2 out of 5

An absolute mess of intriguing ideas.

Manga very often comes with telling titles. They can be (to this US reader) amusingly over-descriptive, e.g. “The Most Notorious Talker Runs the World’s Greatest Clan,” – that one’s a light novel; they can strike a cool pose that just kind of syncs with the look and feel of the book and gives you a sense of genre, e.g. “Vampire Hunter D”; they can be nice and direct – e.g. “I Am A Cat Barista.” Sometimes, though, and maybe admittedly these are the series that tend to draw me in, the titles are just… curious. I guess you could make the case that’s closer to how some US / UK books work, coming up with a clever name to grab attention (and in trying to be somewhat culturally aware, I appreciate that that’s essentially what those other examples are doing for manga audiences), but I think those US / UK books come paired with copy that clues you in to what the title is going for. Stuff like “Black Night Parade,” though, has back cover copy to tell me about 20something Miharu getting waylaid into working for a dark clad ‘Santa,’ who ministers the gifting to all of the bad kids, and I still kinda feel puzzled and weird about that title. It’s ominous, though the book’s a comedy. Its tankobon cover art is a black-suited, faceless figure on a black background, but it’s kinda sorta nonstop gags inside. And that one-sentence description I gave is pretty much the entire gist, but creator Hikaru Nakamura jams the pages with a ton of stuff around that (regarding how this operation works) that is close to being random, except you can sense vague throughlines that will eventually tidy up that stuff…

Volume 1 kicks off with Hino Miharu working a go-nowhere convenience store job, watching his colleagues seemingly succeed and advance, despite flaunting the rules and morals Miharu believes he abides by. Circumstances bring him to a food cart that just so happens to be run by the aforementioned black-wearing Santa Claus (much less goth than that sounds, I promise), and Hino is whisked away to toil in a frozen clime, helping his new coworkers – the attentive and cherry Shino; the meticulous Teppei – prep toys to make the bad kids have a bad holiday.

The machinations used to convince Miharu to stay and work, and the background on Shino (his inevitable crush) that starts to get worked in towards the end of the collection are very forced; Nakamura struggles with the character work. And unfortunately, that forms a big part of these starting chapters, as there’s a cycle of discovering some new part of the job, quickly followed up by Miharu freaking out about it, seeking escape, then having some self-reflection or conversation with Shino or Teppei that convinces him otherwise. Some of this does feel down to the translation (Richard Tobin), as dialogue that is likely meant to be a bit more pun-y or is very culturally contextual doesn’t land well, but there’s certainly also something to be said about the visuals carrying some weight via direction or timing, and Nakamura, while great at design – characters, settings are very distinct – doesn’t quite have the nuance for more complicated interactions.

The remaining bits and pieces inbetween that detail out the day-to-day parts of Miharu’s new job are definitely fun and very inventive, but I’m here with another “but:” as mentioned, they roll out maybe too fast. If the character work wasn’t so hastily inserted, I think this could work; as is, though, it’s all very cluttered, with every interesting idea steamrolled by the next.

The book is a conflicted mess. It’s also very funny in fits and spurts – despite what feels like a “missing the point” translation, and some dated-even-for-a-2016-manga gay and sexist jokes. More positively, all of its flaws feel like an abundance of ideas that creator Nakamura just needs time to straighten out, and more importantly provides indications of being capable of straightening out, with even the lazy jokes just mentioned potentially weeded as the book becomes more confident in its own narrative and characters.