It’s been well over half a year since My Boy volume 2. Satoko and Mashuu have been growing closer, but that also means she’s been venturing closer and closer to creepsville territory. Taking Mashuu places, inviting him over, offering to pay his soccer club fees? Satoko’s boss/ex-boyfriend (Shiikawa) is completely right that any parent would be disturbed or angry.
Which is why this third volume of the series finally does something it’s been teasing about: enter the father. His formal introduction means the ushering in of a new phase for My Boy.
It’s easy to have negative feelings about Mashuu’s dad. Dislike, hate, whatever you want to call it. After all, he’s gone for long hours of the day and leaves his house in squalor. When Satoko and Dad finally have a talk about Mashuu, his words feel more like the passive-aggressive “I’m only doing it for his sake” than the concerned words of a parent.
Yet he is a concerned parent. He’s tuned into his son’s feelings enough to meet with Satoko in the first place, and he’s not happy about a stranger hanging out with his son. He’s not some parent who shrugs it off or sees Satoko’s help as a way to have less responsibility. Truth is, if readers are going to judge him, then it’s impossible not to judge Satoko as well. She doesn’t reveal the full extent of her acquaintanceship with Mashuu, only telling Dad about soccer practice. So while readers may empathize with Satoko’s good intentions (and Mashuu himself doesn’t want to lose spending time with her), she is also mishandling the boy’s situation.
Now, based on the romantic undertones of My Boy, a time skip was to be expected. Well, the manga fast-forwards two years. Will this be the only one or the first of many? Who knows. But after the Satoko-Dad meeting, things change drastically, and now Mashuu has moved on to junior high.
It’s the time skip that’s the weakest part of the volume. While the rest of the story dives deep into Satoko’s psyche and subtle and not-so-subtle hints about Mashuu’s, Dad’s, and Shiikawa’s feelings, the manga rushes the post-time skip setup a bit. We see that Satoko is feeling restless about her life, and her mother’s pressuring for getting married leads to more irritation. But it still feels a bit crunched for time in order to get back to Mashuu. The author’s notes at the end state that Takano wanted to end the volume on a high or hopeful note rather than a cliffhanger. So we get one chapter post-time skip, and that’s probably why it feels rushed. It’s less miserable note to end on, but I don’t think it really works thematically.
Otherwise, My Boy continues to be a moving work showing Satoko’s delicate balance between what’s good for Mashuu and filling the hole in her heart. I’ll have to see whether the next arc upsets the equilibrium, but for now, it’s still a great manga.