their SigIKKI website. One volume’s available in print so far while in Japan the fourth volume has just been released.
From the back cover:
After orphan Teru Kurebayashi loses her beloved older brother, she finds solace in the messages she exchanges with DAISY, an enigmatic figure who can only be reached through the cell phone her brother left her. Meanwhile, mysterious Tasuku Kurosaki always seems to be around whenever Teru needs help. Could DAISY be a lot closer than Teru thinks?
One day at school, Teru accidentally breaks a window and agrees to pay for it by helping Kurosaki with chores around school. Kurosaki is an impossible taskmaster, though, and he also seems to be hiding something important from Teru…
Review:
Dengeki Daisy, from the creator of the charming Beast Master, is the latest series to debut under VIZ’s Shojo Beat imprint. It’s the story of orphan Teru Kurebayashi, whose older brother recently passed away, but not before giving her a cell phone that will enable her to contact “Daisy,” who will always be there to protect Teru in her brother’s place.
Due to her status as a scholarship student, Teru faces bullying at school, but pretends like everything is fine when text messaging Daisy. Little does she know that Tasuku Kurosaki, the delinquent school custodian, is actually Daisy and has been watching over her all this time. When Teru accidentally breaks a window at school, Kurosaki uses it as an excuse to keep an eye on her while he plays mahjong on his laptop and she does all the work.
There are definitely some familiar elements to this story. You’ve got the impoverished heroine being called a pauper, the all-powerful student council, and the somewhat-jerky-but-really-kind male lead. What makes Dengeki Daisy stand out from the pack are the original twists Kyousuke Motomi employs. Student-teacher romances are fairly common, but I’ve never seen a student-custodian one before. I like that Kurosaki is in love, but Teru is oblivious (though she does suspect right away that he might be Daisy, which he denies). And I genuinely like the characters and the way they interact, especially Teru’s group of misfit friends and the scene in which Kurosaki wields an edger as a weapon!
I really don’t have any complaints about this volume—it’s light, cute fun—but I can see how Kurosaki’s protectiveness and occasional dispeasure with Teru’s actions could possibly be viewed as patronizing. It honestly didn’t come across this way to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if others took issue with it.
All in all, I really enjoyed this debut and am looking forward to continuing the series. Thanks, VIZ, for bringing us something else from this talented mangaka!
Volume one of Dengeki Daisy is available now. The series is still ongoing in Japan—volume seven will be coming out there in a couple of weeks.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
From the back cover:
The definitive collection of the first Buffy comics series starts here. This volume begins at the beginning—”The Origin,” a faithful adaptation of creator Joss Whedon’s original Buffy screenplay. The newly chosen Slayer’s road to Sunnydale continues by way of Vegas and a mental institution, and scenes of high school, the early Scoobies, and an English librarian lead the way into Season One—and The Goon creator Eric Powell gives a look at Spike and Drusilla causing havoc at the 1933 World’s Fair.
This omnibus series is the ultimate compilation of Dark Horse’s original Buffy comics and runs chronologically along the TV series’ timeline. A fitting companion to Whedon’s comics-based relaunch of the Buffy mythos.
Review:
Because this omnibus collects a variety of arcs from different points in the comic’s run—and created by various teams of people—I think it’ll be easiest to address each one separately.
“All’s Fair” by Christopher Golden, et al.
A short, murky story about the family of the Chinese Slayer Spike killed seeking vengeance at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. The dialogue is decent, though Drusilla’s tendency to speak nonsense is overused, but the character likenesses are pretty bad and the story’s boring, to boot. Thankfully, this one’s quite short.
“Buffy: The Origin” by Joss Whedon, et al.
This purports to be “a faithful adaptation” of Whedon’s original screenplay for the Buffy movie. If so, apparently Joss originally envisioned vampires as cheesy green creatures! Still, this is much better than the movie as I remember it, doing a good job at depicting Buffy’s growing distance from her materialistic friends and setting up her conflicting desires/destinies of “normal girl” versus “chosen one.” I also liked that the scene of Buffy meeting her watcher, Merrick, for the first time seems to have been lifted wholesale from the movie script for use in season two’s “Becoming, Part 1.”
“Viva Las Buffy!” by Scott Lobdell, et al.
After Buffy gets expelled from Hemery High for burning down the gym (full of vampires), she and Pike head off to Las Vegas to investigate a casino catering to vampires. The story itself is not very exciting—despite involving time travel, half-vampire Siamese twins, and Angel doing his own poking around—but it’s narrated by Pike and provides an explanation for his absence from Buffy’s life in the series. It is rather weird to see Buffy being all proactive in her duties to vanquish vamps here, when she starts season one of the series so keen to avoid her calling.
“Dawn & Hoopy the Bear” by Paul Lee
This short story takes place while Buffy is in Vegas. In an attempt to kill Buffy, a demon imbues a teddy bear with the spirit of a djinn, but the delivery guy mistakenly gives it to Dawn instead. Instead of killing her, the bear takes a liking to her and becomes her defender. It’s a little weird to read a solo Dawn story like this, since we know it didn’t really happen, but I presume this is supposed to be one of the false memories Dawn has of her childhood. It’s actually really cute and I liked it a lot.
