Fly Me To The Moon (Tonikaku Cawaii) Volume 1

 

Art & Story: Kenjiro Hata
Translation: John Werry
Touch-up Art and Lettering: Evan Waldinger
Design: Jimmy Presler
Editor: Shaenon K. Garrity

Puppy love, true love, fleeting love. There's tons of ways to describe the many kinds of love we experience while growing up. Many of us know that it's unrealistic to fall in love and stay together with someone for many years. Not everyone marries their high school sweetheart! But what happens when Nasa Yuzaki one day falls in love with the cool, ephemeral beauty known as Tsukasa one fateful evening, and then proposes on the spot? Fly Me To The Moon, or Tonikaku Cawaii (henceforth abbreviated as Tonikaku) as it's known in Japan, is a Weekly Shonen Sunday series that has finally officially debuted in English, to much fanfare. Kenjiro Hata is known previously for his work on Hayate the Combat Butler, an action rom-com with a decidedly "moe" sort of art style. Join me today as we take a look at what makes this laid back romantic comedy land among the stars. 

Nasa Yuzaki is a peculiar name--his parents named him with the kanji for starry sky (星空) but pronounced Nasa, in the hopes that he has dreams as ambitious as the universe. He was made fun of for having such a ridiculous name, which in turn kinda made his parents hopes a reality. It turns out, he's a very resilient person, and instead of taking any mistreatment at face value, he decided that he's going to become great enough to eclipse his own namesake. This is the first thing that endears us as an audience to Nasa, and it happens within 12 pages of the first chapter. Nasa is very blunt, earnest, smart, and resilient. These are his core character traits, and the way this specific combination comprises the bulk of his decision making are why the events that go down this book have any sort of consequence or even are entertaining to begin with. After taking a bus to an entrance exam for a school that'll bring him closer to his dream, he gets distracted by a beautiful girl who looks around his age, drinking coffee near the bus stop. On his way to talk to her, truck-kun says hello, and the girl in question says, "No, it's not time for this series to turn into an isekai," and ends their interaction right there. In all seriousness though, this scene is where we first get Moon imagery beyond Nasa's naming motif. As the girl leaves once Nasa's life is secured, he feels intense regret at the prospect of letting her go forever, like the Tale of Princess Kaguya. He catches up to her and after getting even more smitten, manages to ask her out, then propose before passing out. Nasa is very gutsy! He responded without hesitation when the girl said she could only be with him if he marries her. This kind of introduction is just as unrealistic as marrying your high school sweetheart, but with Nasa skipping a few steps in between, and the Kaguya motif, this introduction comes off more like the start of a folk tale or legend than just a normal story. After all, it's easy to accept the unacceptable if it's presented as fantastical from the start, right?

 

Computer in Nasa's brain: If feelings=Love, Then Nasa=confess

Several years after their initial encounter, Nasa has his own apartment and dropped out of high school in order to save money while working in hopes of meeting her. She arrives on the day he turns 18 and introduces her self as Tsukasa. Frankly, having all of this setup condensed into just 3 chapters is not something I'd expect from a Sunday series. But, there are plenty of jokes and references sprinkled out, which makes the tone of the series much less serious and instead evoke the same kind of laid-back atmosphere you'd come to know and love from this magazine. Once Tsukasa comes back to the story, the plot settles into a rhythm of showing mundane events that a couple living together might go through. That is the true appeal of this series. Nasa is a scholar and, while not socially inept, inexperienced when it comes to love and romance. A lot of this first volume is him and Tsukasa slowly bridging the distance between each other as strangers who have come together through fate and mutual attraction. The transition between a hard to believe, almost folk tale style of beginning, into a more banal, everyday kind of story might be hard to wrap one's head around. You could say it's like trying to have your cake, and eating it--or seeing the moon, and deciding to fly towards it. From the start, though, the laid-back feeling of the series makes the events come off in a lackadaisical or whimsical light. Even when Nasa is on death's door, all he could think about was how cute Tsukasa was, and it gave him the adrenaline rush needed to ignore his leg injuries until he actually passed out. It's very much the kind of writing that comes off as self-serving for the sake of the story. However, what makes it work by suspending our disbelief, is the fact that it's in line with Nasa's character. His earnestness, bluntness, and resilience come in full force at the same time in order to let him squeeze out those words--I really like you--before it's time to conk out on the snowy road.

