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Manga Thoughts: Minami Nanami wants to Shine 1
In this story-glutted age, being drawn on to a mere “spinoff” might say something about how its original work has impressed me. One more title seemed to qualify for that when I started taking some interest in licensing announcements for a manga featuring one of the high school girls in Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki. Minami “Mimimi” Nanami was introduced on the characters page of those novels as a “class clown”; she’s friendly and ebullient and laughs a lot, and she also got a bit “handsy” with some of her fellow girls early on. (I guess there’s a tension between how much interest I’ve taken in these translated “light novels” where I feel myself plodding through the novels of a different title that does seem at once similar yet more respectable. There’s also a tension to “staying interested in this stuff” to the point of forever not quite getting around to many other things in many ways more reputable. Of course, I have noticed certain cautions about trying to claim something as trivial as your choices in entertainment define you as respectable.)
At the point in the novels I’ve read to now, though, Minami is starting take on a tragic sense of “perpetual runner-up.” The manga being described as an “alternative universe” got my attention there, even if I thought a bit of fanfiction and also of how I’ve hardly read that for quite a while now. (That’s not to say thoughts of “alternative universes” don’t drift through my mind now and then, however, to say nothing of ones featuring mecha...) The manga does have a “story by Yuki Yaku” credit on its cover, and if that’s a case of the novels’ author providing this story as well that does seem significant.
With the manga presented from Minami’s point of view, I was struck straight off by how concerned she was over Aoi Hinami beginning to challenge her high jump record. With a bit more looking back I could pick up on Minami’s cheerful surface on display, but she’d also struggled with thoughts of going along with a group to eat out and spoil her own dinner just to fit in better (something of a commentary, perhaps, on the risk of supposing the original story is all about “learning to fit in”) and felt envious of Hanabi “Tama” Natsubayashi just brushing the invitation off, even as she ran a sort of interference to keep that from causing too much trouble for her short friend.
The crucial “point of divergence” isn’t quite a matter of a decision Minami makes herself. Her mother wakes her up early one morning (before nine, that is) and explains that, in her position in a makeup company, she’s looking for a model for a regional promotion and supposed her own daughter might do well. This has a bit to do with Minami not having dyed her hair (long and in a ponytail, which I do know sets up certain boxes to be ticked, although the colour artwork in the novels, anime adaptation, and this manga’s cover shading from blue-grey to blue did give me a moment’s pause). Bit by bit, this starts appealing to Minami and giving her a sense it might “shine” like Aoi does to her. By the end of the volume she’s shrugged off a chance to run against Aoi in a school election, which had been the subject of the second novel; she does interact twice here with their main character Tomozaki and notices how he’s starting to change, though.
I had gone into this manga quite conscious of how easy it can be to brush off spinoffs as mere extensions on a more interesting original, but its art did help it for me. Bana Yoshida does a pretty good job with the original character designs of Fly, even if Tama might have looked a little odd and Minami’s mother didn’t look that much older than her teenaged daughter (and made ever-so-slightly “skeevy” comments every so often). Noticing one of the rating codes on the back cover I wasn’t that surprised to find a scene with Minami in a steamed-up bathroom evaluating her figure; something like that did happen in the short story collection. I did read through this first volume pretty fast; that it wasn’t divided into many chapters with their obvious stopping points might have had something to do with that. (The same thing happened not that long ago with the Kageki Shojo manga.) One day I’ll have got through the latest novel of the different title alluded to before and on to the latest volume of the main-line Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki series to see what might be happening with Minami there, but I’d be interested in the next volume of this spinoff too.
At the point in the novels I’ve read to now, though, Minami is starting take on a tragic sense of “perpetual runner-up.” The manga being described as an “alternative universe” got my attention there, even if I thought a bit of fanfiction and also of how I’ve hardly read that for quite a while now. (That’s not to say thoughts of “alternative universes” don’t drift through my mind now and then, however, to say nothing of ones featuring mecha...) The manga does have a “story by Yuki Yaku” credit on its cover, and if that’s a case of the novels’ author providing this story as well that does seem significant.
With the manga presented from Minami’s point of view, I was struck straight off by how concerned she was over Aoi Hinami beginning to challenge her high jump record. With a bit more looking back I could pick up on Minami’s cheerful surface on display, but she’d also struggled with thoughts of going along with a group to eat out and spoil her own dinner just to fit in better (something of a commentary, perhaps, on the risk of supposing the original story is all about “learning to fit in”) and felt envious of Hanabi “Tama” Natsubayashi just brushing the invitation off, even as she ran a sort of interference to keep that from causing too much trouble for her short friend.
The crucial “point of divergence” isn’t quite a matter of a decision Minami makes herself. Her mother wakes her up early one morning (before nine, that is) and explains that, in her position in a makeup company, she’s looking for a model for a regional promotion and supposed her own daughter might do well. This has a bit to do with Minami not having dyed her hair (long and in a ponytail, which I do know sets up certain boxes to be ticked, although the colour artwork in the novels, anime adaptation, and this manga’s cover shading from blue-grey to blue did give me a moment’s pause). Bit by bit, this starts appealing to Minami and giving her a sense it might “shine” like Aoi does to her. By the end of the volume she’s shrugged off a chance to run against Aoi in a school election, which had been the subject of the second novel; she does interact twice here with their main character Tomozaki and notices how he’s starting to change, though.
I had gone into this manga quite conscious of how easy it can be to brush off spinoffs as mere extensions on a more interesting original, but its art did help it for me. Bana Yoshida does a pretty good job with the original character designs of Fly, even if Tama might have looked a little odd and Minami’s mother didn’t look that much older than her teenaged daughter (and made ever-so-slightly “skeevy” comments every so often). Noticing one of the rating codes on the back cover I wasn’t that surprised to find a scene with Minami in a steamed-up bathroom evaluating her figure; something like that did happen in the short story collection. I did read through this first volume pretty fast; that it wasn’t divided into many chapters with their obvious stopping points might have had something to do with that. (The same thing happened not that long ago with the Kageki Shojo manga.) One day I’ll have got through the latest novel of the different title alluded to before and on to the latest volume of the main-line Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki series to see what might be happening with Minami there, but I’d be interested in the next volume of this spinoff too.