Long-standing secrets lay revealed, but does anything really change? Editors will be editors, everybody will assume the wrong thing, imaginations run away with the oddest ideas, and why is that guy trying to show off his biscuits?
While I will try not to expend too much word count extolling the best bits, business continues as usual in the world of Nozaki-kun and the gang. Which means things are funny as heck.
What many volumes of this magical series have taught me is that this manga does its best jokes when it’s pointedly dunking on the process of manga creation. The high school stuff is also fun, but, man, this story’s sense of satire is sharp as a tack.
An example: the first story involves Hori, who draws the manga’s backgrounds, not being available, so Nozaki steps up, since he is a pro. Except his idea of being a pro involves not actually doing more work, but changing the story to suit his apparently limited skill set.
The permutations this goes through as a party turns into an ambush and then a classic trope and then a conveyance of foodstuffs and possibly sending both main characters to the afterlife, just so Nozaki doesn’t have to draw backgrounds, are brilliant. It’s deadly funny.
Any time this story once more raises the question of just who the hell even likes Nozaki’s manga (or perhaps Nozaki himself during a goofy cooking chapter) - in one instance the story slams his writing pretty hard - it’s pure gold. And understandable.
We see the return of ‘somebody’s playing a visual novel’ and, while nothing will ever equal the way the first instance of this played out (especially in the anime), there’s always some strong laughs from these segments.
That’s what makes Nozaki-kun a cut above most gag manga - it doesn’t just repeat the same beats to the letter, it’s constantly bringing back what worked and doing something new with it.
The romance angle is turned way down, which is fine because it’s hardly the point of this thing. There’s barely anything in this about Sakura and Nozaki, minus the very last panel, which brings back a joke from earlier and an accidental comment turns into a thing instead. The expression that closes this story is priceless.
Well, Wakamatsu figures out that Seo is actually the singer who saved him from his insomnia and that leaves him incredibly conflicted since he doesn’t especially like Seo, since she keeps messing with him (which is largely Seo being as affectionate as she’ll ever get).
In a way, the fact that this changes so little might be the best joke of all, even if we get an amazing sequence of Wakamatsu putting the pieces together and another where Sakura and Nozaki have very different interpretations of Seo.
This is replicated with Hori and Mikoshiba figuring out they both work for Nozaki, which also changes nothing. But shout out to Hori for being the unexpected MVP of this volume. He’s always been an okay character, but he gets a lot of the best lines in this one and a brilliant chapter where he’s trying to teach a way too eager girl about stranger danger.
And why should things change? This story has a great cast and knows how to deliver a joke. There’s a definite formula to it, but the ingredients keep getting tweaked just enough to make it feel new. An absolute joy and an all-timer for gag manga.
5 stars - “Why’s this guy tryin’ to show me his biscuits!?”