Wave, Listen To Me! Vol. #01 Manga Review
Wave, Listen To Me! Vol. #01 Manga Review
How do you handle life’s up and downs; take it lying down or stand up and scream at the world?!
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Hiroaki Samura
Translation: Adam Hirsch
What They Say
From manga legend, Hiroaki Samura, creator of Blade of the Immortal and Die Wergelder, comes something completely different, the journey of one disgruntled young woman’s journey into the wild rapids of talk radio!
The stage is Sapporo, Hokkaido. One night, our heroine, Minare Koda, spills her heartbroken woes to a radio station worker she meets while out drinking one night. The next day, she hears a recording of her pitiful grumbling being played live over the air. Minare storms into the station in a rage, only to then be duped by the station director into doing an impromptu talk show explaining her harsh dialogue. With just one recording, the many eccentric facets of Minare’s life begin to pull every which direction as she falls ever deeper into the world of radio.
The Review! (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Content:
Anyone into manga, especially seinen fans, should be aware of Samura’s art style and typical genre considering his masterpiece Blade of the Immortal. So, Wave, Listen To Me! is a bit of a shock for fans with its departure from fighting and death. But I couldn’t be happier.
Wave, Listen To Me! focuses on the life of 25-year-old Minare Koda. Minare, like many of us at that age, lives day to day, or month to month, in a service job and a small apartment. She has just broken up with her boyfriend who swindled her out of a lot of money and is drinking to blow off steam. Her new drinking buddy is a 49-year-old radio producer who secretly tapes Minare’s drunken rant about men and her opinion of men and women from different regions around Japan. Then he plays her recording on the air while she is working at a restaurant that is playing that radio station!
She is dumbstruck to realize it is her voice and having a vague drunken memory of what she said the night before, she rushes out of the restaurant and hauls ass to the radio station to stop the replay. All this after her boss warned that he would fire her after one more screw up. Minare manages to get to the radio station and stop the recording before it finishes, but the damage is done and her lot in life has been cast.
Minare is fired from her job at the restaurant and then offered a job at the radio station. She is very conflicted because she has no business being a radio personality, but something about her has that old radio producer convinced that he can turn her into a star. The only problem is that her segment airs at 3:30 am, her ex-boyfriend is nowhere to be found and she had been kicked out of her apartment, and her former co-worker lovesick puppy dog “friend” threatens to never love her if she doesn’t beg for her old job back!
That is a lot of stress to throw at Minare. But she is a strong character and there is no telling what direction she will take.
In Summary:
What do you get when you cross the hard-killing action and mature art-style of Blade of the Immortal with slice-of-life post-college romance story? You get Wave, Listen To Me!, which is a drastic departure from Samura’s Blade of the Immortal and Die Wergelder, and I love it!
While this story hints at being a romance, much like life, romance tends to fall by the side of the road when it comes to paying rent and car insurance. It is a sad situation, but it is life, so I’m a huge fan of any author willing to tackle this angle to a slice of life series. Even Samura admits, “I was shocked to realize the romance component made up maybe 1% of the whole book”. This is what makes this book so good. It sets up the protagonist’s potential love interests (older established man, lovesick coworker, and ex-boyfriend) while letting her take the story where she wants. Wave, Listen To Me! is a fun example of when a writer allows the characters to shrug off expectations and write their own story.
I am a big fan of Samura, and I am very excited to see where Wave, Listen To Me! will take me.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Kodansha Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 24th, 2017
MSRP: $10.99
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