”The monster’s concert had only just begun.”
Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Ryoko Fukuyama
Translation & Adaptation: Casey Loe
Touch-Up Art & Lettering: Joanna Estep
Design: Yukiko Whitley
Editor: Amy Yu
What They Say:
It’s like you’re some kind of monster!
Nino Arisugawa, a girl who loves to sing, experiences her first heart-wrenching goodbye when her beloved childhood friend, Momo, moves away. And after Nino befriends Yuzu, a music composer, she experiences another sad parting! Luckily, Nino reunites with Momo and Yuzu in high school, but things haven’t played out the way anyone expected…
Nino is determined to become a guitarist good enough to play onstage, and the members of In No Hurry have gathered for a weekend training camp to support her! Meanwhile, Momo makes a decision regarding his feelings for Nino and seeks for out once more…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Character development for main characters in shojo is tricky in that their growth as a person is almost always directly related to their progression in confessing to one of their love interests. So for Anonymous Noise volume 5 to actually take enough care to expand Nino’s personality past her love interests of Momo and Yuzu (if only slightly) is quite the accomplishment for not just the series, but the genre as a whole.
While the volume starts off with the In No Hurry to Shout members spending the weekend together in a training camp, the main focus of those chapters isn’t so much getting the band ready for their performance at the Rock Horizon Concert, but to get Nino comfortable in her own shoes. Among her other bandmates, Nino is the only one who doesn’t already have a rich history with everyone else in the band. And while those chapters themselves seem more meandering than anything else, they do succeed in developing the camaraderie between Nino and the rest of In No Hurry, better cementing their chemistry before their first major live concert.
With that in mind, the true star of the show this volume is the concert itself. Author Fukuyama is able to not only build up anticipation for the concert, but maintain the story’s momentum throughout In No Hurry’s entire performance. In addition to the drama of Nino having to perform knowing her love interest Momo is performing at the nearby stage, there’s the more immediate drama of seeing if the weekend training camp with her bandmates was even worthwhile. What makes the concert itself interesting is that both these points end up taking a backseat to Nino herself. Until the performance, Nino as a character was a very typical shojo archetype of a timid high schooler who inexplicably caught the attention of multiple suitors. Her actions upon developing feelings (romantic and otherwise) for both Momo and Yuzu are spent almost exclusively on acting in such a way to get their attention.
So what makes Nino’s actions at the Rock Horizon Concert stand out are that she ends up performing for herself more than anyone else. Yes, she still has the pressures of her bandmates as well as love interest and rival performer Momo spurring her forward, but the more major influencer during her time on stage was herself—she selfishly decides to change which song to open with, she chooses to intentionally sing each song faster and louder, and she decides to immediately bail the second their final song is done. For the first time in the series, it feels as if Nino is making choices for her own sake rather than for the sake of others. And it works out not only for her character development, but for the story as a whole. Not only do we end up with a better realized heroine to follow, we also finish out with both romantic leads reacting to her rather than the other way around.
In Summary:
Anonymous Noise volume 5 starts off slow, but once it picks up steam, it doesn’t let up. The raw emotion that comes with performing live on stage in front of thousands is captured so well, and is relished in accordingly. What results is a better-realized heroine, as well as a story that’s unafraid to deviate from the genre’s tropes, if only slightly.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: November 28, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
