Manga Monday: Oreimo: Kuroneko Vol. 2

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Manga Monday: Oreimo: Kuroneko Vol. 2

07/13/2015 4:13pm

The complex and fascinating high-school world continues and expands further in a second volume of Oreimo: Kuroneko, out next week…and I hate to say it this way, but you will not believe what the kids get up to in this one! Even I, a longtime fan of the series, had my eyebrows attempt to raise right off my face...but I digress.

The four volumes of the original Oreimo manga paint a portrait of a group of young people on that brief cusp between adolescence and adulthood, with all the pushing, pulling, nosebleeds, and hiding magazines under the bed that entails. To paraphrase the Beastie Boys, “Man, living at home is such a drag/Now your mom threw away your best doujin mag.” Except Mrs. Kousaka would probably make a sly remark about it rather than throw it away ^_^

These earlier volumes concentrated on the perspective of Kyousuke Kousaka, average high-school senior, unwittingly drawn into his younger sister Kirino’s bizarre world of otaku fandom, where they both find new, uneasy friends among other otaku young ladies. One of Kirino’s new friends/rivals, the moody, gothic Kuroneko (“black cat”), was firmly established as Oreimo’s #1 fan favorite character, and for good reason: her outsider ways and dark-humored sass contrasted so beautifully with Kirino's dazzling popular-girl persona. And yet, just as Kirino's perfection was a façade covering a complex, vulnerable young woman with intentions and desires even she can't quite understand, swinging around her irritability and egoism like a flail as if to parry them, Kuroneko's harshness (and egoism of her own) is a performance of a girl who is also thoughtful and compassionate.

In volume two, Kuroneko does her best to endure the aggravation of her classmates in P.E., trying to remain elegant and autonomous even as her friend (and crush object) Kyousuke encourages her to get involved with the more interesting school clubs. If there's one thing Kuroneko has an aptitude for, it's video games—but the assortment of weird personalities in the video game club are a challenge even for the self-styled Queen of Darkness!

We’ve got four more volumes of Kuroneko’s story coming up in 2015 and 2016 (Kuroneko’s story is a six-volume manga series, 50% longer than Kirino’s ^_^), and I can’t wait to see more of this superbly dramatic, hilariously overwrought, yet often emotionally honest manga series. The characters are so richly depicted, and their triumphs and struggles so familiar, that I feel like they're my friends, too!

—Jemiah Jefferson

Editor

Oreimo: Kuroneko Volume 2 TPB is available in comic shops July 22nd! Check out free preview pages here!

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Manga Monday: Oreimo: Kuroneko Vol. 2

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Manga Monday: Oreimo: Kuroneko Vol. 2

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