Title: Anonymous Noise Vol. 5
Author: Ryoko Fukuyama
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: November 7, 2017
The Story
In the fifth volume on Anonymous Noise, In No Hurry to Shout attends their practice camp in preparation for Rock Horizon. During the camp, Nino ends up playing her parts flawlessly which draws attention from the band. Yuzu pulls her aside and asks her what changed. Oddly enough, her sloppy playing is what gave their songs their unique dynamic so Yuzu was trying to tell her to go back to being a worse player. With Rock Horizon on the cusp, drama begins to ensue for both Yuzu and Momo.
In Yuzu’s case, his mother found a demo of one of In No Hurry to Shout’s songs on a cd stuck in his computer and immediately put two and two together. Even though nothing major was unveiled about why Yuzu’s mother forbids him to get involved with music, Yuzu did blurt out something about his father, so I’m guessing something tragic happened to him and music was the root of it all. Yuzu tries to talk back to his mom, but she belts him across the face and it causes Yuzu to run away once again. On the flipside, Momo meets up with his mother and while she does seem pleasant, Momo wants nothing to do with her. He mentions something about paying back every cent that he owes. Given the fact that we learned that Momo moved away due to his parent’s getting into money troubles, one can only assume that Momo is working to pay off their debt and has deep angst and regrets about it.
Rock Horizon finally comes and Nino has another meltdown of epic proportions. She completely ignores the set list and starts off with their new song in which Nino wrote the lyrics for. This fired up the crowd as the rest of the band struggled to keep up with her. At one point, Yuzu noticed his mother in the audience and stopped playing. Thankfully, Nino learned guitar and noticed what happened and picked up Yuzu’s part. First Nino was out of control with the band struggling to stay caught up and now Nino was the one pulling them up and leading them in a calmer manner.
Of course, why Nino had a meltdown was due to seeing Momo before they were set to go on stage. Momo told Nino that he was sorry for not saying goodbye when they were kids, but this time he will do it properly and that it really is goodbye this time. After In No Hurry to Shout finished their set, Nino is informed that Silent Black Kitty’s set wrapped up early and she takes of running so that she could tell Momo that she still loves him before it’s too late. This is where our volume comes to a close.
Characters
There really wasn’t much development here between the characters. We got a few breadcrumbs into Momo and Yuzu’s backstories, but nothing that we didn’t know before. The new minute details that we were given were interesting, but it was pretty much the equivalent of saying nothing.
In Nino’s case, she answered a question that I had from last volume… which was why does she still love Momo after everything that he did to her? The answer to that was another non-answer. Nino herself doesn’t know why she loves Momo. The only reason she could come up with is the fact that she liked his voice when he said her name. She said it was like a piece of her was torn away when he suddenly moved away without saying anything. I don’t really call that a reason, but I guess a nonsensical reason works for a nonsensical relationship.
Final Thoughts
The emotions were definitely supercharged in this edition of Anonymous Noise. The roller coaster Nino went through from practice camp all the way to Rock Horizon was definitely a solid journey. I still feel bad for Yuzu because he wants to tell Nino that she’s the girl he loves, but he already knows what the consequences would be if he did. It was kind of funny when Nino was legitimately clueless when Yuzu asked her who she thought it was. Nino really is dumber than a box of dead, wet rats.
Rock Horizon itself was pulled off really well. Seeing it in the anime was okay, but I had a lot of issues with the terrible CGI and the reuse of key animations. Here in the manga, that scene was represented in a MUCH better way and it allowed you to digest everything that was happening from the set list to the inner thoughts of the characters and the emotions they each brought to the table. Switching over to see Momo’s reactions was a nice touch, but I felt there wasn’t enough of it. The main focus was on Alice and In No Hurry to Shout which created a bit of an imbalance. Having Yuzu’s mother show up was a nice touch, though.
The anime ends a little bit into volume six (or maybe all of volume six) so I’ll be venturing into uncharted territory sooner or later, which I’m looking forward to. I’m really enjoying the manga more than I did the anime adaptation. Sometimes reading something with silence is better than watching something with sound. Anonymous Noise is one of those instances!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
