Wave, Listen To Me! vol.1
26-year-old Minare is sitting at a bar drinking herself into oblivion. Her boyfriend not only left her but ran off with some of her money, see, and some stranger who says he works at a radio station has offered to lend an ear, so she unloads all her problems on him while chugging away. Suddenly she wakes up back at her apartment, realizing she blacked out but nothing appears to have happened, she goes back to sleep. Next day while serving bread at the curry shop she's clearly not gonna be employed at for much longer, she hears her drunken self over the radio, yelling about how men from Fukuoka ain't shit and compliant women disgust her, among other topics. When the customers start asking her questions, she drops everything and races off to the radio station, where she storms in and demands they cut the tape. The guy who recorded her at the bar agrees, but only if she takes over live for a bit, which she does and, of course, has an immediate impact on the listeners.
Vol. 1 of Wave is all setup and introduction for Minare. She's every bit as loud and brash as the volume cover suggests. Her personal life is a dumpster fire, but there's very little self-doubt or whining about it, instead she's always pushing forward. I like that, that her life is a mess but she doesn't carry herself like a loser. She's got an infectious middle fingers in the air attitude and she's also a laugh riot, so she won me over quickly. And, well, I can't imagine liking this manga without liking her - despite some decent side characters, this is certainly The Minare Show - so it's important Samura knocked it out the park with his heroine.
Speaking of Samura, dude's never really struck me as all that funny, so I wasn't sure what to expect. With Wave, he is more hit than miss. Execution of jokes, facial expressions, comedic timing, etc. all work out. This is
so much more polished and entertaining than something like Ohikkoshi. There's a decent bit of pop culture references though, and while I understand what he's going for when Minare wakes up in the afternoon and says she feels like she just crawled out of The Walking Dead, there are other points, like when he makes a song reference to a late '80s Japanese punk band, that go right over my head. I mean, it's cool reading the little blurbs that explain this, but jokes like that are still lost on me. There's enough material outside of that for me to say this is still quality comedy overall, mind you.
Read all of vol. 1 in a single sitting and bought the second vol. immediately after, though I'll get to that later this weekend. Hopefully Samura stays consistent, because Himare and her shit talking are off to a strong start.
