MANGA REVIEW | "Last Quarter" - Volume Two [FINALE]
What kind of tale is Ai Yazawa’s Last Quarter? Is it a ghost story? A romantic narrative that goes beyond generations? A heartbreaking narrative about reincarnation and its tragic side effects? Even after finishing the second and final volume of Last Quarter, I’m still puzzled over how I should categorized it.
Perhaps that shows the strengths of Ai Yazawa as a writer. This is an author — who is still on an agonizingly long hiatus — that knows how to write deep layered characters and place them in unique circumstances. One can easily call Neighborhood Story or Paradise Kiss a fashion rom-com, but that would demean all the other storytelling elements Yazawa carefully placed into them. People could also call NANA an “opposites attract” roommate dramedy, but even that would take a whole lot of other aspects of the story and inappropriately toss them by the wayside.
But back to Last Quarter, which has so many genres in its two-volumed story. Romance, mystery, suspense, comedy, drama, and even a sprinkling of supernatural stuff for good measure. The romance involves Mizuki and the musician Adam, whereas its mystery aspect is linked to why she can’t escape from that old mansion. Hotaru and her friends offer up some more scoop-seeking in the mystery department, with their camaraderie being both cute and funny. There’s the drama over Mizuki’s comatose body, while the spooky stuff is…well, that’d lead us down spoiler territory.
Much of the second volume involves Hotaru and her pals piecing everything together. They find out the hard way about who this mysterious Adam is, and why Mizuki — now going by Eve due to her memory lost — is connected to it. And it’s kind of funny seeing everyone jumping from one record store to another, with the sales clerks having no means to find out what the mystery song originates from. After all, this is before the likes of Wikipedia, Shazam, and podcast mystery shows even existed, something I think we all take for granted today!
That’s when a giant music ad gives Hotaru and her friends the answer they were looking for. One clue leads to another, resulting in every person diving deeper into the rabbit hole of who Adam is. Or, rather, who he was, a fact that perplexes everyone. It’s a situation that gives the kids the opportunity to possibly free Mizuki from her mansion prison.
Alas, it does the opposite. Poor Mizuki is then stuck between her memories and the ones of the one Adam truly love. Last Quarter then becomes a race against time to get Mizuki’s spirit back into her comatose body. It takes everyone’s efforts to get some sort of solution to occur, even those of Mizuki’s ex Tomoki, but in the end, it’s up to the decision of Mizuki where she wants to go.
How Last Quarter ends is kind of peculiar. While it does a good job tying everything together, I can’t help but feel like something is missing from it all. There is the aspect of Mizuki ready to be moving on, but her mannerisms and the like seem to still be grasping for something. Even poor Hotaru and her friends don’t exactly get the closure they’re looking for. Yes, they solved the mystery, but after everything wraps up, it leaves them and the audience asking, “Well…now what?”
Maybe that’s for the best. After all, Yazawa unpacks a hefty lot in this second half, to the point where some readers might find it exhausting to go on after the end of the mystery. And yet, Last Quarter seems to be lacking that final period to its final sentence. Granted, it doesn’t take anything away from the excitement and the heartache that readers will experience, which showcase all the beautiful and deep storytelling Yazawa is known for.
Something still flutters over the horizon of Last Quarter. Maybe it’s Adam and the sound he created that’ll last beyond our time on Earth. Or it could be that long-lingering feeling of a love that didn’t reach the heights it truly deserved. In the end, even Last Quarter can’t exactly fill that hole in its heart to truly feel completed. Perhaps it’s up to us to figure out the, “Well…what now?” part for ourselves, as readers move on to the next story they aim to dive into. Maybe there, their hearts will find exactly what they’re looking for.
VOL. 2 RATING:
FINAL GRADE (series):
Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.
