Title: Fly Me to the Moon Vol. 20
Author: Kenjiro Hata
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 197
Genre: Slice of Life, Romance, Comedy, Science Fiction
Publication Date: November 14, 2023
The Story
We continue our adventures in Tokiko’s mansion! We start off with Kaguya being very suspicious of the mansion itself. She’s convinced that there is some sort of secret that the mansion is hiding and begins to poke around. She doesn’t get anywhere; however, Tsukasa and Nasa believe that if they’re going to stay, they should help out. After some fishing, Kaguya heads to the basement with Chitose and finds a door. She thinks that’s where the secret is and is determined to find out what’s behind it.
Tsukasa catches her trying to sneak into the basement and flat out tells her if she wants to know what’s behind it so bad, to open it. She even spoils things by saying it’s just an underground passage that leads outside as a means of escape… or an emergency exit if you will. She goes through anyway and there she finds an ancient graveyard when they get outside. We get a bit of a history lesson and while the students just think of it as a piece of history that they don’t quite understand, we, the readers, know it’s a lot deeper than that given Tsukasa’s backstory.
Aurora returns to pick up the “baggage” (Chitose) and brings her home. Meanwhile, Tsukasa and Nasa share a moment together. Apparently, even with all of the backstory we received for Tsukasa, we still don’t know everything yet. She wants to tell Nasa and our 20th volume comes to a close.
Characters
We ended up getting a bonus chapter in the middle of the book which gives us some nice backstory on two of the students: Shirogane and Miyako and how they came to meet Kaguya. Before meeting Kaguya, they were rivals. One day, Miyako’s parents died so she moved away to be with her grandmother. Shirogane always felt inferior to Miyako academically and athletically so she wanted to work hard to surpass her. Despite how hard she studied and practiced, nothing seemed to click for her and her grades suffered. In middle school, she met Kaguya who tutored her and her grades suddenly went up. Miyako, who reunited with her in middle school, welcomed the rivalry and even seemed a bit peeved about it; however, Kaguya stepped in and reminded them that their friendship was more important and that the rivalry should end. It was a nice little origin story for how they all became friends! Good to see side characters propped up like that.
We still don’t know why Kaguya is so interested in Tsukasa or the mansion but we have our suspicions. Despite finding the graveyard, Tsukasa made it clear that what lay beyond the door wasn’t the secret that Kaguya was searching for. Despite that, she was satisfied with what she had found, seemingly forgetting that it wasn’t the secret.
As for Tsukasa, I have to ask what more is there to learn about her. We’ve had a huge backstory on her, learned she is immortal, learned how she became immortal, and even was given a glimpse at her journey through life over the past 1,400 years. Now, we find a fragment of a mask with a lot of writing in different languages on it that belonged to Tsukasa. Apparently, the writings on there have something to do with more of her backstory that we don’t know yet, or as she referred to it, her true self. Is it her true name? Her true identity? I thought we covered that already or maybe it’s something more? Color me interested because I thought we had already reached the limit here. Apparently not.
Final Thoughts
In the last volume, we saw that Tsukasa was hesitant about coming to the mansion. With the discovery of the graveyard, I thought that would be the reason why. Perhaps it also had to do with her memories of living there previously; however, that one small line about the door in the basement not being the secret of the mansion makes me wonder if the true secret is the real reason. Maybe I’m overthinking it and it’s just her way of not wanting to relive her past memories from her time there but that little secret has me as curious as Kaguya is.
The students added some nice comedy and it was nice to see how they all came together. Even if they are used sporadically, at least whenever they are used again in the future, their presence will have a bit more weight to them.
Of course, we couldn’t let a volume go by without insane amounts of cuteness and we got that with a little bit of Nasa x Tsukasa in both the tub and in the bedroom! How daring of our little tiger to make the moves on his wife with a house filled with girls in adjacent rooms with paper-thin walls!
Seems as if things are wrapping up at the mansion. With one of the maids coming to claim the baggage (lol), I’m assuming the students will be the next to leave. Since Chitose, Nasa, and Tsukasa arrived together, I think they might have a bit of a moment together before they head back to the car. What comes next is anyone’s guess; however, we were promised 1,400 years of backstory so I’m assuming that would be a good place to start (or possibly end the 21st volume).
You can also check out other The Outerhaven reviews on your favorite social media networks:
Subscribe to us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theouterhaven
Subscribe to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
Subscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
This item was provided for review by VIZ Media.
