Honey and Clover 9

Chica Umino – Viz – 2010 – 10 volumes

I saved this up so that I could read the last two volumes together, but then I was debating over whether I should take a break or not to write up 9 before I read 10. That just… wasn’t an option. I tore straight through both of them tonight. It’s just… so good.

I was beginning to grow curious as this volume went on. It seemed like nobody was getting what they wanted, relationship-wise. Mayama was still only sort-of in the fringes of Harada’s life, Yamada was still completely stuck on him and not gravitating to eager and good-for-her Nomiya at all, and there was still a relationship triangle between Morita, Takemoto, and Hagu. Then everybody began deciding what they wanted to do with their lives, and things got… weird. I mean, what about all this other stuff?

One of the interesting things was that we finally found out what Shinobu and Kaoru were up to. It’s an interesting story, about how people stand in the shadow of the creative ones close to them. Papa Morita was a lot like Shinobu, and he had a friend that simply… went with him every step of the way, thinking himself unremarkable. Kaoru is the say way with Shinobu, and the exploitation all means something in the end. Kaoru is the one that takes the climax the hardest, but Shinobu has something else he takes away from it. Mainly that he hates being seen only for his talent, and it’s something he recognizes in Hagu as well.

So that things don’t wind down too quietly, there is a terrible accident that brings many of the characters back together and begins making them question the direction of their lives (once again) and what they mean to each other. This story made me cry a great deal, but it was also interesting for all the different and very human ways the group reacted to it.

The crying was mostly as a result of the love. All of it in this series seems so fruitless. Not in the overly dramatic way of other shoujo manga, but in a quiet way that seems more real, a way that you know never really gets resolved. While all the sadness and angst can be easy to relate to in something like We Were There, Honey and Clover is more real because it’s more about fleeting crushes (although that’s light and a little insulting) and the love between friends. There’s really nothing like it.