It’s not often a manga author injects his own filler into the story.
Creative Staff
Story: Hiroyuki Asada
Art: Hiroyuki Asada
Translation/Adaptation: Rich Amtower
What They Say
The Lighthouse in the Wasteland Lag finds his long-lost hero Gauche Suede! But Gauche’s heart is so depleted that he has no memory of his former self, and now goes by Noir the Marauder. Lag’s only hope to recover the real Gauche is a special letter bullet that will convey Lag’s heart to his friend. Lag’s not sure how to go about writing the perfect letter, but his Letter Bee duties offer some good lessons in connecting hearts.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Volume 6 of Tegami Bachi is an interesting book to say the least. After the discovery of Gauche Suede, now know as the marauder Noir since losing his heart, Lag attempts to write a letter that can be used in a shindan and may help bring back Gauche’s heart. This discovery is basically a very big deal and looks to shape the core of this series for quite sometime; I’ll call it the Gauche arc. The problem is the way in which the story has been plotted so far. Each chapter up till volume 6 has had a purpose, had some sort of forward progress in the story that has led up to Lag reuniting with Gauche. The trouble lies in the corner the author put himself in.
Gauche has been found, a letter shindan may help him, but I can’t just have the next chapter magically having Lag see Gauche again so that he can use the letter shindan! Anyone who has watched a lot of anime knows that this is the part of the show where filler gets added to pad out the story. That usually doesn’t happen in manga but that is exactly what 3 of the 4 stories in this volume are, filler. The first three chapters of the book are self contained stories about some sort of delivery that Lag goes on, there is really no plot progression and the reader would not be any wiser if they skipped these chapters altogether. That isn’t to say that the stories are terrible, they are actually quite enjoyable and have the benefit of Asada’s absolutely amazing artwork to go alongside them.
Each of the stories are fun, slightly ridiculous in the way they unfold, but enjoyable anyway. Some people might argue that they aren’t filler because “it’s in the manga, that CAN’T be filler!”, but I assure you, they are. The chapter even have an anime filler trope included in them that is a sign of lazy writing and just not caring that much about the story. That trope? So, Lag is working on a letter to Gauche for the letter shindan, right? Well, two of the three filler chapters start with him whining that he can’t quite write the letter the way he wants to, then something happens and he goes on a delivery, learns something about someones heart, and is filled with resolve again. But the chapter ends with him still whining that he can’t write the letter. It’s a basic shell plot that allows the contents within to not matter in the grand scheme of things, in one chapter Lag finally meets Jiggy Pepper but…so what.
The final chapter in the volume, however, gets the story back on track (proving the previous chapters were filler by having Lag STILL not have written the letter) when Gauche is sighted near the town of Blue Notes Blues on the Northern Border. The chapter moves at a very brisk pace and makes only one jump in plot. Once at the town, Lag finds what appears to be a shed Gaichuu armor and two shindan bullet cases (presumably Gauche’s since that is where he was spotted). Lag fires his shindan at the casings and we are shown a more detailed look at Gauche’s past after he lost his heart. Very nice section that answered a lot of my questions about Gauche/Noir and Roda but also raised some further curiosity about Reverse and what exactly their aim is. Aside from all this revelation, it turns out that Blue Notes Blues is also the town that Niche was born in, 200 years ago! It looks like we will be getting some Niche back story in the next volume and hopefully some more history on Gauche.
In Summary
Tegami Bachi’s plot really hit a peak in volume 5 and everything started to come together and give readers something to want besides the nice stories and pretty art. It really is a shame that the author felt the need to pad out the story with three full chapters in this book. They are well made filler chapters that are enjoyable, fun, and well worth reading, but filler nonetheless. The final chapter which gets back on track is a real winner and absolutely necessary in reading this series. With how that chapter plays out I am looking forward to the next volume to get some more meat out of the story with Niche’s back story. I still give this book a fairly good rating because that last chapter is so important and good and the filler chapters are not terrible. The rating would have been much worse had they been terrible filler to boot.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: August 2nd, 2011
MSRP: $9.99
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