”Whenever you sing, you sing to the sky.”
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:
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…
Yuzu thought he’d resigned himself to just being friends with Nino, his “Alice.” But now that he’s faced with the prospect of losing her voice to Momo, he’s having second thoughts—and has resolved to take them to Momo directly! Meanwhile, the feelings that Momo has been hiding for so long seem to have reached a boiling point!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I wholeheartedly stand by the idea of being able to play your story safe and while still keeping things entertaining. Up until this volume, Anonymous Noise has been the type of shojo to stick to the genre’s tropes while still being entertaining enough for said tropes to be a fun read. Now four volumes in, though, I’m starting to want a bit more than just company standard.
For one, the volume begins by completely undoing the consequences of last volume’s kiss between Yuzu and Momo. Rather than building off the romance volume 3 left off on, author Fukuyama instead puts the romantic tension on hold in favor of focusing her attention on other story details. From a technical perspective, it makes sense. But when reading the story itself, it makes things feel incredibly stilted. Now we’re left with one of the male romantic interests essentially “on hold,” while Fukuyama backtracks by better explaining the other members of In No Hurry–something she should have done much earlier in the story.
It doesn’t help that her backstory on the other band members feels poorly constructed. While I was forgiving of Fukuyama’s sloppy panel layout and constant switching between spoken dialogue and inner monologue mid-sentence, to do so during a flashback makes for an annoyingly-more-difficult-than-it-should-be read. Furthermore, the backstory is clearly meant to not only establish In No Hurry’s long friendship, but to also antagonize Yuzu’s anti-music mother. And while Fukuyama succeeds in the former (you can’t get any more adorable than a group of bedridden kids essentially being snuck off to a rock concert), the latter remains very lacking.
It’s already been mentioned in passing that Yuzu’s mother has a problem with him pursuing music, which serves as probably the one in-character thing a parent has done in the series so far. But in the case of how this trait was handled in the flashback, there should have definitely been a lot more focus and care when it came to bringing this point up. The moments of Yuzu’s mother disciplining him over loving music are so brief and small-scale, that you never really hate her since there just wasn’t that much time for readers to really let the feeling engross them in any way. You don’t even see Yuzu’s mother’s face when she is in a scene, which while effective in other series like Your Lie in April, feels very slapdash this time around.
If anything, I will say Anonymous Noise has at least begun to better establish its current In No Hurry lineup. Now having a better understanding of the original bandmates’ motivations, Momo feels more welcome in the group and is thus better prepared to face the eventual showdown with rival band Black Kitty. I only hope later volumes better balance the romance and the musical drama.
In Summary:
Anonymous Noise volume 4 takes a slight break from the romance in favor of better fleshing out its supporting cast. And while this results in some very obvious shelfing of previous plot points, it does eventually result in a cast that’s better prepared and better justified in taking on their copycat rivals Black Kitty.
Content Grade: C+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: September 5, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
