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Yazawa Ai - Last Quarter, vol. 01-03 (Chi. trans.)
(下弦の月)
I read this years ago, when it first came out, and I spent most of the summer searching for a reprint in Taiwan so I could reread it. It's not quite as good as I remember, particularly the ending, but it's still charming and cute, and it's interesting to see Yazawa's art style between the rougher earlier style and the later very stylized bits.
Mochizuki Mizuki meets a mysterious English guy named Adam on her seventeenth birthday; she's extremely unhappy for reasons we don't know and runs away from home to live with Adam in a deserted old house. But when she decides to run off with Adam for good, we see her ex-boyfriend running after her just as a car hits her.
We then meet Shiraishi Hotaru, a sixth-grader (I think) looking for her cat in an oddly misty territory, and Mizuki helps her. Hotaru soon finds Mizuki living in the abandoned house, but Mizuki's lost her memory and only knows that she has to find Adam again. Hotaru and her friends are determined to help "Eve" (Mizuki's forgotten her name), and most of the series is about what happened to Mizuki and who Adam is.
The mystery itself isn't that interesting on a reread, but the gradual formation of relationships among the four kids is still wonderful. Hotaru first confides in her best friend Sae, and they soon enlist Masaki, whom Hotaru has a bit of a crush on, and Tetsu, an enthusiastic kid who reminds me of baby!Nobu. I don't have much to say about all of them except they're all so cute! And I was glad that Sae actually gets a lot of character development; for some reason, I hadn't remembered that but had remembered liking her a lot.
Alas, the weakness in the series is the resolution; there isn't enough of what happened to Mizuki and her ex-boyfriend, and what we do have is much less messy than most of Yazawa's relationships. I also wish there had been more of a resolution between Mizuki and the four kids.
I would totally read a sequel about the kids in high school or college or beyond. They are awesome.
I read this years ago, when it first came out, and I spent most of the summer searching for a reprint in Taiwan so I could reread it. It's not quite as good as I remember, particularly the ending, but it's still charming and cute, and it's interesting to see Yazawa's art style between the rougher earlier style and the later very stylized bits.
Mochizuki Mizuki meets a mysterious English guy named Adam on her seventeenth birthday; she's extremely unhappy for reasons we don't know and runs away from home to live with Adam in a deserted old house. But when she decides to run off with Adam for good, we see her ex-boyfriend running after her just as a car hits her.
We then meet Shiraishi Hotaru, a sixth-grader (I think) looking for her cat in an oddly misty territory, and Mizuki helps her. Hotaru soon finds Mizuki living in the abandoned house, but Mizuki's lost her memory and only knows that she has to find Adam again. Hotaru and her friends are determined to help "Eve" (Mizuki's forgotten her name), and most of the series is about what happened to Mizuki and who Adam is.
The mystery itself isn't that interesting on a reread, but the gradual formation of relationships among the four kids is still wonderful. Hotaru first confides in her best friend Sae, and they soon enlist Masaki, whom Hotaru has a bit of a crush on, and Tetsu, an enthusiastic kid who reminds me of baby!Nobu. I don't have much to say about all of them except they're all so cute! And I was glad that Sae actually gets a lot of character development; for some reason, I hadn't remembered that but had remembered liking her a lot.
Alas, the weakness in the series is the resolution; there isn't enough of what happened to Mizuki and her ex-boyfriend, and what we do have is much less messy than most of Yazawa's relationships. I also wish there had been more of a resolution between Mizuki and the four kids.
I would totally read a sequel about the kids in high school or college or beyond. They are awesome.
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The resolution gave me a sort of Natsuki Takaya vibe, which is really odd, all things considered.
---L.
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I love the kids a lot and yeah, would totally read more about them growing up and solving more mysteries.
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---L.