The Spring 2024 Manga Guide
Our Aimless Nights
What's It About?
Our Aimless Nights has a story and art by Koumori. English translation by Jan Mitsuko Cash. This volume was lettered by Barri Shrager and published by Azuki. (April 4, 2024)
Is It Worth Reading?
Rating:
Most teenagers aren't as good at communicating their feelings as they think. Sometimes, we get lost in our own heads; other times, we don't want to be bothered. Our Aimless Nights is a solid romance story that captures those feelings perfectly. It's a simple story about two teenagers on opposite sides of the social spectrum, finding a brief moment away from school life, peer pressure, and just general expectations to have a few moments to themselves. Along the way, the two discover a little bit more about themselves through these experiences and get closer as a result.
It sounds very basic, and in a lot of ways, it is. Even the art style and comedic timing reminded me of a lot of other romantic stories I've read fairly recently. But I still think Our Aimless Nights does a good enough job of adding a few little things that give it more of an edge over many other romances being written today. For one thing, the impetus for two main characters getting together is seeped in a pretty realistic experience. Our two leads are children of divorce and, thus, are used to awkward situations where certain things just might not want to be talked about for the sake of other people's comfort. Being mindful of other people's comfort can be noble, but it can also be exhausting and isolating. Then, towards the end of the book, we have a bit of a subversion of that by introducing two characters who are all about other people's businesses. Seeing those two worlds clash does result in a cliffhanger that I found rather enticing.
Our Aimless Nights is a story that starts a bit slow and generic but slowly starts finding its footing as it goes along. The chemistry between our leads is charming, and you see genuine growth between the two from chapter to chapter. Then, when we get into that final third, that sense of tension that the two were trying to avoid comes to fruition in a way that might genuinely catch you off guard. I know it doesn't sound like a high bar to pass when it comes to many other romances that are more content with executing the same formula for every chapter. But I don't care if a character piece is a slow burn or a rapid-fire shotgun; I just care if there is progression at all, and Our Aimless Nights has that in a very believable way. Give it a read, and maybe you'll find yourself slipping back into those moments where you were also an awkward teenager.
Rating:
Slow and sweet, Our Aimless Nights shares surface similarities with many other YA romance manga. Its protagonists, Chika and Waya, come from two different layers of the high school social strata, and both of them are wary of admitting their crushes, even though everyone around them can see the truth. They keep things as safe as possible, mostly just talking in the evenings after Waya finishes his job at a local corner store. This plays out against a soundtrack of school manga's greatest hits: sports festivals, wall slams, and group study sessions. It's well-worn in a comfortable way.
That comfort level is what's appealing about this series. It knows that you don't have to reinvent the wheel; you can make a really good wheel that moves as best it can. Chiefly, this is accomplished by making Waya and Chika recognizable tropes that are also actual people. Chika's parents are recently divorced, meaning that she's looking for stability in a life suddenly unbalanced, and she finds that in both her unabashed love for a weird franchise called "Cat Boss" and in getting to know Waya. Waya, meanwhile, gives clear hints that he spent middle school being bullied on some level and is much less trusting of Chika than she is of him, but the lure of someone who seems to want to hang around him and know him better is too much for him to resist. They form a place of peace for each other, even without knowing what they're doing.
I think that's what I like most here –Chika and Waya are just two kids stumbling around a relationship. They're both insecure enough that they can't quite trust that the other likes them. By the end of the volume, they've only just figured out that they each have a crush, and that has made them new and weirdly awkward, especially Chika, who thinks that Waya has rejected their friendship with his attempts to "protect" her from the social stigma he thinks she'll suffer if it's known that they're hanging out. It's quietly real, and the use of multiple points of view, which change every so often, helps to ground this in the embarrassing reality of being in high school. It's not a series that's doing anything new, but it does the old with real understanding, and that makes it worth checking out.
Rating:
It's tough to sell me on a "slow burn high school love story" simply because there are so many of them! However, I'd encourage romance fans to check out Our Aimless Nights, a sweet take on the genre with plenty of character. With likable protagonists, an energetic ensemble cast, and a fun high school setting, it reminds me of modern classics like Skip and Loafer.
Chika is a bubbly girl with no shortage of friends. Waya is seemingly the opposite, a quiet loner who barely says a word to anyone at school. But when Chika moves to a new neighborhood and clocks Waya working the convenience store cash register, the pair hit it off unexpectedly. In an unfamiliar neighborhood, Waya is a welcome comfort to Chika. Meanwhile, Chika is everything Waya wishes he could be: a natural extrovert who's effortlessly friendly. Even before the two realize why they're so drawn to one another (spoiler alert: it's a crush!), they find reasons to strike up conversations and hang out more and more. While this story does rely on old standards like characters' internal overanalysis of each others' actions when they should just talk it out, these miscommunications don't last long enough to get frustrating. These tropes are common because real people act like this, and seeing that even Chika gets anxious about her crush shows us a new, natural-feeling side of her personality.
More than halfway through this volume, Our Aimless Nights introduces a B couple: Chika's serious class president friend Mako and the hapless Goofy-toothed Shibaken. They make an even odder couple than Chika and Waya! I am not a fan of Shibaken's look (he looks like he got his front teeth knocked out in a fight with a character designer), but I love this pair's chemistry just as much. Even though Chika and Waya's love story is far from over—and this volume concludes on a cliffhanger that ought to be illegal—I appreciated how the manga is fleshing out their friend group, too. It'll make it more interesting when everyone realizes that Chika and Waya are dating. (Chika and Waya just need to realize it first.)
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