Call of the Night (2022)

[よふかしのうた]

Volume 14

Author/Artist: Kotoyama
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
Kou's mother finally catches him playing hooky and he has to account for his truancy.

Story/Characters:
You might be wondering how Kou was able to get away with skipping school as long as he has and it soon becomes clear in the conversation with his mother. She works as a hostess, which means she's out all night drinking and sleeping through the day. His father left them a long time ago, so there wasn't much of an obstacle. As I don't believe there was any reference to his mom's line of work before, I wasn't expecting her to be as laidback as she is. A dropout herself, she doesn't feel she has much place to criticize his decision and even apologizes for not being much of a parent to him, but Kou is grateful to her because their domestic situation is what's allowed him to enjoy his new life and all the people he's met. Without really pressuring him to start up classes again, his mom encourages him to at least go on the school trip. This idea is introduced just as Akira is reminded about said trip and the prospect of Kou attending comes up in a conversation with Sakura Asakusa, the girl whose love confession set everything off. Interestingly, she doesn't seem to bear Kou any ill will and looks excited at the chance to see him again. As Akira's about to head home, she encounters Mahiru, who is there to say his goodbyes to her and passes on a little hint about where he plans on going next.

Akira hoofs it over to Kou to tell him what she's heard and is surprised to find Nazuna and Uguisu already there while Kou's mom is home. She tells him about Sakura (who he doesn't remember at first) and, more importantly, about Mahiru. At first, Kou doesn't know what Mahiru was hinting at until it hits him. We're then treated to a flashback from elementary school, when Mahiru couldn't join the school trip, so Kou skipped on it as well and the two of them spent the day playing around. At the end of the day, Mahiru talks about how he wanted to go on the trip (to Hokkaido), so Kou tells him he should just go whenever and Mahiru says that if he does go, he wants Kou to go with him. Guess where the current school trip's destination is. That's right. Hokkaido. It's the perfect opportunity and it's enough motivation for Kou to put on his uniform once more and go back to school.

Kou makes a pretty big splash when he shows back up, as he was actually fairly popular. He later meets up with Sakura as she's wanting to apologize for how things turned out, mainly because of her overzealous friends getting on Kou's case. Said friends show up to run him off again, but he pretty much blows them off and as he proves to not be what they were expecting, they ease off a bit but still insist to join in his group to keep an eye on him.

Before the trip, we have a bit of an exploration into Nazuna's weakness that Kiku had. I thought Kiku might have faked Kou out when she handed it over, but apparently it was the real deal. So what is it? It's a piece of Nazuna's umbilical cord, pretty much the only thing that could be used against a natural-born vampire. Nazuna goes to Kabura to get some more information about her mom, but Kabura doesn't have much to tell her. Meanwhile, Kou visits Mahiru's mom to gather some more clues to improve his odds of finding Mahiru in Hokkaido.

On the big day, Kou surprises his classmates with how buddy-buddy he is with Zawa-sensei (a reference to their previous late-night encounter) and once they get on the shinkansen, Kou finds that not only Nazuna and Uguisu but also Susuki and Azami are there as well (as opposed to, say, taking a different train, particularly a night train which would be safer for the vampires in the group). It was all because Nazuna wanted to surprise Kou. She then wants to drink his blood, but he's worried about triggering his transformation, but besides the simple fact that she wants his blood, she figures it's a good opportunity to test the trigger. Fortunately, we don't have Kou go berserk and the worst of it is that Akira calls him a pervert when she sees the evidence of Nazuna necking with him.

We have a strategy meeting with the grownups, leading into the introduction of the concept of vampires' charm ability as a potential explanation for how Kiku managed to snag Mahiru. We then have Sakura's friend Micchan suffer a bout of motion sickness and I thought that this was going to be showing Kou exhibiting the charm ability as he gets her some medicine and stays with her as she goes to recover at the end of the car. However, it seems more that this is an opportunity for her to see more of who Kou really is, as we have him rather smoothly shoot down a classmate passing by who's talking smack about Mahiru. We then learn that Kou's popular persona came from imitating Mahiru, who was himself imitating his late brother.

Once the gang arrives in Hokkaido, they split up. Until they have their allotted free time, Kou and Akira are restricted on where they can go. We have a cute moment where Kou wants to buy a bokuto, something elementary kids like to do, which Akira objects to until she learns he's buying two, one for him and one for Mahiru. While taking in the sights, a hot guy shows up offering to take a picture with the girls, something Sakura's other friend Saki eagerly takes him up on, but then he asks for money. Kou stands up to him and when he does, he realizes that this person is a vampire. Problems are sure to follow, but this is our cliffhanger.

Art:
After having such elaborate action set pieces in the past few volumes, you might feel a little deflated that there are no big moments here, but the bar of quality you've come to expect from Kotoyama holds true here. We do get a few standout shots, such as Akira confronting Mahiru, so that's something for you.

Other:
We get an afterword from Kotoyama addressing an apparent inconsistency where Kou said he'd been on a school trip. Whether you buy his explanation or accept it as a simple error born of changes made as the story developed is up to you. He includes an illustration of Nazuna pressing Kou on whether he went on his school trip or not.

Conclusion:
The tension gets ratcheted down significantly this volume, but this is the calm before the storm. We've got some nice character moments going on. I'm curious to see what comes of Sakura and her friends as they work their way into Kou's circle. I also wonder if this vampire who appeared at the end is related to Kiku in any way or not. Go ahead and get this and keep the collection going.

Rating:
Own It