Barakamon vol. 18+1
You might say that I jumped the gun on doing a podcast about this series with the appearance of this volume. The catch is that you can’t really vol. “18+1” a proper volume of “Barakamon.” It’s a collection of oddball short stories and ton of color art that you won’t find anywhere else (in a proper English release). So if you’re like me and you read through all eighteen volumes of the series proper, then these kinds of things will be easy enough to appreciate. Even if the price is higher, this one is $18 compared to $15 for the previous volumes, it’s not much of an issue when you consider all the color art you’re getting here.
Which is the main draw of “18+1.” Even though it promises an additional 70-odd pages of new stories, only two of the four have any real ties to the main story. The two that don’t are oddball curios that make you feel like mangaka Satsuki Yoshino made them just to amuse herself. How else am I supposed to feel about a story that has the cast develop superpowers like Handa’s ability to bleed ink, or Hiroshi’s ability to turn his plucked hairs into rolled omelets, or Hina’s ability to grow bigger by crying? Ditto for a story that has the cast randomly switching bodies. It’s good for a chuckle when you see who wound up where, but not much more than that.
As for the two stories that actually do tie into “Barakamon” proper, “Hiroshi in Tokyo” is a fun bit that shows how everyone’s favorite ordinary teenager is adapting to life in the big city. While it’s nice to see that the answer is “quite well,” the best part of the story is seeing Hiroshi unintentionally but thoroughly troll the annoying Kousuke with his utter lack of guile. Then there’s “A Slightly Later Story…” which starts off as “Seishuu Handa: The Recap” before revealing its real agenda. Without giving too much away, it’s a proper epilogue to the series even if it teases and then backs off from showing us what we really want to see. That said, “18+1” is a welcome bundle of fanservice that promises the best kind of gift a fan of this series could ask for: The chance to spend just a little more time with the residents of Nanatsutake Island.