Again in 2019, manga artist Kotoyama was simply coming off of his snack-themed comedy sequence, Dagashi Kashi. So when a brand new sequence of his launched, I puzzled what it will be like. Would it not even be a form of foolish comedy fueled by character interactions associated to a selected gimmick and a splash of romance? Or wouldn’t it be one thing extra normal for a shounen manga, with superpowers and larger drama?
The reply turned out to be “Sure, and in addition sure.”
Name of the Evening (Yofukashi no Uta in Japanese) is the story of Yamori Ko, a boy who has stopped going to center faculty and is affected by insomnia. One evening, he decides to go away his house to see what his city is like round within the late hours. There, he encounters an eccentric lady named Nanakusa Nazuna, who appears older than she appears, and affords to assist him sleep. Ko agrees to check out her companies, however quickly discovers that she’s really a vampire. Relatively than being scared for his life, nonetheless, he will get an thought: If life proper now sucks, why not turn out to be a vampire? The one downside: As a way to flip, one should fall in love with the vampire first, and Ko has no thought what love is meant to really feel like.
In contrast to the eight-volume Dagashi Kashi, which is basically brief and episodic vignettes, Name of the Evening has a serial narrative over a whopping 20 volumes. The connection between Ko and Nazuna considerably resembles the dynamic between Kokonotsu and Hotaru in Dagashi Kashi, however it’s actually its personal factor—a dynamic geared in the direction of momentum and growth, somewhat than stasis.
Whereas Name of the Evening initially feels it could possibly go on without end at a tempo paying homage to one other favourite sequence in Mysterious Girlfriend X, it then proceeds to break its personal “guidelines” again and again. Because it provides attention-grabbing twists and wrinkles to its story, the manga achieves a pleasant steadiness between genres and the feelings it invokes. As a result of the sequence retains including components and formulating new recipes in itself, I discover it to be a really Shounen Sunday manga. That is traditionally the journal of Contact!, Inuyasha, Detective Conan, and so on., and Name of the Evening feels prefer it exists within the house between these and different iconic Sunday sequence.
The on a regular basis hijinks make approach for a real friendship, and the reply as to whether it’s going to flip into romantic love at all times feels prefer it’s proper across the nook but additionally in some way far within the distance. And because the story progresses, the solid of characters expands and particulars about how vampires like (and in contrast to) Nazuna transfer via human society assist to develop the world and create new stakes. There are even some supernatural brawls straight out of a battle manga. And thru all these occasions, Name of the Evening nonetheless manages to really feel grounded and low-key, and in addition nonetheless tapped into that preliminary malaise that plagues Ko.
Foolish but severe, easy but filled with intriguing little complexities—Name of the Evening is price a learn. I believe it has one thing even for many who aren’t followers of vampires and the supernatural. It’s in the end the story of a boy and a woman who come from very completely different circumstances who discover widespread floor within the late night hours, and the world that unfolds earlier than them.
PS: It truly is superior that the anime model acquired the ending theme to be its namesake, “Yofukashi no Uta” by Creepy Nuts.
