”How I wish I could have hated you instead”
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Ryoko Fukuyama
Translation: Casey Loe
What They Say
We’ve been hiding our true feelings.
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…
At long last, In No Hurry’s nationwide tour has begun! Amidst the excitement, Yuzu—who can no longer deny his feelings for Nino—has finally declared war on Momo. And Momo, sensing the threat from Yuzu, has hardened his own resolve. But as the tour heats up, a big surprise is in store for them both!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After the ever so brief reveal last volume that In No Hurry would be commencing a rigorous Japan-wide tour this volume, and even author Fukuyama herself referring to this as the “tour arc,” I was interested to see just what if anything would change for the gang this volume.
It wasn’t much, really. And yet I was still satisfied with this volume from start to finish.
The tour itself is an interesting beast to dissect because while the group does indeed hit up a wide variety of venues over a short amount of time, you never really get much of a feel for each venue or the crowd attending them for that matter. As the group performs on stage after stage, our scope for the experience feels almost too intimate, with the focus being solely on the members of In No Hurry rather than the concert itself. You feel less like you’re experiencing the concerts, and more like you’re following a handful of people around through their daily dramas. And in that regard it works. You see Nino experience screwup after screwup in her performances, and while they’re never treated as a career-ender for the group, it’s clear that they do take their toll on her up until the very last page of the volume.
Nino wanting to become a skilled singer and guitarist in her own right has always been one of those secondary goals in the manga—something that happens in bits and pieces while more focus is given on the romance. So to have this tour arc where the focus is on Nino developing her talents and getting through the hurdles that come with touring acts as a solid change of pace and ample self-improvement opportunity for the lead girl (something that I feel most shojo tend to shy away from).
Shojo in general has this bad habit of figuring out just how long they can keep its characters pining for each other in an endless loop of overly-convenient misunderstandings, so at the very least I will applaud Fukuyama for having her characters be aware of this. At this point in the series, Yuzu finally commits to liking Nino and telling himself he’ll make a move on her by the end of the tour. On the other tip of the love triangle, we have Momo, who comes off as the more alpha of the love interests and yet is never in the right place to really have his personality take hold of Nino. The two male leads are developing into more than cardboard cutouts for Nino to pine over, with both getting equal amounts of screen time to delve into some separate drama of their own.
With Yuzu, we finally get some backstory as to why he isn’t able to sing, as well as his family life at home. And in typical shojo fashion, it ends up being something completely ridiculous and over-dramatic, and yet it syncs up enough with the present-time drama Yuzu is dealing with, so in that regard it makes sense. Compare that with Momo’s own familial drama, however, which while is getting a lot more attention than it’s had in previous volumes still feels underdeveloped. We see a lot more from Momo’s manager Tsukika than his own mother, and yet all the drama is rooted in his mother trying to force Momo into something he doesn’t want to do. I get that this is to frame Tsukika as more of Momo’s mother than his actual mother, but without both sides being around to compare/contrast, those scenes never come off as strong as they could be.
As the volume draws to a close, we’re treated to an almost-confession, as Yuzu loses his voice mid-sentence in front of Nino. His inability to sing being used as one of the major driving factors in the story has always been strange to me. And while it did serve its purpose of being reason enough for Yuzu to want to recruit Nino in the first place, his voice-loss now doesn’t make too much sense considering how much drama it’s given. Yuzu is In No Hurry’s guitarist—not its vocalist. So to delay the performance for his sake feels like a plot point that wasn’t thought out entirely. And yet, it did make way for a stunning reveal of all the other members of the band. As each of the remaining members appears on stage on by one, we’re finally given some audience feedback—everyone losing their minds at the dramatic entrance of each member. Follow that up with Momo serving as Yuzu’s stand-in for the hottest of minutes, and I’d say that’s justification enough for all the overblown Yuzu drama.
In Summary:
A surprising amount of ground is covered in Anonymous Noise volume 9. Fukuyama begins to better flesh out some of the more underdeveloped plot points and backstories of the cast, while also giving plenty of time for the characters in general to just make the most of their time on stage. Even secondary characters get a minute or two to shine, and it all flows pretty well as the cast comes and goes into the story as needed. And even with some noticeable hiccups here and there, the story has become sturdy enough to withstand any of those oddities.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: July 3, 2018
MSRP: $9.99
