This is the penultimate volume of the series, so like any good story, School-Live! volume 11 is preparing for the ending. It’s shaping up to be quite an ending based upon what happens here.
Unfortunately, not all the chapters here are great at building up to it.
I was kind of annoyed with the last volume with the introduction of Bowman-kun, the AI that doubles as a voice stress lie detector. Sure enough, Bowman-kun is important here as Yuki and the gang debate about what to do about Kurumi. Do they reveal themselves to the Randall Protection Organization, or should they go on the run? Either way, they have no plans on separating.
Of course, what weighs on some of the characters’ minds is that their plan may not be the best course of action. As the situation makes several turns for the worst, this becomes even more obvious, even though the girls don’t want to admit it.
It’s these bad situations piling up on top of one another that makes this volume. At the beginning of volume 11, I just…wasn’t interested. It was seriously dull. There’s a whole zombie outbreak happening; I don’t care about whether a cell phone AI we met like one volume ago is lonely or not! The girls also go gathering supplies while Shiiko gives Miki advice to not take her advice. Not as bad as Bowman-kun, but not exciting. I mean, the ending is just around the corner — something you can sense even if you don’t know — and there’s little hype for about 1/3rd of the volume.
Thankfully, the manga slowly gets more emotional, building toward one of the girls narrating that these days are on a timer. We can see the mental and/or physical exhaustion building in each girl: Rii clutching the wheel, Kurumi trying to dictate a message, Miki seeing a face. But Yuki’s mental state seems precariously on the borderline between her childish and mature sides. Her positive attitude has been the emotional rock at times, but right now, the others don’t have time to indulge in burying her head in the sand. As easily as the creators could have made her throw fits and be annoying, they don’t; from her blunt words and expressions, it’s obvious Yuki wants to, but she won’t.
But while she has things she’s keeping in her heart, the art tries to keep the manga in reader’s hearts. There are some beautiful two-page spreads here that already make me nostalgic for this series. These images represent all that I liked about this series — the friendships, the bonding, the struggles. And I will miss this series when it finishes, but I definitely won’t miss the ridiculousness that is Bowman-kun and the slowness of volume 11’s opening.