Yamada and Sasaki smoke into the new year, now with a slightly expanded cast and another romantic entanglement.
There’s nothing here you won’t like if you enjoyed the first two volumes. It continues to be interesting and sweet with minimal changes of scenery and only a couple hoary cliches.
Similarly, it won’t wow you if you didn’t like the first two volumes. The novelty has definitely dropped a bit and I’d be remiss if I didn’t continue to point out that this story glamorizes smoking in a way that Joe Camel wishes he could pull off.
There are at least two sequences where I thought the story sold me on the appeal of smoking, at least in fiction, and I’m a health professional. So, maybe don’t let anybody impressionable see this one.
I like that this is a story about communication and connection. This time out we get the brief possibility that Sasaki is married, which really grinds Yamada’s gears (not because she’s attracted to him, of course, no no).
Naturally this turns out to be a misunderstanding, one borne from assumptions. Talking clears everything up and, at the same time, it shows the way that deepening bonds open you up to being hurt. Which makes talking things out even more important.
So, minus the needless deception at the heart of the series, this shows people getting closer to one another and the problems that causes them, in addition to all the joys.
Lots of slow movement there makes for a reasonably good volume, but we get a ton more from the other employees at the store this time, including the hapless Obata.
He’s an awkward giant with a crush on the manager and, while I didn’t love his introduction, the way that he tries to put himself out there despite his anxiety really made me warm to him (and relate to him).
His presence also sets off Yamada when he smokes with Sasaki, and it’s become very, very clear that Yamada’s tough exterior is a defence mechanism against being easily hurt. It makes her such a good match with Sasaki being such a thoughtful pushover. He worries about what he’s doing, in a good way.
Not the best volume, but still good. It definitely needed an expanded cast and they make themselves known without getting in the way of the main plot (which pretty much everybody is aware of, amusingly).
As a final aside, you really would be surprised how much easier it is to swallow a questionable romance with a massive age gap when the people in question are at least adults well above the age of consent. What a wild idea.
3.5 stars - very much enjoyable, but I worry that it might run out of ways to iterate on the central conceit and get stale. Still, a problem for subsequent volumes, not this one.