Asadora! vol. 2
It was one thing for the opening pages of vol. 1 to imply that this was going to be a story about a girl and her relationship with a giant monster that was clearly Not Godzilla. It wasn’t until the very end of that volume where it became clear that’s exactly what this story was going to be about. Very slowly, though, as the majority of this volume doesn’t deal with the Big Not G at all. No, vol. 2 starts off with a brief jungle detour before coming back to protagonist Asa Asada in a plan with Kasuga as the two of them are still delivering supplies to the typhoon survivors and trying to find the girl’s family. This is something that’s complicated by Kasuga’s blood loss, a package that’s in the plane he stole, and the tail of the giant… whatever it is that’s still lurking in the harbor. Still, all of these should be easily surmountable problems for a girl with as much grit and determination as Asa has, right?
As was the case with vol. 1, your enjoyment of this series is likely going to hinge on how much you can buy into Asa being able to do all of the incredibly heroic stuff that she does. I was generally able to do that there, and the case is the same here. It would’ve been more impressive if some of these heroic acts weren’t so obviously telegraphed, but mangaka Naoki Urasawa’s confidence as a storyteller is such that I was able to be drawn in by these actions anyway.
Asa’s age won’t be a problem going forward as there’s a bit of a time-skip towards the end of the volume. It’s clear that the intervening years have imparted some maturity, but there are certain circumstances involving her family which further it even more. Urasawa also sets the story up for more intrigue after the time-skip as an old military friend of Kasuga’s comes to visit and Asa has a chance encounter that connects the jungle trip at the volume’s beginning to its present day. This is all entertaining enough on its own terms, even if it hasn’t caught fire yet like the mangaka’s best work had done by this point already.