Reading Report: 01 January 2023
The last reading report of 2022 and the start of a new year. This week was mostly filled with 藤本タツキ's ファイアパンチ but I also read some よつばと！ and the latest volume of 少年のアビス. Spoilers for each below the read-more.
よつばと! ２冊
Volume 9 and 10 have some true naughty Yotsuba arc moments. After the Coffee maker chapter Yotsuba finds out that Fuuka has exams coming up. She offers to bring coffee from her house to Fuuka and her dad is fine with her doing so as long as she doesn't spill too much. She attempts the delivery multiple times but fails each time right before the hand off! That would be fine except in a later chapter, Fuuka, Asagi, and Ena all decide to head over to Yotsuba's house to get the coffee directly (and ask permission for Yotsuba to go to a hot air balloon show). When Yotsuba's dad makes Fuuka a coffee she says "this is the first time I've actually been able to drink it" and Yotsudad goes "huh, that's not what Yotsuba's been telling me. She said that you all thought it was delicious." While he's saying that Yotsuba's expression gets more and more anxious. In a later chapter in volume 10 Yotsuba borrows Fuuka's exercise ball and plays with it in the house. She throws it in the kitchen and breaks some glassware. Yotsudad asks her what happened and she says someone threw it through the window and broke everything. Thankfully Yotsudad has the smart idea to scare her straight and he takes her to a nearby shrine where she can be purified of her liar bug. Let's hope volume 11 is a clean slate for the serial liar Yotsuba...
ファイアパンチ 8冊
I'd been sitting on this one for quite a while but I decided I wanted to try it out when a mutual server member approached the ending. Volume 1 was maybe a weak start, but after volume 2 I was in for the ride. There are a lot of expressions (表現) that intrigue me. In a world set up with a variety of "blessings", the fact that the main character, Agni, isn't naturally a fire-borne guy is interesting. The fact that the fire that consumes him is that of the man who came and ruined his life, cutting his childhood short, and killing his sister. The fire consumes everything it touches and causes the suffering of people Agni loves such as Togata, who dies in an act of self-sacrifice in order to protect Agni from his own stupidity and self-destruction. Even before that event there is an anxiety just from being near Agni due to his condition. There's a large focus on myth and lies. I don't want to spoil everything but "the lies we tell each other and the lies we tell ourselves" really is the core of the story. How far is Agni willing to go for a lie? Well I've read the story so I know. Many people who know me know that I hate bad endings. Fire Punch's ending was absolutely perfect. Not only is it poetic, it echoes the themes set throughout the story, it's romantic, it's tragic but at the same time it's heart warming. After volume 1 I really thought this might be the one 藤本タツキ work that was just okay but the truth is... the man does not miss. ALSO the art is good. Literally everything except Agni's face is really good, it's almost like he's intentionally drawn to be awkward as a choice.
少年のアビス Vol 11
Finally concluding the 似非森先生 backstory, we see that 夕子 still wanted to be with him right to the end, but he finally recognised that 夕子 and the town were always one and the same and he had to get out. We find out that レイジ isn't actually 似非森's son, but that he did arrange everything to do with レイジ meeting ナギ. Meanwhile ゆうこ takes 柴沢先生 to her secret apartment and 玄's dad shows up (but we don't see what happens next).