After School Nightmare 6
March 5, 2008
Well. Lots of things happen, all of them are things that I was very pleased with. Remember that I didn’t like Kureha? Someone in the dream at least shares my opinion. Maybe more than one person. There are two or three dream sequences in this volume, but they’re not nearly as involved as some of the better ones from past volumes. I don’t mind too much though, because they are starting to more concretely reflect changes in the characters, which is nice.
I’m not entirely convinced about Sou at this point. I think he’s definitely the best match for Mashiro still, and it’s killing me that the development of their relationship is going so slowly… but I’m really not buying this whole business with his sister and his dream self. Has it shown that the sister definitely exists outside the dream world yet? I can’t remember. If it has, she almost never appears at school.
We meet two new characters, one of which gets a neat dream form. She and Kureha open up criticism of Mashiro that gives him some serious self-doubt, and I’m not entirely sure their criticism makes sense. They claim that he only feels good when he’s saving a damsel in distress… which is not what I get from him at all. He definitely uses others for support, but I don’t know that he feels better protecting someone. He seems to act like anybody would in his situation in most cases (holding doors open for people, helping out those in need, etc), and I wouldn’t exactly criticize that as selfish behavior. But whatever. I guess the fish girl has a point about what he did in the dream, though.
The other new character I liked a lot simply because she was extremely kind to Mashiro.
Slowly, it seems like Mashiro might have to confront his female self. I’m kind of looking forward to this… if it winds up happening. The tease from last volume was A KILLER, and I’m kind of hoping that puts the fear of God into him and makes the confrontation happen sooner.
So yes. This series is still the best. Some of the best vague supernatural shoujo out there, I love it.
March 5, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I wouldn’t say Mashiro feels better when he’s protecting someone, but he definitely uses it to feel more male, and seems to use his protective relationship with Kureha to justify his masculinity.
March 5, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I really enjoy this series too, the dreamscape has some haunting, symbolic imagery (I still remember the panel where the girl without a face was lying on the ground, with grass growing through her head). I’m hoping for some good payoff on the whole question of what happens when people “graduate”. The romance is interesting too though Mashiro was starting to grate with all of his doubts and wishy-washiness. Thanks for your review.
March 9, 2008 at 5:28 am
ZeroSD: That makes a lot of sense to me, actually. It would also explain why their relationship has been really, really off all this time. I guess I’m just terrible at picking up subtleties like that ^_^;
ak: I’m really, REALLY curious about what happens when people graduate… particularly after what was revealed about what happens if you don’t attend the class in this volume. Also, I always kind of wondered if the school was in some sort of alternate reality, but after the characters went off-campus here, it kind of shot that theory to pieces and leaves me with no guess at all.
March 24, 2008 at 3:40 pm
“Has it shown that the sister definitely exists outside the dream world yet? ”
I see where you’re coming from- for one little paranoid moment I suspected that Ai was Sou in the dream world before I realised how crazy that was. :P
I guess his mother proved she exsisted by asking about her?
March 27, 2008 at 4:14 am
I don’t know, the sister could just be another… “aspect,” maybe, of Sou’s personality. Maybe Sou’s got an extremely well-defined split personality that his mother asks about? I wouldn’t put it past this series to do something out of left field like that. It’s more likely that his sister exists, though, and I’m just grasping at straws and hoping for something awesome ^_^;
April 17, 2008 at 1:56 am
I think his sister exists. Maybe since she is older then Sou, she isn’t seen as much because she is in a different class and all. I’m along with you, I want Mashiro to end up with Sou. I think that Kureha is VERY annoying. However, I think that Mashiro isn’t going out with her simply because he likes her. I think that he is going out with her because she is a girl who knows his secret and accepts him. And what better way to share your feelings with someone of the opposite gender you want to be who knows your deepest secrets and is ok with it.
Also, about Sou’s sister. If she is real or not, I can’t stand her. She is very EVIL in my eyes. I think that’s why Sou acts the way he does now. Very abrupt and blunt with everything. I also think that Sou is the one who is hurting the most out of anyone in this series so far. Mashiro treated him pretty crappy in the past volumes and Sou pretty much took it well but the first time Sou treats Mashiro like that, Mashiro gets all emotional and “your only out to get me.” kind of attitude.
Anyway, I love how this manga series and volume makes new twists out of the already complicated plot.