Bingo 22: Green
The cover is green. Thematically, there’s a potential sense of a potential new season of life (kind of a stretch but possible)., like spring means natural green coming back.
Toilet-bound Hanako-kun (vol 22) is a weird little ghost story, sometimes going for spooky, sometimes going for cutesey. This volume jumps into one adventure, finishes the first segment, and cues up the next part of the arc. The time-keeper supernaturals have ‘arrested’ Yashiro whose been turned into a toddler along with Hanako, Amane gets involved in that mess as well, and so does Teru, Aoi’s older brother. Aoi and the clock-keepers explain some of what’s going on, namely time has been disrupted, and needs to be reset, and whoever was responsible needs to be punished. There’s also a side story with Natsuhiko and Mitsuba that gets a little darker, but maybe it’ll be affected by the reset, so it won’t be too bad? Once there’s been a time reset, who is going to remember the previous version of time, and will this one be better? Stay tuned.
A new season might be starting here, but of course the open question that is openly asked is whether or not it’s going to be a good new present, and is it going to stick around? The shrinkify cute trope is silly, the good/bad twin is here and slightly but not really ambiguous, the siblings forced into conflict, the supernatural forces taking over for humanity’s own good are all present, but none of it seems that terribly threatening. Maybe a little discomfort, but this part seems almost cozy spooky. The horror part is definitely caused by Natsuhiko, who has always been sketchy, and visible in what starts happening to Mistuba. But since there’s a chance this all gets undone, maybe even this part wont’ been permanent bad, which waters down the horror factor a little. I’m not totally mad about that, but Mitsuba is an irritating character, even if he is supposed to be tragic. Natsuhiko is unlikeable, and doesn’t seem to care. We don’t know how that encounter will turn out, so for now, it’s going to be up to Yashiro to figure out what’s going on, and find a way to fix anything that probably is going to need fixing. Because that’s just how these kinds of things tend to go.