Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a review copy.

About the Mangaka

Sorry folks, this is another I couldn’t find anything on. Suzunari seems to be Iwami Shoko’s first foray into serialisation. If you have any info, hit that contact me button!!

About the Manga

suzunari_2

*sigh* While I loved this volume, and it was still cute, it lacked the oomph the previous volume has.

Art wise I’ve no complaints. In fact it’s largely thanks to this series that my opinion on 4-koma series has changed.

I think, probably due to this only being two volumes long, is the reason I found this volume a bit lacking. Iwami is an excellent artist who draws really cute chibi’s that fit the story and place well.

The issue I had with this volume however was the pacing. While I was looking forward to learning more of the story, it was handled very badly. The time slips to the past really didn’t make much sense the way they were introduced.

The other thing that I wondered about was the ending, it made no sense at all to me. I think this would have done well from another volume. This would have allowed the relationship a chance to properly break down, as well as a chance for Kaede to realise it properly. This is definitely not Yuri.

I also think that by giving an extra volume some of the support characters could have been handled better. For example Natsumi, certain things are revealed at the very end of the volume that I think really could have done well with being built up. She could have been an interesting comedy insert (more than what she is). Iinchou and Etoh-sensei.

Etoh-sensei especially needed to be reworked a bit. Story and personality wise she’s great. A funny character that I can really like and laugh over. The problem however lies in Iwami’s character designs. It’s the only one I noticed changes from time to time, as in the design isn’t consistent throughout. It’s a minor thing, but I did find I was having to do a double take to remind myself who was talking.

Yen Press did another astounding job on this volume, however I found one spelling mistake. I’ve noticed an increase in the number of mistakes in their releases over the past few months, and I hope this isn’t a sign of them slipping.

As always they leave the colour pages intact, which in this volume is awesome. The first is a character intro page, done with chibi’s. Damn does Suzu look cute there :D Followed by half a dozen of coloured pages, which make the characters look more alive. Got to love Iwami’s choice of colouring.

The translation is smooth, with all honorific’s left in place, as usual. The extras in this volume include a introduction chapter of Shoulder a Coffin Kuro (Vols 1&2 available), and two pictures of Suzu and Kaede that are just uber kawaii.

Spelling mistake is the last panel of page 22, it should be Joke, but it reads Boke.

After reading volume one I added this to my Essential Read list, sadly it’s lost that place after reading volume two. While I can highly recommend it, it’s not really what I’d say is an essential read.

Where to Buy

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