Again!! is a story that doesn't progress. It's ostensibly a lovely story of some highly dysfunctional people who learn to be better together – except nothing sticks. Though I enjoyed myself most of the way, I'd occasionally look back and realize that nothing had changed; that none of the exciting moments had any lasting impact on the plot nor the characters. Events that seem big and cathartic do nothing – as soon as a character or relationship has developed, it promptly un-develops again. Then, with fifteen plot threads hanging loose, the manga takes a sudden turn into inscrutability, ends hurriedly and abruptly – I can only imagine it was unexpectedly canceled – and thus left me feeling confused and regretful that I got invested in these characters.
And that's why it hurts: I did get invested in the characters. Despite having no idea how these characters think, or why they do the things they do, I cared. I went to the local bookstore weekly, and whenever a new volume of Again!! was out, I picked it up on sight. I even made a playlist of the songs mentioned in the story – an eclectic mix of '80s rock, '90s pop ballads, and '00s idol fare – and listened to that on loop to set the mood. I relished each and every translation note. I probably shed tears once every other volume!
Is the art why I cared? It's incredible – possibly the most powerful art I've ever seen in a manga. Kubo puts so much passion into every brush stroke – like the ouendan's brusque cheering style, you feel the sheer spirit she pours into each forceful, ink-splattered brush stroke. Might the intensity be why I cared? Though the story mostly spins its wheels, the way in which the story is told is masterfully emotional: it's packed with passionate facial expressions and cloyingly determined declarations of love and friendship. Or are perhaps the characters themselves why I cared? Despite a few despicable apples, and despite a lack of intelligible character development, they're written in such a way that I couldn't help but feel like a part of their found family.
Whatever the case is, I did care… and now here I am, at the bottom of the steep decline that started after 9½ volumes, feeling robbed of a resolution to… anything, really. In retrospect, the care I put in was a form of hope – hope for the characters to get to where they're going, for their relationships to grow, and for the story to have something to say – but that hope went tragically unanswered.
Again!! is and will always be special to me. I poured a lot of my feelings into reading it. I know, though, that I'll wish I hadn't.
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