Family is family, no matter what the makeup.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jin (ShizenNo Teki-P)
Art: Sidu
What They Say:
Despite their youth, sorrow stalks Kano, Kido, and Seto. Their strange powers prevent them from fitting in at their orphanage, so finally, they escape. The trio is taken in by the Tateyama household, where the cheerful Ayano lives–but the peace is short-lived…
What They Say:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Shizen no Teki-P (Jin) seems to want to add background information in Kagerou Daze. In the last volume, Jin took the time to push a backstory about Azami’s love relationship. In this volume, love still stands strong but from a different angle. Through Kano’s backstory, we see how love can hurt but also heal hearts through family.
Kano had a rough early childhood. He felt ostracized by his immediate family, feeling that he constantly gave his mom trouble. The only time he didn’t was when he met a girl in the park wanting him to show off his special moves. It’s when a fated encounter strips his mother away from him he truly feels isolation. That is until he encounters a constantly crying boy and an enthusiastic but strong headed girl in Seto and Kido. Though he might not know it, this group, along with other cameos, will become his family that he will bond through triumph and grief.
Struggling seems to be a core theme running in this volume. Kano constantly struggles with himself when it comes to his powers as well as his personality. The same is said with Seto, with more negative effects such as him trying to run away. Jin makes the struggling of these characters seen interesting. Seeing them learn to come to except is with themselves struggling to find out who they are why their powers came this way add how they try to fix it within the context of the world makes for interesting work. This increased sense of relatable feelings between the audience as well as the characters feel universal. We try finding our strengths and weaknesses throughout various ties in our youth to truly be a productive person and a part of the society we live in. This struggle ultimately comes from the ever-shifting concept of family.
Kano’s trip in Volume 5 is a journey to discover what family is. Unlike orthodox family structures, Kano goes through multiple versions of what a family is starting with his blood family and ending up with something more. These revisions do not come without some struggle in accepting said definitions. Jin emphasizes how Kano struggled to accept everyone in his new family at first. However, as he matured, and learned more about them, he becomes close to them. This closeness hits hard in various pivotal moments in this volume including with Kido and Seto. For readers of the series, it will feel assuring that emotional moments progress the story and vice-versa through the theme of family.
Jin’s writing is still solid in this volume. He communicates Kano’s sense of restlessness, aguish, and questioning throughout this volume. Jin especially does well to reveal events without making them as nearly predictable as they could have. Though, there are things that still hinder him. The lack of character identifying within chapters and the pacing can sometimes make it hard for readers to keep up. With a volume so integral, it does take hit the enjoyment department.
This volume’s drawings by Sidu are still standard with good detail and emphasis on the scene at hand. That said, the disappointment is the placement of the images. It feels like in this volume, the places where the illustrations occur sync poorly to the text. In this regards, it makes it harder to connect certain images to what the characters are saying. It wastes Sidu’s talent and renders them more of a distraction than an asset for use.
In Summary:
This volume does a lot more building than expected and that’s a good thing. We finally get to see how characters start to assemble that we weren’t necessarily privy to. We got to see a major concept, love, continue on while having an overarching and well-understood theme. Jin does great work to tie this all together, with some caveats. For those who stood with this series up until this point, they will have much to be happy about reading this volume. It will finally be able to answer some things that you were questioning what exactly time delivery does very pleasurable story.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: September 20th, 2016
MSRP: $14.00
