It’s been a *loooooong* time coming, this third (and I think final) volume of Tori Koro. As I am likely to be the only person who purchased the translations of Volume 1 and Volume 2, I would not expect to see it out in English any time soon.  ^_^

Volume 1 set the tone of this story about two high school students who come to stay with a friend of their mother’s, while they attend school. The daughter of the household, Yae, is older than both Makishi and Tatami, but looks significantly younger. Which supplies the fodder for about 1/4 the jokes.

By the second volume, we’ve added a fourth girl, Niwa-chan, a rich classmate who starts out with some significant social retardation but ends up with a huge, barely hidden crush on Yae. In addition to these characters, Yae has a big fat pigeon they call “Nanase” (Yae’s family name,) as a pet and her mother Sachie as, well, her mother. That’s pretty much the cast of characters.

The manga is another slice of life 4-koma (Yen Press…you listening??) manga in which the “adventures” revolve not around school, but around life outside school. Summer doldrums and taking out the right garbage on the right day, shopping and eating, etc, etc. There is no high drama here…in fact there is no drama here at all, just a series of untranslatable puns and really small misunderstandings that allow for “heh” moments of humor. For example, the absolutely side-pounding hilarity of the girls eating all the grapes and forgetting to leave any for mom. Or when Tatami addresses Niwa-chan’s mother with an informal, unprompted and weird nickname.

Niwa-chan provides the Yuri as always and by now, she’s not really even trying to hide it. If Yae was opposed, I’m pretty sure she’d be saying no to snuggling up against her. Not gay, but undoubtedly Yuri. :-)

While I can’t say this book is laugh out loud hysterical, I rarely find 4-koma to be that funny, so it’s not surprising. I was glad to get the final volume of this series even if there’s no real story to be resolved. Basically, I just liked the comic and wanted to read more. ^_^

For them as care, this volume also came with an alternate cover choice, with Yae portrayed as a fox girl.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 5
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Fanservice – 3 (with some small weirdness as Niwa-chan’s mother dresses in her school uniform…)

Overall – 6

Even though DrMaster did a bad job on the first two volumes, and even though this one is mostly full of not-particularly funny “jokes,” I’m kind of sad we’ll never see it in English. I’m not entirely sure why. ^_^;