Title: Anonymous Noise Vol. 6
Author: Ryoko Fukuyama
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
The Story
In the sixth volume on Anonymous Noise, Rock Horizon had concluded and Nino chased after Momo. She looked and looked, but couldn’t find him anywhere. She tired herself out to the point where she fell asleep on a hill under the festival’s fireworks. Momo finds her and says his goodbye, but is confronted by Yuzu who proclaims that if Momo runs away, he will make Nino his. This is the point where the anime adaptation ended so it’s all new territory for me from here on out!
We fast forward three months and Momo transferred to a school out in the country. There, he meets a girl named Serizawa who takes an interest in him, but Momo remains to himself and brushes her off. Meanwhile, all of the members of In No Hurry to Shout are in a slump. Yuzu is busy writing music after gathering the strength to tell his mother that he wasn’t going to quit making music no matter what. His mother approves it on one condition, but it’s never really revealed what that condition is. Haruyoshi goes on his own quest to win over Miou’s heart and Nino is too much in a slump to sing properly.
The band is in complete shambles, but the school’s cultural festival has begun and they are expected to perform there as the school’s popular music club. This will be the first time we’ve seen them perform as the club since the beginning of the series, but they have to overcome each of their own issues before they can come together and perform! The volume ends with Momo reaching out to Yuzu for help. Momo, since he moved away, doesn’t have access to his equipment and he needs Yuzu to compose one of his songs for him. Yuzu says that he wouldn’t let Nino listen to it, but when Nino makes the decision that she’s going to chase after Momo no matter what, Yuzu gives the song to Nino to learn for the school festival, reigniting his love rivalry with Momo over Nino’s heart!
Characters
There was a ton of character development in this volume so let’s just dig right into it.
First off, the biggest development was between Miou and Haruyoshi. Haru finally found the courage to confess his love for Miou, but thanks to all of the other times he played off as a joke, Miou didn’t believe him fully. She thought that there was no one in the world that would be able to love her so it must have been another one of Haru’s jokes. Haru proved that he was serious about his confession and Miou takes Haru’s hand and accepts him, but this didn’t come until Nino’s development.
Nino and Miou continued to spend time up on the school roof where they would talk, sing, etc. It has become pretty routine for the two of them to meet like this. Nino received advice that maybe she should do something daring and different because the change may result in her changing her mood and finding her voice once again. That change was Nino officially joining the popular music club, which shocked Miou because that meant that she would be closer to Yuzu, who she still had feelings for. However, when she heard that it was because Nino wanted to change, Miou started to think if she should pull off a drastic change as well, which lead her to accepting Haruyoshi’s confession, hoping that it would help her get over her feelings for Yuzu!
Yuzu, himself, seemed to be in a slump. He’s been writing song after song like a madman because of the unknown condition his made with his mother. All of the songs he wrote were for Nino, but he said that he just couldn’t write the right song. He, too, decides on a drastic change and decides to write a song for someone else, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it… especially after Nino selfishly tells him that Yuzu’s music belongs to her and her alone. I, honestly, didn’t expect that kind of attitude out of Nino. It too me by complete surprise and even Yuzu’s character was shocked by it. Later on, he ends up writing a solo ballad for Nino, but that all changes when Momo contacts him for that favor to produce one of his songs. While Yuzu said he wouldn’t let Nino hear it, he gives it to her anyway hoping that Nino picks his song over Momo’s. I see this as Yuzu’s test for Nino to see who she truly likes. She may not come right out and say that she likes Yuzu… especially with her newfound passion to chase Momo, but if she ends liking Yuzu’s song more, it could be a silent victory for him!
Lastly, there’s nothing more to be said about Nino’s development because, as you can see from the above, her personal development got folded and expanded into everyone else’s. I thought it was pretty clever to take one character’s growth and apply to anyone she came in contact with. The best part is that nobody really realizes the impact Nino had on them this volume. Everything was as subtle as it could be, but still impactful. If it wasn’t for Nino’s own growth to get out of her slump, Miou and Haru wouldn’t have gotten together, Yuzu wouldn’t have written the ballad or given her Momo’s song… and, most importantly… the band wouldn’t be getting back together to play at the cultural festival. Even though Nino was focusing on herself, she vicariously reunited everyone and made them grow as well. That’s not an easy thing to pull off, but it worked so well here!
Final Thoughts
This volume of Anonymous Noise was a little hard to follow with it bouncing between everyone’s stories, but once you realize that Nino is the thread that ties them all together, everything makes much more sense. It was nice to see each character going through their own plights and how they struggled to overcome them. There was also a great balance between character development and drama in this volume that kept things fresh and interesting. It seems that we will be treated to their next concert in Volume 7, but as the school’s pop music club rather than as In No Hurry to Shout. This adds the dynamic of Miou being a part of the band despite the fact that she’s a member of Silent Black Kitty.
I still don’t get the appeal of Momo, though. His reasons just don’t seem justified enough to put himself through all of this. Even Yuzu, as a character, flat out told him to just tell Nino how she feels. The solution here really is as simple as that, but for whatever reason, we have to go through this convoluted emo phase with Momo just to drag out the core of this story. I wish that the core was something more meaningful and impactful because it’s making me interested in the supporting characters a lot more than Momo. Hell, at this point, Haruyoshi could dump Miou and become Yuzu’s love rival for Nino and it would be a better love story than the one we have with Momo. That’s the only real downfall of this series right now. Momo just doesn’t have a good enough reason to act the way he does and it’s frustrating to see the strain on his relationship with Nino stem from this whole over-dramatic act he’s putting on.
Hopefully this gets fixed soon because the manga is clearly making Yuzu the best choice for Nino… almost in a no contest-type way.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
