Tramps Like Us 12

I couldn’t help myself and just powered through the last three volumes of this last night.  I try not to do that because it leaves the details hazy in my memory, but sometimes you just have to know how things turn out.

It was hard not to follow with another volume immediately after this one.  For all intents and purposes, this is the climax of the series.  Everything that I was waiting for all series happens here (well, except for maybe one thing), and it’s almost too much to take in all at once.

Once again, there are two really stand-out chapters.  One has a really nice metaphor for the relationship between Hasumi and Sumire.  Aside from that, it was just a really good chapter in general.  The feelings were all there, and… well, the story gets across everything it wanted to perfectly.  I can’t say it’s often you run across a relationship like Hasumi and Sumire’s, but all the nuances were great right up to the end.

And Momo… well, Momo.  Momo has a lot of good scenes in this book.  He’s always been sort of a cool guy, but applying his coolness to certain situations makes what would usually be a really fantastic scene anyway something truly special.  All the nuances in their relationship got across perfectly too.

And yes, none of this would be possible if Sumire wasn’t a great character.  Her freak-out over Hasumi having a pet of his own was… a little weird, considering everything, but that she was eventually fine with it and did what she did was also good.  Plus the aftermath of everything that happens here, and how she deals with it, is also handled extremely well.

The other notable chapter was the one that dealt with said emotional fallout.  You remember the new character I mentioned a few volumes back that totally was not like James from “From Eroica With Love?”  He gets a chapter to himself.  He’s an otaku-type character, which Sumire can relate to sometimes, but this entire chapter is him trying to figure out what’s wrong with Sumire, which involves him imagining her in several anime-like scenarios, stalking her, and Sumire eventually pulling off a heroic save after he’d been… stripped-robbed or something.  It was a fine chapter, and would have probably been one of my favorites in any other volume, but with so much else going on here, it’s only a runner-up unfortunately.

And yes, there is a WICKED cliffhanger at the end of this volume.