Title: Anonymous Noise Vol. 9
Author: Ryoko Fukuyama
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: July 3, 2018
The Story
The ninth volume of Anonymous Noise began In No Hurry to Shout’s tour; however, it became more than just a simple tour… it was destined to become a rivalry with Silent Black Kitty in more ways than one. When the two bands were scheduled to play head-to-head during In No Hurry’s final show in Tokyo, Momo returned early and ended up checking out their first show on the tour. When Nino noticed Momo in the crowd, the show began to fell apart and even received a bad review. Emotions also played a part in their next two shows which were equally as poor.
During this, Haruyoshi has a conversation with Yuzu about Nino. He tells him that if he’s going to confess to her that he cannot afford to wait any longer. He’s been holding it in for months and months and that it’s becoming rather pathetic. The one thing he said that really struck a chord with Yuzu was that the next time Momo and Nino meet could very well be the time they get together and Yuzu will miss his opportunity. This caused Yuzu to become plagued with thoughts of missing that opportunity to tell Nino how he felt and it let to even more problems for the band during their performances.
By the end of the volume, nothing got resolved; however, a new issue arose when Yuzu ended up losing his voice. He was late to their next show because of it and filling in for his part offstage was none other than Momo! With Momo so close and Yuzu about ready to burst from holding in his feelings for Nino, it leaves us on a big cliffhanger for volume 10!
I loved the way the story was executed in this volume! The tension builds up over the chapters really gave this volume some much-needed gravity. Plus, Yuzu almost confessed on two separate occasions and on that second attempt, he was about to shout the words he wanted to say to Nino when his voice gave out! I loved that tease because it made you feel that he was finally going to say what he wanted to say to her but at the same time, you wondered what would have happened to the concert had Yuzu flooded her with all of those emotions. They couldn’t afford to get another bad review on their tour because if they did, there would be no way to bounce back from it and it could have meant the end of the band. On the flipside, you felt relieved that Yuzu lost his voice because then he wasn’t putting the band or the rest of the tour in jeopardy but at the same time you still had those feelings of frustration because he failed, once again, to let Nino know how he felt!
Such a complex set of emotions and it was executed perfectly!
Characters
On top of the great story, we ended up getting some much-needed character development.
On the lighter side of things, Miou ended up paying a visit to the band as well as sending them all some text messages to encourage them to continue on despite their bad reviews. This ended up pumping the band up and giving them some much-needed energy. In addition, Miou and Hauryoshi ended up meeting and it’s quite obvious that the relationship between the two of them is far from over. It seemed like a very rocky restart but there’s definitely something there that would see the flame between them reborn once again.
We FINALLY learned a bit more about Yuzu’s past and why his mother hates music so much! Yuzu’s father was taking an overseas flight from Europe when the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. There were 25 people on board that plane and it was reported that there were no survivors. Ever since that day, his mother sold the piano, decided to stop giving music lessons, threw out Yuzu’s composition notebook and forbade him from ever writing or singing music ever again. She even went as far as to admit him to the hospital for a throat disease that he never even had. She went to tremendous lengths to prevent Yuzu from ever touching music so that he wouldn’t end up like his father. This was coupled with a somber moment when Yuzu visited his father’s grave after he and Haruyoshi got into a heated argument over the fact that he couldn’t confess to Nino and that he tried to make Miou and “Nino puppet”. Definitely a dark moment for Yuzu that finally gave us that insight we’ve been looking for.
Momo had a pretty nice moment when he finally stood up to his mother. He finally told her that he wants to write music and perform and that he wants to do that whenever he pleases. He even invited her to come to one of his shows so that she could see just what his passion is all about. Sadly, we didn’t get to see her answer so we’ll have to wait until a future volume to see how that situation played out!
Final Thoughts
This was a very solid volume of Anonymous Noise! A series that has relied heavily on comedy for serious situations finally let up and strayed away from it and the results were very good. Sure, there were still some parts that had that over-the-top comedy that the series has become known for but the bulk of the volume really doubled down on a serious tone and vibe, making it SO MUCH MORE enjoyable. I wish that this series had this feeling from the very beginning. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with having comedy in a romance saga but you shouldn’t heavily lean on it every time there’s supposed to be a serious moment.
When Anonymous Noise takes itself seriously, the quality shoots WAY up and it needs to continue to do that. Draw the readers in with a serious tone, make them laugh in the areas where they should. Don’t try and force them to laugh when they should be feeling a different set of emotions. If Anonymous Noise can keep up this mindset, this will go from a “pretty good” series to a “great” series. I really want to see this become better!
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media
