Love is in the air, but there’s manga to write! As secrets stand revealed, it becomes clear that Nozaki should probably never be allowed near manga ever again. But, luckily for us, he will be.
Okay, first off, there is nothing here as laugh out loud funny as the biscuit gags from last volume, which might be one of the funniest Nozaki bits in the history of the series. Luckily, some stuff gets pretty close.
There’s a lot of my favourite throughline of Nozaki being possibly the worst mangaka in history and I never get tired of watching his research and plotting go haywire every time. There’s a certain level and type of mayhem I want from these volumes and this one nails that benchmark.
Hori and Kashima’s budding romance is being heavily mined for some very silly laughs, which lets this volume come out swinging as Mikoshiba and Hori finally come face to face working on Nozaki’s manga, but Mikoshiba’s position as Kashima’s best friend puts him in an awkward spot (far as he can tell).
The bonus manga about the hygrophila pinnatifida might steal this one all on its own, but the whole thing is joyous.
Meanwhile, Sakura and Nozaki manage to… whatever it is they do. Sakura’s boundless enthusiasm for Nozaki’s body makes for some very funny moments (speaking of not being allowed near things, she should never be allowed near a karate gi, ever) and Nozaki gets another heart stopper of his own from the most innocuous moment possible.
Honestly, this whole thing would just be me praising various chapters. Nozaki’s live tweeting goes so amazingly wrong, flip phones live for a brief moment, and Nozaki’s face game in his manga is so bad that he manages to cause more problems trying to fix them, as usual.
It’s delightful and silly and remarkably consistent. Sure, if you’re here for the romance… uh… well, I don’t know why you would ever be showing up for it, frankly. This is one of the best four-koma ever made and I say it every review because it remains true.
The characters are solid, the jokes are tweaked enough to stay fresh, and it’s impressive how often they can keep iterating on the same thing for new gags. Long may it continue to be just this nonsensical.
4.5 stars - no biscuits, sure, but there’s still tons of material in this one to get plenty of chuckles out. As such, the sheer quantity of quality pushes it up, even without a biscuit to be seen.