”Even as its wings are torn away… it keeps singing.”
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Ryoko Fukuyama
Translation: Casey Loe
What They Say
Please… God…
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…
Unable to sing because she has nothing left to yearn for, Nino is caught between her love of music and her love for Momo. Meanwhile, the Tokyo Sailing concert series has begun, and In No Hurry is taking the stage with a singer who has lost her song…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that shojo in particular is a genre reliant on cycling through the same concepts ad nauseum, but it bears repeating. While Anonymous Noise has reached a very comfortable nook in its neverending tale of boy drama loosely intertwined with music, it does so in a way that never feels stale.
Now entering its thirteenth volume, author Ryoko Fukuyama doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but is able to get away with this because she’s fully aware of how to ride her story’s high and lows– leading readers on through the shojo drama, and hitting you with the shojo-iest feel at just the right story beat. We see this through minor characters like Kuro going through a majority of the series in a one-sided love with his in-law only to now finally be granted a love interest in underclassman An. While the coupling was established in the previous volume, giving the two some alone time at the Tokyo Sailing concert and giving Kuro a moment to prove his worth to An is enough of a progression that we don’t feel cheated out of any poignant moments.
Likewise, Nino going through yet another slump in her music due to her current boy drama is nothing new to the series. And yet I’m a sucker for seeing the gang lift her off her feet and do everything in their power to validate her and ensure she’s doing the best she can because each beat hits at exactly the right time. We open the volume with Yuzu’s (again, very nondescript) family drama and establish just how distant from Nino he’s gotten. Meanwhile, Momo and Nino are in full relationship mode yet are distant despite this. What makes this plot point fun to read through, as overdone as it’s gotten in the series, is just how well Fukuyama pulls off this progression.
The characters are emotionally mapped so far away from each other, and Fukuyama is able to bring them all together at just the right time. So when Momo tries to rush to stage in the middle of In No Hurry’s performance, or when Yuzu switches up the band’s performance at the last second, the emotional beat lands perfectly as each of the characters end up exactly where you want them to be, after having traveled so far to get to that point. For as many times as we’ve seen Nino get down on herself and her musical talents, Fukuyama knows how to tie those emotions alongside the emotional highs built into musical performances. Even without literal music to listen to, we’re able to see Nino’s journey through how she performs. And her bandmate’s over-the-top shojo reactions while all this unfolds makes for a thoroughly entertaining read every time it happens.
The volume ends with a one-shot manga by Fukuyama, titled Spilled Gelatin about a playboy that inevitably becomes the caretaker to a young girl. The vibe is very different from Anonymous Noise and comes off as far more explicit at least in tone. And while it’s not something I’d personally want to read as a full series, the single chapter it runs for provides just enough kick to demonstrate Fukuyama’s story range.
In Summary:
Anonymous Noise volume 13 brings more of what we’ve grown familiar with at this point in the best way possible. Nino’s musical talents being perfectly out of sync with her personal drama has become par for the course, but author Fukuyama makes it as entertaining as possible, riding the ebb and flow of every dramatic beat with style and ease.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: March 5, 2019
MSRP: $9.99
