36 - Ch. 20 - I'm Waiting For The Man

[MangaDex]

 

[UdenEmpati]

...I do believe that is the first time we've ever witnessed Ikoma seem like he's not in control of himself and the moment.

His father showing up for his birthday feels like a major portent. Especially of the back of his comments about Anzu's family situation earlier in the chapter--he might have seemed like he was speaking flippantly with a dash of sage-like wisdom, but it could very well have been derived from very real, close-to-home experiences.
And it's not like he was wrong, to be fair.

Anzu replaying her parting words clearly means she herself isn't as "done" with the band as she'd like to pretend. The problem, though, is that Germany trip: that's a clear "being written out of the story" button if I've ever seen one, and her going off for who-knows-how-long would effectively kill her character arc as it relates to Ikoma and the others. So I do not expect it to actually happen, but it puts a definitive timer on Anzu figuring out if she's really okay just giving up on her own life and being (literally) pushed around by Yui.

Also holy shit that "Nirvana Guy" at the beginning set me the fuck off and that review he left made my blood pressure spike. A little too close-to-home for me, thanks.
I really hope she finds some form of happiness in all this nonsense. Because she should absolutely write Anzu off, take that money, and just try to forget....but she's a good person, so I know she knows better than that.



Thanks for your continued work on this series.

 

[skywardgem]

opening color pages focused on Natsumi? This manga spoils me... She should be allowed to punch that Nirvana guy tho. Love her lil internal monologue of acknowledging that her outburst may have been a lil selfish while also refusing to cede any ground to Yui, I really do hope she figures something out before she runs into Anzu again but I'm cheering for her one way or another

also nice (read: painful) to see the cracks really start to come forward for Ikoma and Anzu this chapter. For Anzu it almost feels like you can see her crafting a way in her head to waltz back into everyone's lives after her sudden exit, but with the whirlwind of emotions everyone has been going through these chapters there's no way it could ever go as clean as she may want it to, so I'm really looking forward to how things will go down when she (hopefully) inevitably pushes herself back into interacting with all of them

and Ikoma... those last few pages are the sort of thing that recontextualizes a whole lot of past moments he's involved in lol, even with Ikoma not saying a single word after his dad enters the scene. The "devil" on his shouder growing to like 10 times the size it was throughout the rest of the chapter on the very last page says more than enough for him tho. Wonder if we'll get some backstory or if we'll only get to see the aftermath of what will likely be an unfortunate birthday

thanks for the chapter!