Tsundoku ja nai
New Manga January 2022
Two books on my Anime/Manga Tracker got published a few days ago, and I was pretty sure they’d be available almost immediately at my local Kinokuniya Bookstore. So Friday after work I hustled over to the bookstore. Sure enough, both volumes were in the New Releases section. They seemed to have only three or four copies of Bloom Into You Anthology Volume 2 - and, like, six copies of Love Me for Who I Am Volume 5 - which seemed like too many for what I think is a very niche title.
At any rate, I took one of each volume to the cashier. With my Kinokuniya membership, the price was 10% off - but I also had a $10 Kinokuniya gift card, which was a membership reward. So I basically got two books for the price of one.
I read both of them early Friday evening. They didn’t get close to the tsundoku stack by my bed.
I read Love Me for Who I Am Volume 5 first. It was a pretty quick read. This is the final volume in the series, so I had high expectations. I was disappointed, though. Most of the book was Mogumo’s backstory with his family followed by a big confrontation with his family. Volume 4 was dragged down by Mogumo’s story with his family, and Volume 5 was even worse. I suppose this is fair as Mogumo is the main character. But early on in the series, we got a lot more of interesting and curious takes on all the supplementary characters. And in Volume 5, nearly everyone outside of Mogumo’s family was in the background.
So there was little attention to the characters I was rooting for. My favorite character, Mei, got a happy ending - via magic wand or something, as the news about her coming out to her family was barely a single sentence. Kotone got a semi-happy ending - also a one-liner - as she ended the book going on a group outing with model couple Ema and Minami and three other lesbian friends. There was zero Mei x Kotone development. Tetsu showed up as the supportive boyfriend of few words. Onee-sama Sacchan barely got a cameo in her own cafe. Tenchan and Suzu showed off their halloween uniforms - and not a word about what they were up to.
We got a happy but flat ending. The first three volumes were really interesting, but the final two were not. I guess I’d have to write my own fanfiction for Mei and Kotone - and Sacchan and Ayumu - and even Tenchan (and Haruto) and Suzu. All the interesting characters got neglected at the end. Oh, well.
Then I picked up the Bloom Into You Anthology Volume 2 - and I smiled all the way through. This anthology really is fanfiction for Bloom Into You - but fanfiction by a variety of established mangaka rises to a completely different level. These writers did a great job. I do believe that Bloom Into You author Nakatani Nio has blessed all the stories as credible “what ifs.” And then I was surprised and delighted that the last story in the collection was by Nakatani-sensei herself. That story is definitely canon. The short vignette takes place when Touko is in college and Yuu is a third-year in high school - and is the prelude to Yuu changing her look, as we see her in the final chapter of Bloom Into You, Volume 8. It was so wonderful seeing these two verbally dancing again.
On Friday I completed two manga collections. One collection left me wanting - and one collection left me on cloud nine.
You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the original post at Dreamwidth. The current comment count is
.