Kessoku Band continues to gain popularity in their local area, but branching out beyond that may be complicated. Meanwhile, Kita has a crisis from being the normal one, while Bocchi has her usual crises from being the anxious one.
I find nothing harder to review than 4-koma manga, minus Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, but I know a good series when I read it and this gets a lot more right than it doesn’t.
While I maintain that the anime gives this a life the manga doesn’t quite approach, it’s still worth seeing what we have yet to see there because even without the voices and music, this is still fun.
The series drags a toe along the truly bizarre sometimes and I appreciate it going over that line for some fairly daft jokes, like Bocchi’s face being peeled off by a rollercoaster or her soul being left behind during the ride.
Its general love of music, those parody chapter openings are fun even without the context, carries over to its incredibly funny penchant for fake bands/singers that have no business existing. This really pays off in the volume’s best storyline, when the girls venture outside of Starry to play a gig that’s a real mishmash of genres.
Before we even get there, we also get the metal band, Sideros, who seems poised to be rivals, except their lead singer, Ohtsuki, can’t manage to do anything without coming across like Kessoku Band’s biggest fan.
This leads to some wild tsundere behaviour that might be a bit of a retread, but it’s a great one with an abundance of fresh jokes. The constant goofing on how poor Kessoku Band actually is makes me laugh every time too - their wristbands being nothing more than zip ties is kind of wonderful.
With that wonderful addition to the cast, the rest of the crew isn’t neglected at all and everybody gets something to do this time out. Lots of wavering confidence in songwriting, playing, and singing.
Kita gets the biggest chunk of this when she tries to sort out her (perceived) lack of singing ability, although I especially loved Ryou’s because of the resolution that shows everybody coming together. That’ll be super fun if it gets animated.
Bocchi’s stuff is fine, but they’re running out of ways to iterate on how anxious she can be and it’s smart to branch things out with the focus on everybody else as well. Yeah, Bocchi overcoming her trials is almost always satisfying, but it’s becoming a bit worn at this point (although some jokes are still very solid).
So, a satisfying volume. You’ll get your money’s worth and, if you like the series already, it’s still doing a great job. It gets everybody back in the mix, including the underage reporter who was a highlight last time, and adds in some fun new characters as well.
4 stars - the best jokes are real good and there’s some welcome branching out from its central conceit to keep it from getting stale. Neatly done.
It’s really nice to see the individual band members undergo their own mini characters arcs in this volume. They were already fun before but another level of depth is just a joy.
Now I can read Hiroi’s spinoff manga while I wait for volume 4’s official TL.
The clearly strongest of the first three volumes, which is the right direction. I still enjoyed the bassist side story a bit more but the main series, and the main band, are improving together in a fun, light-hearted way.