D-Frag! Volume 11
ディーふらぐ!
D-Fragments 11

–> Purchase D-Frag! Volume 11 from Amazon.com

The world is insanely stupid today. Thankfully, D-Frag! Volume 11 is here to give me some laughs and a break from reality.

NOTICE!!! In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I am the adapter for the official English translation of the True Tenchi Muyo! novels, which are also published by Seven Seas.

***SPOILERS***

The Story, in Brief

Takao realizes she’s in danger of failing her finals, but she can’t quite commit to studying. Kenji is with his crew at a ramen restaurant. However, their discussion of finals rather than eating their ramen enrages the son of the proprietor. After finals, the Game Development Club (Temp) meets at the restaurant Barfie-senpai works at. She gets pissed because the Master of the place keeps giving away free food. Later, Kenji’s club attempt to clean the club room as a final act before summer.

The Shibasaki home gets destroyed by a meteor. However, Roka, Tsutsuji, and their mom make it out safely. A helicopter comes to pick up their mother, so Roka and Tsutsuji end up having to stay at Kenji’s house after other arrangements fail. Roka lets Takao know about the situation. As such, Takao-mama provides an excuse for her daughter to have run away and need to stay at the Kazama household.

Kenji becomes further irritated at learning that Takao is joining Roka and Tsutsuji in the Kazama home. As such, he retreats to his bedroom, leaving Noe to deal with the situation. Meanwhile, Kenji’s childhood friend Mogusa has to deliver a present to Kenji’s mom without Takao and Roka noticing. That evening, bathing arrangements are made to accommodate the new residents in the house.

Finally, Kenji comes down that night to get something to eat. Roka and Takao are there with signs in order to keep quite while encouraging him to eat and enjoy the food they made earlier. Noe forces Kenji to buy her ice cream for abandoning her.

End of School Term Fun

The chapters in D-Frag! Volume 11 dealing with the end of the school year were wacky and fun. The two funniest elements came from restaurant visits. First was the ramen shop, where the massively, muscular son of the owner was about to blow his top over Kenji’s group not eating their ramen. Eventually, he couldn’t contain it any more, and well, I was laughing for sure.

Then when the group go to restaurant that “Barfie-senpai” works at, well, there’s sure to be fun there. Haruno-sensei recycles the rage gags from earlier, only having Barfie be the enraged person who pushes the boundries even further. And even though I knew exactly what the payoff gag would be, it still made me laugh when Tama showed up and the payoff happened.

Living with Kazama Arc

Haruno-sensei started a new arc in D-Frag! Volume 11. I don’t know if it has an official name, or a fan-given name. But I’m going to refer to it as the “Living with Kazama” arc. I found it hilarious how Haruno-sensei came up with a wacky, far out incident that would provide a plausible reason for Roka and Tsutsuji to move in with the Kazama family. And it allows Haruno-sensei to keep Roka in the mix during summer vacation.

Of course, since D-Frag is basically a wacky, comedy, harem title, Haruno-sensei needs to get Takao over there. While Takao-mama has been mostly relegated to omake chapters (and she’s still there), I loved that she’s the instrument that gets Takao into Kenji’s home. I’ll talk more about her in a bit, but man, Takao-mama is so awesome.

The last seven chapters in this manga volume are dedicated to this new arc. And we only get through the first day of living there. Considering the length of summer vacation, Haruno-sensei will probably try to get some mileage out of this. After all, I can imagine quite a bit of comedy coming from the fact that two rivals (and friends) are living together in the home of the boy they like.

Omake

As per usual, Haruno-sensei has some omake manga chapters in D-Frag! Volume 11. We get a chapter dealing with the Takao family, allowing Takao-mama to troll her eldest daughters over Takao. (Man, I wish Haruno-sensei would give complete names to characters.) This omake chapter is apparently set before Takao and Roka return to school to get her phone.

Since this volume has no Funabori, Sensei creates a second, 2-page omake chapter for her and Kenji, set just before the finals.

Finally, there’s a single page chapter where Haruno-sensei talks about struggling to create D-Frag and wishing he could just continue to play Witcher 3. 😂

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, D-Frag! Volume 11 was a very enjoyable, wacky, funny volume. I really enjoyed the start of this new arc and can’t wait to see where things go.