Creative Staff
Story/Art: kakifly
Translation: Stephen Paul
What They Say
As the only member of the pop music club not to graduate, the responsibility of recruiting new members has fallen to Azusa. Ui and Jun have agreed to help out their friend, but they might be more interested in having actual afterschool teatime than making music. Even when Azusa secures the necessary four members to keep the club alive, the lack of musical experience (and musical instruments) is going to be a challenge! Will the high school pop music club survive to take the stage once more?!
Technical:
The front cover is an image of the main three girls in a sitting position clutching their instruments, placed over a green background. The back cover is an image of the two new girls and Sawako, also seated, along with a quick synopsis. Colored pages, bonus comics, character design sketches, and translation notes are included. Text reads smoothly, the paper used feels solid, honorifics are maintained, and sound effects are left in their original form and translated.
The art here is of course very similar to that used in the original series and the College entry, and is overall serviceable but not exceptional. The new characters blend in well enough with the established cast, and fortunately nobody looks too much like anybody else here. Backgrounds appear often and look solid.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though the main group has graduated off, but thanks to the immense popularity of the series, we find ourselves following Azusa’s ragtag group. Even they miss the graduated seniors, and both Azusa and Ui end up mimicking them at the start of the new school year. When they first visit the club room they find a blond girl trying to take the tea set that was left behind. This new student, Sumire Saitou, and we soon learn that she’s essentially Tsumugi’s maid. Eventually, she finds herself a member of the club alongside the rather bookish Okuda, who seems to lack musical talent.
Most of the rest of the volume is spent setting up the club, with the girls deciding on roles and gathering the necessary instruments. Thanks to some leftover funds, they’re able to procure a drum set, which ends up as Sumire’s responsibility. Meanwhile, Okuda proves that she really can’t handle any instruments, so she’s instead set up with music creation software, acting as the club’s “producer.” There’s also of course the usual school trip and beach vacation to fill up time, as well as plenty of minor gags here and there.
As the volume closes down, the band plays together live for their first and only time. Despite the fact that they’re full of amateurs and have only been together for a fraction of the time, they’re apparently “just as great as Afterschool Tea Time.” Finally, the club is left in the hands of the new girls, which feels like a far more awkward handoff considering how little time we’ve gotten to know them, but whatever.
In Summary
This volume has the same issue with underdeveloped ideas that plagued the College entry, leaving the new characters little time to mesh with the rest of the cast. To make matters worse, the cast here is more the secondary characters, the leftovers from when the main group went off to college. Azusa, Ui, and Sawako all at least had a decent presence in the original series, but Jun hardly existed there and isn’t much better here, and the new girls don’t fill in the gaps too strongly. Furthermore, Sawako hardly appears throughout, and the book doesn’t even manage to deliver much in the way of Azusa stepping up and growing into her role as group leader. Add in the “been there, done that” feel brought about by reusing the high school setting and scenarios, and you have a completely bland and uninteresting book. Only hardcore fans should consider it, and even then they may want to stay away, since what’s left here is more a shell than a proper entry into the series.
Content Grade: C+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 29th, 2013
MSRP: $11.99
