How many times can I abuse the phrase ‘hot for teacher’ in a single series’ reviews? Shorthand or no, Suzume is dealing with her burgeoning affections for Shishio, while Mamura is putting out signals getting lost in the noise, and Yuyuka is revealed for who she is...
For all that, this is a relatively digestible bit of manga that I blew through quite expeditiously and then could barely remember what I read. It’s fun, but didn’t quite resonate like the first volume - good, but nothing stands out.
We start off with an outdoor school trip that feels like it doesn’t do much with the setting except getting Suzume lost, which is hardly original (although I literally laughed out loud at her imagined newspaper headline version of events). After seeing her kill it at fishing I was hoping we might veer into more interesting territory about her country skills coming to bear in her city life.
Instead, the whole ‘lost and then stranded with a boy’ trope occurs, this time with some added teachus interruptus. Again, it’s fine, just pedestrian and not unexpected. I don’t need aliens, but something beyond the norm to break the lane it’s in would have been welcome.
Then again, when the book does go off on its merry way, things can get a little strange. I don’t quite buy how much (and how quickly) everybody accepts Yuyuza’s true form, although the reactions of the student body are pretty funny (that place seems like an S&M hotbed). Her reasons for being so into Mamura are believably teenage girl and I mean that in the nicest way.
Suzume being miserable to another character who shows up towards the end is also super plausible (she might not have ruined her entire future as she seems to believe, mind). And Shishio is kind of an idiot since he draws a line but doesn’t draw it nearly hard enough.
It’s an interesting enough chain of events with less of a love quadrangle and more like a straight line of nobody connecting whatsoever. The art elevates everything here - it takes me being more thoughtfully critical of the story to not just go ‘art is brilliant’ and move on. This is one of the best drawn shojo I’ve ever read, I think.
Downsides, see last volume. This burgeoning teacher thing is still in the air and it feels like it’s going to steer harder into that skid than, say, Hatsu*Haru did. I maintain a wait and see - certainly it’s better this way than the original pitch presented in the author section, which is an even more incredibly dire ‘basic shojo template’. This mixes the formula up a little, but hopefully it pays off more going forward.
Your stance on stolen affection may influence your opinion on Mamura this time out, although I have to say this is the one time something like this didn’t really bother me (Suzume’s reaction to this in the moment and then after is beautifully drawn). Intent and force behind said intent do mean something.
3 star story, 4 star art, but no slaps so I’m not going to round up this time. I really do like this though - it’s one of the better examples of its type even as it works through some serious issues and I’m sorry I waited so long to get around to it.