“Just a Passerby/Aren’t You Underestimating Him?” The thick plottens, at long last. Lots of interesting stuff going on in these two chapters, the first of which acts as a kind of father-son montage. Most amusing here is Nishimura Isami telling his son “You don’t have to take after me with […] Read more
Even glaciers move, though too slowly to be discerned by the human eye… It’s taken us 135 chapters, but it appears that Suetsugu-sensei may finally be taking the tiniest steps forward in putting Taichi out of his misery advancing the relationship between Chihaya and Taichi. She’s faked me out before […] Read more
“Jan-Ken-Pon” I’ve actually been toying with the idea of saving up Mix chapters until there are a few unreleased ones out there before reading and posting, as the series really seems to flow better that way. But given how irregular the releases are I’ll stick with brief (or not, as […] Read more
“Throw a Pitch” This isn’t what I would call a supremely eventful chapter, devoting as it does more time to Punch being sick than anything else (and in the end, he’s not even sick). There are a few interesting developments, though, as Adachi-sensei continues to drop hints about the Touch […] Read more
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in… I was pretty defeated after the last chapter of Chihayafuru, which was really the first time I felt so acutely that the series was stagnating and that we were really being strung along as an audience. It’s not […] Read more
“Shirin” I confess I’m still not especially caught up in the story for this arc, which I’m enjoying mostly for the fanservice and the cat. It’s certainly the weakest in the series dramatically, even if it is allowing Mori-sensei to express her artistic talents in truly breathtaking fashion, and I’d […] Read more
“Hello/Just a Walk/That’s How a Childhood Friend Should Be” While waiting more than three months between releases is obviously less than ideal, in terms purely of consumption it might not be such a bad way to read Adachi Mitsuru. His narrative approach is so deliberate that one chapter per month […] Read more
“The Men’s Bath/Nice to Meet You” Whatever your tastes, I imagine Mori Kaoru supplied some kind of service in these chapters of Otoyomegatari. Manservice, cat service, the usual service (hubba, hubba), food service… The woman sure knows her way around ink and paper. “The Men’s Bath” isn’t really a full […] Read more
In which Suetsugu Yuki displays an unprecedented level of sadism. In my last Chihayafuru post I alluded to the 2009 British Open as a model for what was playing out. For those of you not sports fans, that was the event in which Tom Watson was one hole – one […] Read more
Tom Watson. Turnberry. 2009. There was quite a bit of lingering doubt in my mind going into this chapter about how I’d feel when the moment of truth came – such is the brilliance of Suetsugu-sensei’s humanization of Suou-meijin. But when those final cards were being read, despite all that […] Read more