Last

Last, Volume 1 Cover

The Summary:

TAMAKOSHI Hiroyuki is an extremely prolific author, best known for his Boys Be series of stories, as well as the Gacha Gacha franchise, specializing in light love stories with a tendency to dress his female characters in short skirts and/or bikini tops. However, he has also made departures from this formula, and today's manga is one of those departures. Last: We are for the Future (ラスト～僕らは未来のために～), is rather unique in the annals of shounen love stories... it's like Groundhog Day, where the protagonist repeats a series of events over and over... only he repeats his entire life, starting at a pivotal moment during his high school class trip.

We follow Takada Kanta, a friendly popular student, who spends all of his time playing with his two best friends... one of which happens to be the girl he loves, while the other is his love rival. Normal so far... even a bit cliche. When his best friend tells Kanta that he wants to confess to their friend (her name's Hina... I'm skipping most of the names for brevity, you'll thank me later), Kanta, being the wishy-washy character that we've all come to expect in these types of stories, claims that he has no special feelings for Hina. Of course, that was a lie, and Kanta mopes for the rest of the night, thinking 'oh man, what-am-I-gonna-do', until he wanders over to Hina's hotel room (they're on a class trip, remember) and runs into her outside. She pulls him in for drinks and they get to talking... turns out Hina has a crush on him and one thing leads to another and they kiss right as the 3rd wheel comes into the room to confess his love. Kanta freaks out, still claiming that he doesn't like Hina in that way, leading to a terrible break in friendship ("then why did you kiss me?" and "How could you do that to Hina?"). The domino effect leads to a lowering in his status in school, his self esteem crumbles, and he's hit by a car as he's running after his last spare change.

First page of chapter 2

And that is half of chapter 1. Now, see, where it actually gets interesting is the fact that Hina isn't the main female lead. It's her roommate on the class trip, the cold and quiet loner of the class, Sudou Riko. After the car accident, the now adult (all-be-it, totally worthless) Kanta is thrown back to the moment before Hina kisses him. Realizing that he's reliving his life's greatest mistake, he pushes her away as the door flies open, and claims that he was outside of her room to meet up with Sudou. Why? Because... she's his girlfriend. She plays along with the gag, and the rest of the story revolves around their relationship and the mysteries of why Kanta is repeating his life.

Is it any good?

I really like this manga. It's a light shounen read with lovable and fun characters, actual measurable character growth, and a bit of a twist ending. And, thank the Manga Gods, the characters don't have one of those terrible 'revelations' that was obvious from the very beginning. For people who are just starting out with Japanese and want something that isn't too complex yet has a good amount of 'real' text to work through, this is a good one to pick up. 

I believe I mentioned it before, but this is a short one... I'm of the assumption that it was started with the intention of making it only 2 volumes, but if it was canceled the author did a good job of finishing it with no glaring cutoff points or missed opportunities. Actually, it's one of the best things I've read from him and I wish he'd stop making semi-hentai seinen stories about incest long enough to write another one like this.

Manga Facts:

• Published in Shounen Magazine Special starting in 2008 (technically, it was in 2007, but the magazines are dated 2 months off, so it started in the first 2008 issue).
• The author's official website was last updated on my 24th birthday (I'm 27, by the way).

Snoopy's Recommendation:

I say... read it. It's good. If you absolutely, positively HATE cleavage or the occasional sexy leg, then I suppose you can skip it. But it's so short, and so light that I can't see anyway disliking this manga. So I guess, I'll say that people who like love stories should read it. I'll even include people who mostly like shoujo stuff... it still works.