Nanoha and Chidori are two young woman in love. They know that when they graduate thing will change and their lives will grow more compliacated, but for this one summer…. life is relatively simple.

Nanoha plans a wonderful, romantic date for Chidori’s birthday. While laying there, contemplating life after a magnificent picnic lunch, a sudden downpour drenches them both, in a moment that they both know is very representative of life. But still, it doesn’t change that they are happy and in love.

Kobachi Ruka’s Hana ni Arashi, Volume 11 (はなにあらし) is one more quietly sweet, timeless volume in this series that I cannot imagine has been given 11 volumes to so slowly movie through the lives of Nanoha and Chidori it almost feels as if we’re reading in real time.(Not really, but you know what I mean.) If anything, I force myself to read this manga slowly, so I don’t speed through it at the same pace they are speeding through their youth. ^_^

The art and narrative here are pretty, much like this cover. It’s all about precious moments that we remember. Many years from now they’ll be talk about that day and they’ll laugh, but one will remember the smell of the wet bus stop, and the other, the sun on their skin and it will fill them both with a lot of unspoken memories., which is exactly why we’re reading this series – to relive those moments from own own lives.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 1 Nanoha and Chidori dressing up for one another is a kind of service

Overall – 7

Only recently, my wife and were reminiscing about our dates to an infamous rodent-mascot pizza and arcade chain, before it got really the fuck weird, when it was only marginally weird. The pizza was never good, but the arcade was fantastic. We spent a lot of time and quarters  there. Oddly, I can only remember what it sounded like….you’d think I would be able to remember the smell of pizza.

I was wrong, there is a Volume 12…and 13, which appears to be the final volume. I can’t say I’m on tenterhooks, but I’ll be interested to see where this ends.