Hello everyone, welcome to another portion of the Asadora manga from the infamous Naoki Urasawa. If you want my thoughts on Volume 1, it’s really good. Very good story with lots of potential, good and natural moments, and a so much intrigue. My less focused and official thoughts can be found on Volume 1 here: link. I am always a bit nervous about writing a post following a different section of a post considering they are the hardest things to talk about after writing a bit of a defining post, but Asadora’s second volume has a lot of interesting things going on to talk about and consider here and I really like those facts.
So what happened? Well, this volume is split into two parts once again. The first part is a result of the ending of the show. Young Asadora and the old man Kusaga are in a stolen airplane looking for Asadora’s house when they see a monster and only some of the siblings are alive. The ending coming from Kusaga being injured and Asadora finding some natural intrigue in piloting an airplane while trying to keep the two of them alive in flight. It feels like a it contrived in some ways, but she was given guidance by an injured old man to land a prop plane. A young kid can find a niche in a number of ways and Asadora finding a true calling and getting the plane while being old makes sense in some ways.
The second portion of the volume is a very natural sort of time skip for 7 years in the future. Asadora changes in a way that makes sense to her like she’s mastered flying her plane, she’s strong, she doesn’t take any crap from anyone, and such. All things that make sense considering who she grew up with. You know, the no sense lady who works at a cafe we met in volume 1 along with Kusaga who is a bit shady, but knows how to pilot and can go down and dirty when she needs to. Asadora has spent 7 years with these people and the family she was able to save. The volume itself ends with Asadora seeing a government agent with the photo of the creature that destroyed her house and her trying to find information about it. A very good cinematic way to end a manga because Naoki Urasawa feels like a cinematic thinker.
This manga looks so good, guys. As I stated before in volume 1, the manga looks so good. The character all look Japanese but have enough interesting characteristics to be recognized anywhere. Asadora’s own grown up from 10 to 7 also feels so natural while everyone else around her hasn’t changed. Older people just look slightly older after all. The panel camera angles around Asadora flying a plane in angles that make her feel alive in how she pilots the plane and tries to land it. Plus, the camera angle around Asadora seeing the meeting between Kusaga and a government man. No fight scenes at all, so the manga feels very grounded in it’s execution. I love all of it honestly.
So yeah, I don’t like this volume of Asadora as much as volume 1, but it was still pretty solid. It showed the direction that Asadora’s character is going to go in the future along with building intrigue, doing more things, and such. All of it builds the world itself a bit more as well. I wish that it would spend more then a few more panels with Asadora and her tiny siblings considering that they are part of her story and why she was searching for them in the first place. That’s ok, there is only a limited amount of time with this portion here and there is more manga to come in the future. I really need to get to volume 3. Yay! So good!
Thank you for reading. If what I wrote sounds interesting and you’ve read volume 1, click here to find where you can find volume: Link.
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