Despite all I said about the first volume of Tomozaki-kun, I still read this volume. I’ll read the next volume as well, and probably the others when they get released in English. I’ll admit it, I’m a connoisseur of garbage. Tomozaki-kun might not be a good novel series, but it’s at least interesting, and that’s all I can ask for.
This volume of Tomozaki-kun is better right off the bat because we don’t get the cringe-inducing spiel that was in the first volume about how ‘life is the worst game out there’. Tomozaki is actually trying to improve his life, by talking to more people and looking better. He still isn’t working out any, but other than that he’s trying pretty hard to stop being such a loser. Fun aside--he’s discovered ‘negging’, which he calls the ‘Mizusawa Method’ after one of the guys in his class. Good thing he only uses it as a way to start a conversation, and not to deliberately knock girls down a peg. This series is still more morally just than anything PUA-related since Tomozaki’s goal (that was set out for him) is to date a girl by the end of the year, not to sleep with as many as he can. We’ll see if he continues down the right path or falls into the trap down the line.
The girl this particular novel focuses around is Minami Nanami (or ‘Mimimi’ for short). Tomozaki becomes the ‘brains’ of her campaign to become the Student Council Election for their school. Mimimi is running against Hinami, who was the focus of the first volume. Tomozaki is surprisingly good at campaign messaging, perhaps too good. Not that he’s all-knowing and is right about everything, but he seems like the type of person who has never had a political thought in his life. I doubt that he would know what to do besides things related to computers. Then again, his cynical approach to campaigning is probably a reflection of politics in countries like Japan. This whole arc has the potential to be good, but is handled sloppily in the end. The author uses bizarre logic to try to justify why a huge bloc of students voted for a candidate without thinking “Hey, didn’t we hear all of this from someone else a few days ago?”
a lot of bouncing around from the girls that Tomozaki that muddles most of them together. Other than Hinami, the other girls that will probably eventually like Tomozaki for whatever reason have a hard time differentiating themselves from one another. Mimimi gets to do so this novel by virtue of being on the cover and having most of the plot revolve around her. Yuzu Izumi, who had a sub-plot revolve around her in the first volume, is very similar to Mimimi since they’re both ‘normies’. The only real difference is that Izumi is meaner than Mimimi. The other two girls, Fuuka Kikuchi and Hanabi Natsubayashi, have had minimal time in both volumes, with Hanabi having a little more time. Perhaps I’m saying this because I’m reading this before the anime based on this series airs, but it’s hard to put a name to a face for most of these girls.
There’s a subplot in this volume surrounding Hinami and Mizusawa (the ‘Mizusawa Method’ guy) and the status of their relationship. While this could be a potentially interesting plot point, it gets squandered in the name of playing it safe. The mere fact that Tomozaki is interested in their relationship is somewhat entertaining, but it means nothing at this point.
This volume was better than the first volume, although only by a little. There are problems surrounding this series: there are too many plot-points, many characters don’t stand out, and the author’s inability to wrap up an ending, among other things. Given the nature of this series, I doubt that much will change in the near future. Here’s hoping that it will though--there are at least five more volumes at the moment for it to do so.