“Slayer, Interrupted” by Scott Lobdell, et al.
In the season six episode, “Normal Again,” Buffy reveals that she was once sent to a mental institution after telling her parents about vampires. While I don’t think that works with the continuity established in season two, in which Joyce appears to learn about Buffy’s Slayerhood for the first time, it’s still interesting to see what supposedly happened there. (Intriguingly, in this comic, it’s Dawn who’s responsible for the secret getting out. I wonder if Lobdell intended to propose a solution that would allow Joyce’s original reaction and Buffy’s memories—altered after Dawn was inserted into her life—to coexist.)
Unfortunately, it’s just too much like the season three opener, “Anne.” Buffy doesn’t want to be the Slayer, she’s stuck somewhere with a lot of helpless teens being victimized by a demon, she finally accepts who she is, and comes to everyone’s rescue. The story ends with a newly confident Buffy heading home, but again, this doesn’t really match with the Buffy we first meet in the beginning of the TV series.
While the stories are all drawn by different people, they have some artistic commonalities. First of all, many of them have problems with eye color. The earlier pieces in the collection depict vampires with red eyes, though this is corrected later. I’m more annoyed by Giles and Wesley having brown eyes and Buffy and Willow having blue ones. Eye color aside, though, Buffy in these comics looks more consistently like Sarah Michelle Gellar than she does in the Season Eight series.
Also, it’s not just Buffy whose pre-Sunnydale life we glimpse. The stories by Scott Lobdell contain scenes of the Watchers Council deciding which candidate will best serve as Buffy’s new watcher (this is where Wesley comes in), the gradual dissolution of Joyce and Hank’s marriage, and one brief sighting of a lonely Willow being sneered at by Cordelia and her cronies. Although there are a few minor inconsistencies, these arcs also flow quite well in chronological order, even though they weren’t originally published that way.
I actually own all seven of these omnibi, so expect more reviews to come!
Cut for spoilers!
From the back cover:
Hachi tells herself that she’s got her eye on the future and her life with Takumi, but she just can’t let go of the past and her friendship with Nana and the rest of Blast—especially Nobu. And the tangle gets thicker when Hachi’s wedding has to be postponed in favor of Nana and Ren’s nuptials. Can Hachi handle another delay in her happily-ever-after?
Review:
Oh, NANA. So good and yet so depressing.
Volume eleven left off with a hopeful/hopeless cliffhanger—Hachi had invited Blast to attend a fireworks festival and they’re all gathered in the girls’ old apartment, waiting for her. Hachi, meanwhile, is broken down in tears because she’s just encountered Shoji and has realized that she has truly lost him forever. Can she now face Nobu knowing the same thing?
Volume twelve begins not with a direct followup, but with a similar gathering six or seven years in the future. None of the old pain has been resolved—Nobu and Hachi still have a palpable connection and chemistry—and Nana is welcome, wished-for, but absent. After this glimpse at what will be, we return to the night of the fireworks festival and to some very selfish actions by Nana.
She has been trying to reconcile herself that Nobu isn’t going to be the glue that keeps her and Hachi together, and even trying to be supportive of his flirtations with a couple of residents of the agency dorm where the band is now living, but just as soon as she gets an inkling that Hachi isn’t over Nobu, she goes into a desperate sort of auto-pilot. She lies to Hachi, saying Nobu didn’t come, and arranges so that Nobu is alone in the apartment to greet Hachi when she arrives. Nobu, though, is too decent a guy to jeopardize Hachi’s happiness and doesn’t answer the door.
Meanwhile, plans for Nana and Ren’s wedding proceed, and it’s made into a huge publicity deal by their agencies, including a press conference on the day that both bands release new singles. The expectations everyone has for this match are horribly weighty. Takumi (and Yasu, too) think that Nana is going to be able to keep Ren from sliding further into drug addiction. Hachi thinks theirs is the dreamiest love story ever and is sure that Nana is in “total bliss” right now.
As for Nana, she’s completely terrified, but still hopeful that marrying will make her feel more stable. Not realizing, of course, that Ren is as much of a wreck as she is, if not more so. Shin points out at one point that no one at a band/agency meeting is discussing the impending wedding like it’s a good thing, but there’s just such an atmosphere of gloom and foreboding that it’s certainly doomed to failure.
In Hachi’s world, thanks to some clever scheming from Reira, Takumi has realized that it just wouldn’t do for two of Trapnest’s eligible bachelors to get married at the same time, so his and Hachi’s nuptuals are on hold indefinitely. She tries to keep upbeat about this, and doesn’t waver in her commitment to sticking it out with him, but even she is honest. “Even though we can construct our little world, I don’t think it can grow.”
The volume concludes with all of the main characters about to meet up again at a joint birthday party for Shin and Reira. I expect many revelations and much pain will ensue, including, perhaps, incontrovertible evidence that Takumi is a cheating bastard, that Nobu has a heart of gold, and that nobody in this story ever really has any chance of being happy.
And yet, for all of the pain and misery, NANA is still simply amazing. I am desperate to read volume thirteen, and yet simultaneously dread it because it will surely hurt. A story capable of hurting you, though, is a story worth treasuring.
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