Call of the Night (2020)

[よふかしのうた]

Volume 4

Author/Artist: Kotoyama
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
Midori invites Nazuna to help out at the maid cafe where she works.

Story/Characters:
We start off with something of an epilogue for the Seri-Akiyama story and the perspective of a newly sired vampire provides some tantalizing insight for both Kou and the audience. We bring back Midori for a three-parter about her work at a maid cafe where Kou gets to try his hand at being a detective. We then get a chapter from Akira's perspective, where we learn that she was a little more familiar with Kou's situation prior to him dropping out than we thought. On that note, Kou has a late-night encounter with his homeroom teacher, which goes a long way toward humanizing said teacher in Kou's eyes. From there, Nazuna uses her newly acquired income from working at the maid cafe to upgrade the facilities and sends Kou to drum up customers, leading to his encounter with a new character, the private detective Anko Uguisu. After that, Kou meets up with Akira and Mahiru to horse around in the school after hours, leading to an encounter that may well completely change the course of the series.

Art:
There's an obvious fanservice factor of the maid cafe chapters, but I particularly like the "bad side" shot of Nazuna. It's hilarious. Uguisu has a rather distinctive design that draws your interest right way. Then there's the encounter in the school that verges on horror. We may well be seeing more of that in the near future.

Other:
We have a little bonus chapter with Nazuna trying to help Kou relax, concept art of Midori and Mahiru, and an after word that's mostly Kotoyama talking about how he doesn't know what to write in the afterword. ^o^

Conclusion:
For most of this volume, we continue on along the course as we've been going, interesting little character episodes that expand Kou's human experience, but then Uguisu shows up and things change. The teaser for next volume says "The nights of fun are over..." I expect we'll still have some of the light slice-of-life content, but the main plot is bound to become quite a bit heavier. I'm definitely interested in seeing how this plays out and eagerly await the next volume. In the meantime, add this one to the collection.

Rating:
Own It