Title: Anonymous Noise Vol. 7
Author: Ryoko Fukuyama
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: March 6, 2018
The Story
In the seventh volume of Anonymous Noise, In No Hurry, as the school’s music club, performs at the school festival. It seems to be quite the disaster when Nino fails to sing in tune with the music, but something inside of her snaps and she remembers that she needs to sing with all of her heart to reach Momo. When she finds that passion, her emotions completely wash over the audience. After the concert, they end up going out to celebrate its success.
After they finish partying, we get a little bit of glimpse of Ayumi and his love for Ui, his brother’s wife. It creates a complicated situation so he leaves and decides to stay with Haruyoshi for a little while. We shift gears to Nino listening to a radio contest where she recognizes one of the songs as Momo’s. The submission was announced as coming from Wakayama, Japan. When all of that is settled, we discover that In No Hurry is going to be playing a series of small venues during Winter break with the final stop being in Wakayama. Yuzu has been tasked with writing a brand new song that will serve as the band’s new Spring single. Just when everyone was motivated to get back to work, the two models who asked Nino to write a song for them show up on the final page and it seems they may end up throwing a monkey wrench into their plans.
There was some nice development with the story and a bit of a revelation when it comes to Yuzu and Momo which I’ll touch upon in the character’s section. Other than finally getting some tidbits which help explain these two characters, it’s nice to see that things are getting back on track with everyone in the band becoming motivated. A lot of characters got some background development here so let’s skip over to that section.
Characters
First off, we got a little bit of insight into Momo and why he acts the way he does. Turns out his mother’s debt was forgiven a long time ago, but Momo feels compelled to continue to pay back every cent. The little revelation here is that Momo’s mother knows that Nino is Alice in In No Hurry to Shout and she is apparently blackmailing Momo by threatening to leak that information to the tabloids! Now we have even more questions as to why she is willing to do that outside of her admittance that she dislikes Nino. Why does she dislike her? What did Nino do to Momo’s mother to make her think that way? This explains why Momo wants nothing to do with Alice. He’s keeping his distance to keep her safe. Everything makes sense now, but there’s still a lot of mystery left to be solved here. It seems that Momo paying his mother’s debt is a form of hush money to keep Alice safe. It’s clear he, technically, doesn’t have to pay her, but I guess he feels this is a way to keep his mother in check.
Yuzu’s mother, on the other hand, did a complete 180. First, she didn’t want Yuzu making music, but now she has a new condition. She wants Yuzu to sing a song together with Alice otherwise he will be forbidden from writing music ever again. Yuzu lost his singing voice due to a throat disease… or so we were lead to believe. Yuzu admits that he can still sing and he never had a throat disease, to begin with! He blames his inability to sing on his father and pleads with his mom to change her mind. Yuzu’s mom still lays down the ultimatum. Knowing that he can’t do it, Yuzu warns Nino that he’s going to be writing a lot of songs. He mentions to himself that he will write a lifetime’s worth of songs so when he quits music, Nino will always have something to sing.
Ayumi gets a bit of development here to with his confession that he’s in love with Ui. Ui is his brother’s wife and he lives with the two of them. Ui still sees Ayumi as a child and that triggers him, causing him to scold Ui and almost kiss her! He runs out of the house and goes to stay with Haruyoshi. Things just got a bit awkward in his household, but outside of this confession, we don’t really have much more in the way of answers for Ayumi. I’ll assume we’ll see more of this unfold in the next volume.
Nino’s realization that she needs to, once again, sing so Momo can hear her is a bit out of left field to be completely honest. After everything that has happened to cause her to fall into a slump, that sudden resurgence of motivation to sing for him feels a bit out of place. I know in the last volume, she cited her convictions that it’s all about Momo, but still, I feel like she’s just chasing something she will never catch. Even with the new revelation about Momo and why he is the way he is, I still think she’s better off with Yuzu. He’s trying so damn hard that it’s going to be a massive heartbreak when she actually ends up with Momo in the end.
Final Thoughts
This volume of Anonymous Noise was much better organized than last volume’s. Everyone’s stories were blocked perfectly and we got some great development with some of the characters. In No Hurry to Shout seems like they’re going to be pretty busy during Winter break, but I don’t think we’ll get there just yet in the next volume thanks to the appearance two new characters. Outside of the fact that they are the ones who want Nino to write a song for them, nobody really knows what their true purpose is as of yet. It’s a nice hook to end a volume on, but it seems like it’s a bit out of place.
This volume set up a perfect continuation of volume eight to where the introduction of new characters wasn’t really needed. There was enough drama developed throughout the volume to carry the story forward. This seems like content filler to me, or some measure to try and artificially extend the series. I’m all for new characters, don’t misinterpret what I’m saying… I’m just saying with everything that this volume gave us, adding them in now just seems like a poor decision. It’s akin to slamming on the brakes on an open desert highway for no reason when you’re the only car on the road. We’ll see, though. Maybe it’ll turn out to be something interesting that changes the entire dynamic of the story.
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