Evergreen Volume 4 Manga Review (Finale)

Evergreen Volume 4 Manga Review

***SPOILERS***

Evergreen Volume 4 MangaNiki and Hotaku go on their date to the festival. When they kiss, Niki suddenly realizes Hotaku is her half-brother, for whom her father abandoned her to return to because of Hotaku’s heart condition. This causes her to flee, filled with confusion since she’d blamed her half-brother for her father leaving her and then dying. As such, she’d not only fallen in love with the person she hated most, she fell in love with her brother. Hotaku is clueless, but then is crushed when Niki treats him coldly at school. Sugou learns of Hotaku’s depression and gets angry about Niki’s method of dumping his friend, but gets reminded that he’d dumped On-chan in a similar, harsh fashion.

While Hotaku is depressed, Sugou shaves his head as sign of a new beginning, then pays a visit to On-chan, cluing her in on Niki dumping Hotaku. Hotaku decides to go up to the mountain home of his grandmother, where he’s shocked to see Niki there. Niki explains their true relationship and how there’s nothing but blackness within her because of her hate and rage. As such, she asks Hotaku give her this home in lieu of giving her their father back. Hotaku flees and informs his mother he’s giving up the mountain home, angering her.

Sugou and On-chan get together to visit the devastated Hotaku with no success. On their way home, Sugou opens up on his true feelings for On-chan, leading them to become a couple. Hotaku’s mother is still angry over her son giving up his inheritance, but she’s shocked when she learns the daughter of the woman who stole her husband attends school with Hotaku. A storm comes up, leaving Niki trapped on the mountain, so Hotaku somehow knows she’s in danger and goes to rescue her. A lightning bug shows them the way out, which Hotaku attributes to their father. Niki and Hotaku reconcile their past, and Hotaku’s mother accepts Niki as a person. Hotaku and Niki come up with a scheme to avoid letting the school know the true nature of their relationship as they are no longer a romantic couple.

Review:

And so this manga comes to an end, and I hate it, not because the story isn’t interesting, but because the final volume falls apart and leaves the reader with a big “S” burger.

I knew Niki and Hotaku would be related, but I was hoping that maybe they’d only be cousins. Making them half-siblings just irritated me to no end. At least as cousins, the incest ick wouldn’t have been as strong, but I probably could have swallowed them being in a romantic relationship, providing said story around their relationship was strong enough.

However, there’s no romance here. Instead, just as Hotaku’s and Niki’s romance advances to a kissing level, suddenly, she’s crushing his feelings (rather than tell him the truth of what she’s realizes), leaving him a mess, and then, “Yeah, I’m your half-sister and I’ve hated you all my life. Now get the frack out of here!”

So here I am, enjoying this first time love romance story through the first three volumes (and into this fourth volume) when suddenly, “BOOM! You’re brother and sister! You fail!” That sucks and irritated me. I’m left thinking, “So just what the heck was the purpose of this manga?”

Takemiya-sensei is a gifted storyteller. We see that in Toradora!, which is an awesome tale of how unrequited love leads to love in the most unexpected of places. So there was purpose with Toradora! from the start. But with Evergreen, I’m struggling to find a purpose to the story.What did Takemiya-sensei want to say regarding a half-brother and half-sister finding each other, falling in love, then discovering they were siblings? I’ve no clue.

I suppose the reason I can’t find a purpose to the story is that the manga gets cut off in volume 4. I don’t know what happened, whether it was lack of sales, or Takemiya-sensei just had no place else to go with the story. Regardless, the abbreviated story really harms the manga in my opinion. After getting Niki and Hotaku to couple status, then bringing everything to a very unsatisfying end just doesn’t do it for me. There’s no way I’m rereading this manga series.

There is a positive tale in the romance story between On-chan and Sugou. However, the abbreviated nature of the manga hurts their story too, but not as much as the Nike and Hotaku story. It would have been interesting to see how On-chan and Sugou progressed. Well, at least I was wrong about my thought that On-chan might have some romantic interest in Hotaku.

Although the manga is cut short, I guess I can cite the fact that this manga does actually have an ending as a positive thing, even if said ending isn’t satisfactory.

Moving onto the Seven Seas side of things, Japanese honorifics are included in the adaptation. There’s a couple of color pages. There is a page with final thoughts from artist Kasukabe-sensei (though for some whacked reason, Seven Seas spells the name Caskabe on the cover of this volume). And there’s a final, 4-koma strip on the inside back cover. Otherwise, there are no additional extras.

In the end, I found that Evergreen volume 4 brings what had been an interesting romance manga to a completely, unsatisfactory ending, thanks in no small part to the fact that the manga is rapidly brought to an end.

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8 Responses to “Evergreen Volume 4 Manga Review (Finale)”

  1. ctrn says:

    Yeah. I knew you wouldn’t like it. But at the time I just took it as another manga ruined by the Axe. I think the author just killed it when it got cancelled. It was a shame, at least it could be a happy rushed ending. But some authors want to leave a mark by ruining their works, to remain in the memory of their readers, even if it is a bad memory. Think about it: You will remember this axed manga like this a lot more than with a generic happy ending.

    The worst example of this to me is Usagi Drop. I’ll never read or touch something from that author… why the hell she did that? It was not even axed! She did it on purpose, that second half of the story hurt my soul.

    I am one of those that tends to don’t read another manga of the same author after something like this. I was reading another one from the author (not artist) of Evergreen: Golden Time; but after watching the anime I just dropped it.

    The only exception is with the author of Yamada and the Seven Witches, that I started before I finished reading Yanki-kun to Megane-chan (Man, that was a creepy unconclusive and empty ending…), But I’m expecting some bad ending too on this.

    In contrast, the best manga of all history with a good rushed ending is Fujimura-kun Meitsu. That is how you end an axed manga.

    So, without spoiling them, I’m giving you a reference of mangas that are rage material. Beware of those.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      I’ve been told that authors, in conjunction with their editors, work out a short term manga ending, an ending if the manga goes several volumes, and then more of a true ending if the manga is long running. (The risk with that later strategy is seen in Negima, where the plug is just pulled on a long running manga, leaving lots of plot threads dangling even though it was given an ending.)

      The worst example of this to me is Usagi Drop. I’ll never read or touch something from that author… why the hell she did that? It was not even axed! She did it on purpose, that second half of the story hurt my soul.

      Yeah, I’m with you there. (I blogged the manga volumes.) I think I read somewhere that the decision to do a time skip was made to try to improve the manga’s sales. Not sure if that’s true or not. I was OK with it at first because I thought it would be neat seeing how Rin turned out as a teen. But then they went “that” way with the manga and the ending is just awful.

  2. WMC says:

    I also made the mistake of buying and reading all four. Yes, by Volume 4 it’s become a fetid feces burger. Started very well, but we got scammed by some pretty cynical mangaka.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Heh! So it seems. Of course, if the manga was just canceled, then they just slap together an ending and call it a day. It doesn’t make it any less painful to read, of course.

  3. In regards to the spelling of the artist’s name, we were later notified by the publisher (after the first printing on volume 1) that she (the artist) wanted her the name to be published as Caskabe and not ‘Kasukabe’. It caused a little bit of confusion, we’re aware, but hopefully didn’t turn too many heads.

  4. SAGICIAn says:

    I was expecting more from the author of Toradora and Golden Time, two stories I seriously enjoyed 🙁

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      I haven’t read Golden Time. Is it any good? I’m a little hesitant to try it after the evergreen experience.

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