James Nicoll Reviews

Insomniacs After School, Volume 6 is the sixth tankōbon in Makoto Ojiro’s contemporary manga series. Serialized in Shogakukan’s seinen manga magazine Weekly Big Comic Spirits, Insomniacs After School has been ongoing since May 2019. The English translation of Volume 6 came out in 2024.

Fellow insomniacs turned belated astronomers Ganta Nakami and Isaki Magari are pursuing their hobby in Isaki’s grandmother’s rural home. The teens were, of course, provided with a chaperone in the form of Isaki’s older sister Haya. Haya has better things to do with her time than keep an eye on two teenagers. When opportunity presented itself, Haya departed, leaving Ganta and Isaki alone.

However will two unsupervised teens fill the time?

A heart-to-heart discussion between Ganta and Isaki ends in a kiss. However, Ganta and Isaki are distressingly responsible. Having established mutual attraction, they put a pin in the discussion and leave it for another time, when other duties do not demand precedence.

In stark contrast to the expectations of virtually every adult who learns of their curious partnership, Ganta and Isaki invariably put unmonitored time to productive use. In the short term, this means attending to routine household tasks, from cleaning to shopping. In the longer term, astronomical photographs.

Nevertheless, teenagers are teenagers. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that teens in possession of an empty house with no adults in sight must be in want of an impromptu house party. Ganta and Isaki are no exception. In surprisingly short order, their friends descend on the house.

Zanny teen hijinks are doomed before they begin, due to the fact that Ganta and Isaki’s friends are very nearly as sensible, well-behaved young people as are Ganta and Isaki themselves. Fun is had… none of it of a nature to which adults would object.

The tiny flaw in the arrangement is that as previously established, virtually every adult who discovers Ganta and Isaki are in the habit of spending extensive periods alone, in the dark, assumes that the purpose must be romantic. Isaki’s parents discover that Haya abandoned Isaki with what must be Isaki’s hormone-deranged boyfriend. Clearly, immediate intervention is necessary.

Alas, the teens’ reaction to the news Isaki’s parents are on the way is the very worst option they could have selected.

~oOo~

I was going to review the second volume of Makoto Ojiro’s Cat Temple’s Miss Chion. However, while volume two was an entirely pleasant reading experience, it was not one in a manner that lends itself to review. There’s a lesson there, I am sure. On the plus side, if I am not going to review Miss Chion, I am free to archive binge it the next time I am grumpy.

Adults consistently assume Ganta and Isaki are engaged in illicit debauchery. There is scant evidence that any of the teens in this series do that, let alone terribly serious Ganta and effervescent Isaki. In the absence of any indication that the teenagers engage in shenanigans, one is forced to conclude that the adults base their unjust accusations on their own behavior when they were teens.

The art in this is consistently pleasing. In contrast to many other manga I could mention¹, the plot is actually going somewhere². As someone who consumes vast qualities of speculative fiction, it’s interesting to see proof that it’s possible to tell an engaging story without the usual adventure-facilitating explosions, chase scenes and carnage. This is a very heartening manga.

Insomniacs After School, Volume 6 is available (for pre-order) here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books). I did not find Insomniacs After School, Volume 6 at Apple Books.

1: I’d describe One Punch Man​’s Monster Association arc as glacial, but that might give an unduly optimistic impression of its pace.

2: Thanks to the teens’ courageous commitment to duty as they see it, the immediate destination may well be ​“consequences.”