Dance Till Tomorrow, Vol. 2

Dance Till Tomorrow #2

by Naoki Yamamoto

This romantic comedy features explicit sexual themes and sharp dialogue and character development in the story of Suekichi Terayama, a student who's inherited $4.5 million -- which he won't actually get unless he graduates and gets married.

Genres: Manga, Seinen, Comics

216 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

About the author

Naoki Yamamoto ( 山本直樹 Yamamoto Naoki) is a male Japanese manga artist. In his early years, he also used a pen name Tou Moriyama (森山 塔?) as well as Mori Touyama (塔山 森?) for his adult-oriented works, but nowadays he no longer uses it.

Reviews

[StrictlySequential · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now the "explicit sex" reviews make sense because the first book had sex but was very tame. This is still the closest to not qualifying for my erotica folder. Why it qualifies, like "Pink" and "Sundome" is because sex (psycho-sexuality and tyrannosaurus-style* petting in the case of "Sundome") is a major theme throughout that would drastically change the story if lightened or removed. The funny part of it is that when when they are really in the troughs of it for a few pages Yama switches to invisi-penis and invisi-vulva! Maybe she had to appease the publisher or some kind of weird law.

Even though the character building elevated tremendously this didn't have the funny of the first book so it couldn't achieve any higher than A LOW **** like the first one which relied on the laughs to surpass *** . The above-average humor could still have been present in this volume but the consequence of the character building was less time with the best characters in the story who will be my favorites no matter how much the main duo are groomed.

So far these are the most entertaining cast members in order: Lothario lead actor, intense inheritance guardian, gregarious great-grandfather, tough but secretly tender Yakuza goon, and neurotic nimrod troupe invader. The leader of the troupe has the makings of a great character but they have yet to be adequately demonstrated. Oki excels with the males but hopefully so engaging females arrive or gain more life in the volumes to come.

*= Even though they look small in scale they would do some aggressive groping human-wise!

[Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.2/5

The continued adventures of Suekichi as he struggles to find out the truth behind the mysterious Aya Hibino, who seems to only love him for his inheritance, and yet seems to serve as nothing but an obstacle in the way of him achieving that goal.

The artwork is still good in the sense that it serves the story really well, and I couldn't imagine the story and the sharp writing combined with any other style at this point. Sometimes it leaves a little to be desired in a few scenes but for the most part it's great and compliments the comedic elements and characters.

Despite the cartoonishness of some of its humour (it is a stylized manga, after all), it feels like a sort of hyper-reality; beneath the silliness, the characters and their struggles feel real and genuine. The further I read into this series, the faster it's becoming one of my favourite manga series!