Title: Anonymous Noise Vol. 1
Author: Ryoko Fukuyama
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: March 7 , 2017
The Story
Anonymous Noise is a series that I was really looking forward to because the synopsis painted a picture of romance that could be downright cute; however, after reading the first volume, I found the series to be more annoying than anything.
Nino is a girl who likes to sing. One day, a boy she loves named Momo moves away. She decides that she will sing until her voice can reunite the two of them once again. During this, she meets Yuzu, a boy who writes music. He hears Nino sing, but he kind of tries to distance himself away from her. After a time skip, the three of them happen to be in the same high school. Let the reunion begin. If you think my synopsis was a bit rushed, then welcome to Anonymous Noise because the first volume was exactly that… rushed.
Needless to say, there were some serious pacing issues going on here. I didn’t feel as if I had enough time to digest anything that happened as the manga moved from scene to scene with reckless abandon. The characters spend most of their time overreacting and screaming at one another to the point where I can’t really take any of them seriously. I am unsure if this is supposed to be an attempt at comedy or not, but I wasn’t laughing if it was.
Once they get to high school, things do get a little bit more interesting. Yuzu is a part of a band called In No Hurry to Shout and there is news all over Japan that they are imminently breaking up. The band wears masks and eyepatches to hide their identity, but the manga makes no attempts whatsoever to hide their identities to the reader. They are all students at Nino’s highschool and they are all part of a failing pop music club.
Wait…
Hold on.
So you’re telling me one of the more popular teenage heartthrob bands in Japan are together in a pop music club in school and the club is failing?
Pfffft… HOW!?
But I digress because the manga reveals that it’s all Yuzu’s fault. He can’t write music anymore because Nino has plagued his thoughts since childhood. Momo is also at school and interacts with Yuzu, but Yuzu has no idea who Momo is. Momo does know that Nino is attending the school, but Nino doesn’t know that Momo is there, at least not right away. Yuzu and Nino do reunite and Yuzu tries to push Nino away, but she ends up becoming the lead singer of their band, but only as a Pop Music Club member… she doesn’t know that they are also In No Hurry to Shout.
Are you confused yet? Good… I’m not the only one.
Characters
I can’t find anything to like about any of these characters. Nino likes to sing. I get that, but apparently since Momo moved away, she has to wear a mask over her mouth otherwise she screams? I understand she had a childhood crush on this boy, but to get traumatized THAT much? That’s a little far-fetched. Outside of this little nuance, Nino doesn’t really have a standout personality. In fact, most of the time spent as a child was comprised of running up Yuzu and just randomly start singing.. or running up to somewhere and just randomly start singing. I know she was doing it in hopes of Momo hearing her voice and coming back, but she just ran up and starting randomly singing almost every other page. It’s like here comes Nin…aaaaand she’s singing.
The depiction of her singing was also very poorly done. Speech bubbles with notes in them doesn’t convey anything. If Yuzu was this amazing song writer, why didn’t the author take time to give these songs lyrics? You could make the argument that they were simply instrumental songs, but he goes on to write songs for a band. Surely he had to have had lyrics in mind when he wrote this music? How am I supposed to read musical notes? The emotion was completely lost in print form and I hope that this gets fixed in the anime.
Momo is an odd one. He likes speaking in puns and… that’s about it. He seemed very happy and innocent as a child, but as a teenager, he looks and acts completely emo. He still speaks in puns when he’s a teenager as well so just try to imagine someone talking like that while sounding completely serious at the same time. That’s just kind of odd. There really isn’t anything more to Momo at this point so it’s really hard to get a good gauge on his character.
Yuzu, on the other hand, is a male tsundere who likes his milk. He’s very cold towards Nino, but he secretly loves her which is why he’s trying to push her away. In fact, he has a “girlfriend” in high school, but, apparently, his girlfriend is the only one between them who thinks they are dating.
Wait… what?
So the relationship is completely one-sided? Is she really THAT delusional? Maybe this should be called Anonymous Relationship! Ah? AAAH? Sadly, that joke was better than anything in this volume.
Final Thoughts
Volume one of Anonymous Noise is such a mess. If it wasn’t bad enough that the parts where she’s singing can’t be interpreted, the art doesn’t help matters, either. Whenever Nino sings, it looks like she’s screaming, or crying, or in pain… and not in an emotional way. She just looks… well… dumb. The way she is depicted doesn’t allow me to take any of these scenes seriously. Even the scenes that weren’t meant to be taken seriously, I didn’t laugh at because the comedy just wasn’t that good at all.
The pacing issues need to get fixed. There was no build up, no surprise, no suspense. The time skip happened WAY too quickly. The author should have explored why Momo has to move away. It should have explored Nino’s reactions to it more thoroughly. Introducing Yuzu shouldn’t have been as quick and instantaneous as it was. There needed to be better build up. The first volume shouldn’t have had a time skip. Play this out more. Build up Nino and Momo’s relationship more. Build up Yuzu and Nino’s relationship more. Give us a reason to feel emotion when the two of them move away. There was so much potential here for storytelling, but I felt it was all wasted just for the sake of getting the three of them into high school as quickly as possible.
My hopes for Anonymous Noise have dwindled significantly, but I’m not going to give up on it. I want this manga to prove me wrong. Now that they are in high school, which is where the bulk of this story should be taking place, I’m hoping that they can slow the pace down and let the story and characters breathe. We will see. I will be crossing my fingers that Anonymous Noise can dig itself out of the hole it put itself into.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
