With an endearing protagonist and luscious art, this seaside slice-of-life story offers tranquility in the chaos of the modern world.
Wakana reflects on her past two years in Atami, while Kyusho prepares to leave for a part-time holiday job in Tokyo. She then celebrates Christmas with her friends in a surprise party, and Nairo makes a social-media video of her to mark the new year. The video catches the eye of a young girl who requests the cleaning of a ribbon, but is Wakana supposed to know this girl from her past?
I’m really hard on this series and I admit it. It’s basically a fanservice vehicle for a location and a character and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Slice of life series are fine, sometimes this just riles me up.
In a way, it’s admirable that the series is so consistent in its ambitions. The first chapter is basically Wakana going to a couple of baths and all the butt and bare skin that implies.
This blatant exploitation of Wakana is my biggest sticking point; it always drives me crazy. Yet I’m not even blinking an eye reading 2.5 Dimensional Seduction, so I couldn’t even tell you why it is so irritating here.
Everything else is the same old same. Nice art, little bit of laundry stuff, lots of glamour shots of Wakana (you knew we wouldn’t be getting out of the series without kimonos, and that prophecy is thus fulfilled).
More Wakana and Kyusho flirting, something else I’m not terribly fond of. Sometimes it just feels like the focus is on the wrong thing. When it dials into its communal aspects and the sweet moments therein, this is really good. It just doesn’t do it often enough.
3 stars - great art, usual story. If you are one of those people who loves this series, it stays the course. I remain firmly on the grudgingly enjoying side of things.
This is the kind of volume that I would describe as the calm before the storm. For the most part we are doing very mundane and nice slice of life stuff but then at the end we get a bombshell that is going to beave me so excited for the next volume.