A charming new assortment of games and activities
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Takuma Morishige
Translation: Yoshito Hinton
What They Say
Seki transforms himself into an old lady selling cheap candy, an avant garde artist who uses a very unusual medium, and even a marionette who mimics his own antics in miniature. Will Seki’s artistic abilities land him a job as a manga artist?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We start off fairly simple this time around, with a chapter centered on Seki using a toy helicopter to play emergency rescue with the bears. Next up, Seki runs a fake candy shop off of his desk. It’s a bit of an awkward chapter as it’s a tad focused on the specific kind of store you’d find in Japan, making it not the most relatable for most readers of this English version. But with that said, seeing how Seki gets into his role this time is indeed pretty amusing. After that comes a pretty so-so chapter about how Seki has bonus prizes wrapped up in his textbooks.
The first really amusing chapter this time, though, is about Seki using chopsticks. And fortunately, it’s pretty damn hilarious, as the book pushes this simple concept to its limits wonderfully. Then we get to see Seki try to play in the snow on his desk, despite having a cold. This one’s nothing too amazing for the most part, though it does end on a pretty nice little gag. Things heat up again, though, when Seki starts playing with glue and making “art”, which is easily another highlight of the book. Oh, and then Seki has to struggle with balance issues as he replaces his chair with an exercise ball, which is another simple yet effective chapter.
After a chapter about a marionette, we hit what’s easily my favorite chapter of the volume. Yokoi and her friend Tomoka visit a café, only to unexpectedly run into Seki’s mom there. This all escalates brilliantly, and Seki’s mother brings a great change of pace that’s definitely appreciated. Finally, we wrap things up on chapters about goo art, a fan club for Jun, a crazy manga, and Olympic medals, all of which are solid middle of the road chapters, at least by the standards set by the series. Oh, and the bonus chapter is quite charming as well, giving yet another character an unexpected chance to shine.
In Summary
After things got a tad dull last time, I’d say this book brings things back up to snuff. Though there is some minor breaking of the formula, this is largely down to just having a nicer set of ideas to work off, with a number of solid hits. It also helps that even the weaker chapters here have a gag or two worthy of a chuckle, and I wouldn’t say anything here is a full on miss. So yeah, if you’ve been enjoying the series thus far, then I’d say this is certainly worth a look, as there’s plenty enough to like here.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Package Rating: B+
Text/Translation Rating: B+
Released by: Vertical
Release Date: May 9th, 2017
MSRP: $10.95
