Title: Boy’s Abyss Vol. 5
Author: Ryo Minenami
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 201
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Drama
Publication Date: April 23, 2024
The Story
And there it is… Ms. Shiba going off the deep end with cinder blocks tied around her ankles. We pick up with Chako and Rei leaving the manga café and Ms. Shiba offering them a ride home. Chako talks Rei into taking it and that’s when she tries to drive a wedge between the two of them. When it fails and Chako tells her off, she takes matters into her own hands as a teacher. The end result of her meddling essentially ties the proverbial noose around Chako’s neck.
Meanwhile, she goes even further to meet with Rei’s mother. She explains everything to her and while she’s fazed at first, she becomes shocked when Ms. Shiba offers her 10 million yen in exchange for Rei! The end result of that “transaction” was something that I didn’t see coming but it cements just how dysfunctional this entire town is. What makes matters worse is that Esemori is now brought into the mix and we do get a little bit of his backstory. When he’s asked why he bothered coming back to this town, the volume ends with a pretty shocking answer!
Characters
Ms. Shiba took the stage front and center this time. After being rejected and told to stay away be Rei, the psycho gene in her body activates. She cannot accept Rei’s demand and does everything that she can to get her way. Beneath all of this, we end up learning a little bit more about her. She used to be an athlete; however, an injury forced her into teaching. One of the things that she believes is that her parents are living vicariously through her because they were never able to achieve the dreams that they were pushing her to achieve so she wants to remind them of her failure every chance that she gets to rub it in their faces. This is a bit of a paradox because she’s trying to show that she’s a failure to her parents while she’s failing a being a teacher and, practically, sabotaging her whole career. Maybe that’s the entire point, hoping she would get caught and land in jail to really rub it in but we’ll see.
Poor Chako. Because of Ms. Shiba’s intervention, she is now forbidden to see Rei nor is she allowed to have a phone. Her parents are the worst and won’t even listen to her. All the while, she’s still dealing with knowing that Rei and Ms. Shiba had a thing… and that he also had a thing with Nagi. Despite all of that, she still wants to leave town with him and have Rei all to herself. She’s pretty off-balance; however, she’s not Ms. Shiba levels of psycho… yet. I have a feeling her psycho switch is going to be flipped and when it does, it’s going to be glorious in a twisted way.
Speaking of psycho switches, another one was flipped; however, I won’t say who because it would ruin the end of the volume. Let’s just say that a battle is on the horizon and it’s going to be even more glorious!
Final Thoughts
This series just gets more and more twisted with every volume and I’m loving it. Dark, gritty slice-of-life stories like this are some of my favorites and this series just continues to deliver. In addition to Ms. Shiba, we now have Esemori telling Rei that he can get him to Tokyo. Of course, his reasoning is a bit different. While Ms. Shiba wants to see Rei go to college and graduate there, Esemori is offering him a way there because we learned that Nagi went back and rejoined her idol group. This is not a spur-of-the-moment decision, though… there’s a moment in this volume that is a bit dark but it provides the reasoning behind this offer.
Despite everything happening with our other characters, Rei is reaching a breaking point. The more that things become messed up around him, the more he becomes susceptible to being used by everyone. The town was described as a black hole and you see that more and more with every volume and the problem with Rei is that he’s at the center of it all. Everyone for one reason or another is gravitating toward him and he has become the focal point. It makes you wonder just what’s so special about Rei that everyone has this desire to be with him. Whether it’s romance, companionship, or convenience, Rei just seems to be the go-to person for it all.
To think, all he wants is to leave and have a better life but he can’t because he is doing what the title of this series says… he’s trapped in his own abyss and the ride just keeps getting better!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
