1 out of 5

Rrrright, well, so we’re back to incredibly shallow, make-it-up-as-we-go style plotting, with characters who are introduced essentially just to be fodder, offhandedly tossed in tropes that seem like they might be used for commentary but are just… there, plus lots of loli content and upskirt shots, y’all, ’cause that’s what this series was apparently lacking. Also, just in case there was any doubt, the nokkers are back, doing pretty much exactly what they did before, with Oima bending over backwards to allow that to happen.

The promise of jumping this story ahead to modern times, dismissed by slamming it right back to where it was. I could propose that this is some type of contemplation on how life never exactly changes, but that’s not a very unique point, and the emotional and intelligence quotient of this book is so inconsistent that, whether that’s a purposeful theme or not, it’s not well supported by the text.

Oima’s art continues to be great, and there are some cool visual concepts with the nokkers here. But I can find cool pinups and concepts wherever; I’d like to have a worthwhile story if I’m investing in a comic (or at least one that I’m reading for that story), and To Your Eternity – despite occasionally poking its head up with some intriguing ideas – has wandered beyond the limits of its concept, I think, and we’re just beating a dead horse of Fushi-vs.-nokkers.

In volume 15, another the nokker-ghost Mimori’s background is explored through her pedo brother, and we cycle through a lot of obnoxious tropes surrounding that – and sure, pedo brother gets beaten up, but he also gets reunited with his sister-obsession – to get us back around to the realization that the nokkers are still around, which we already knew. This is one of those reading experiences I was just kind of going along with, but as the upskirt offenses started adding up, and then the dumb “twist” at the end… I closed the cover with frustrated haste.