Haganai’s fifth manga volume has now become available, portraying the episode where our main character and imouto take a visit to the meat factory – yet that’s not the most attention worthy exhibit to behold.
This is Comic Alive’s serialization of Haganai – “the latest and greatest” Haganai has to offer on paper, bringing some revamped visuals, and a story more true to the anime, yet still sustaining of manga specific distinctions.
Before anything else, one can see the perverted megane girl on the front cover – and one can see simply from glancing upon her grace that she’s not depicted in the manga entirely as she is within the anime, or rather, a slight discrepancy exists, and the manga feels superior. Now turning to a note which is too much to ignore, making for an utter shock, without the specs, this girl is not just a fetish character in appearance – she’s stunning. She’s perhaps the loveliest bishoujo in the series now – or at least a close second after Yozora.
She becomes so much more beautiful when the unsavory megane are subtracted as one can now see her visage unhindered – an expression so alluring, it is painful. It strikes the heart through cuter qualities – yet her eyes and sharply raised brows have a certain charm to them reminiscent to a face Yozora would make. Her expression isn’t too simple to figure out – yet it looks as if she’s fighting glances and stares whilst she adjusts her hair, slightly embarrassed by the attention received.
While we’d like glare at her all day, moving along to the actual contents within this volume unfortunately, those who have seen the anime should certainly be familiar with it – the visit to the “meat factory”, i.e., Sena’s home. Our friendless hero is invited by his fleshy female friend Sena to visit her home – he does so mainly to see her father, a man who was a good friend of his own father. Yet the situation topples all over itself due to Sena’s selfish inner desires of yuri imouto violation and a romance that she desires however never established.
In other words, overlooking the imouto bit, Sena loves our hero, and even though he didn’t visit her home to see her specifically – she’s thinking of the visit as if it were far more in her favor than it truly is. No matter, nothing develops beyond a few hinted sentiments – and this segment of the story is mainly a more entertaining portion of relational growth.
By the end of the volume, a hypothetical door is metaphorically opened in that our protagonist has gotten close to Sena – not so much romantically, but as general friends. Yozora however remains unable to express herself so easily – she’s still alone in one respect, and the feeling is basically that she’s in an empty world. That’s likely not the best method to describe it – yet it is as if Yozora is still being held back. Our protagonist doesn’t realize the childhood he shared with her – and she feels distant from the rest.
The “open door” and positive aspect of this, despite feeling a bit saddening, is that Yozora still has opportunity and chance to step forward and accomplish whatever she wishes from this point on – and those acquainted with how the story goes from here know that she does just that.
As a required side-note, just as with the anime, there’s a scene in which Sena indecently chases around the little sister of our protagonist whilst undressed – to give an idea of how Sena’s personality is, imagine a child molesting old man. It’s only due to her bishoujo looks that she’s not anything of the sort. Those several panels of bare bodied pursuit are censored all too conveniently – although they never honestly were too appealing as they’re too meaty. This short display is one of the most prominent the series has to offer, so it had to be mentioned.
Whatever the reason one may read Haganai, it’s highly doubtful it will do anything less than fully satisfy.
Apr 24, 2012 @ 5:55 CDT
I never thought much of her, although the science girl’s manga version makes it hard to keep Yozora as favorite.
Apr 24, 2012 @ 20:51 CDT
Indeed, without those glasses, she’s just a whole new person.
Apr 24, 2012 @ 21:39 CDT
A rather formidable one.
Dec 27, 2012 @ 22:28 CDT
But without glasses, glasses girl, just becomes girl……