As far as the jokes go, Tonikaku is rife with plenty of pop culture references, like Hayate also was. What makes Tonikaku stand out though, is the timing of those jokes. A lot of the jokes and references in this series are more blink-and-miss-them. From chapter titles to single panel easter eggs, Hata-sensei goes from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Monogatari Series, Kinnikuman, Danganronpa, and even real life places and names like Don Quixote (Japanese retail chain), or Amazon and Jeff Bezos. The impressive part is that the references themselves at least have some relevance to whatever context they're put in. The Kinnikuman reference comes up when Nasa brings up the concept of "Superhumans" in his ambition to become an incredible human. For Madoka Magica, Kyubey's contracts are referenced when bringing up how easy it is to submit a contractual marriage application, due to the fact that this specific kind of social service option is open to the public at any time of the day. If anything, Tsukasa also said that celebrities take advantage of the fact that people can get married at night, and that could have been from Hata-sensei's personal experience marrying Masumi Asano, who voiced the character Risa Asakaze in the anime adaptation of his own previous work, Hayate the Combat Butler. The cut of Tsukasa's jib is a very welcome addition to liven up her dynamic with Nasa. She can be just as frank, but because of her love of pop culture, does a great job of knowing when to be sarcastic or when to be a straight (wo)man to Nasa's ignorance of the world. One of my favorite jokes is in the extras towards the end, when Tsukasa wants to create a scene with a fake death, using the same Excalibur from the Fate/ series. The scene was Ayako Kawasumi slaying Nasa in a fit of rage when he wouldn't cook for her. The joke is that she voices Saber, a servant for Shiro Emiya who is really good at domestic chores, which Nasa isn't quite as talented in (as far as cooking goes at least). Nasa agrees, Tsukasa is mildly impressed that he went along with her whim, and when he goes the extra mile to craft an actual replica of the sword, she gets very engaged with acting along. The scene ends with him saying he loves her and we get a rare instance of Tsukasa blushing, caught off guard by his willingness to say stuff like that without being embarrassed.

Danganronpa, Amazon Prime (is that an IRL reference?!), and dunking on Bezos in the same page?! Hata-sensei, you absolute madman

 Nasa and Tsukasa are a phenomenally cute couple. If not for their chemistry, and the way that their budding romance palpably develops, this volume would not have been as enjoyable to read as it was. I mentioned Tsukasa blushing at Nasa's willingness to shower her with affection, but for the most part, she is very much a "cool beauty" type of anime girl. She shows just as much worldly knowledge and proficiency in things as Nasa, albeit in different fields, and while you can tell she wasn't as immediately enamored as Nasa was with her, she definitely feels some attraction to him. The spark may have just been from him displaying just how much he likes her, but that doesn't invalidate her feelings at all. At the end of the day, we all want someone who loves us. In one of the chapter extras, we see her response to what she likes about him being the fact that he loves her so much. It can come off as a really cocky or selfish response, but from what we've seen, she really does value the fact that Nasa treasures her so much. As readers, we can tell that she's actually warming up to him by their casual conversations, and willingness to flirt back while keeping the appropriate emotional distance for a couple that is still getting to know each other. By the end of volume 1, we see them going on a first-name basis, and Tsukasa being flustered by the first time due to Nasa adding a -chan honorific because it sounds cute. They're both smart, emotionally mature people, but just a little clumsy. That makes for some super wholesome moments, and what readers of this series should probably expect moving forward.

I can't believe they left this uncensored. I thought Sunday was for Christians!

For a first volume, Fly Me To The Moon had a very satisfying start. It's very much a, "Damn, I love my wife" kind of story, and if that legendary Reddit poster from r/ambien has showed us anything, it's that people love to see husbands be head over heels over their wife. The wholesomeness exuded by this story will leave you feeling warm and bubbly. In its debut issue in Sunday, there was a short extra chapter written and drawn by Koji Kumeta, author of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Kakushigoto: My Dad's Secret Ambition--under whom Hata-sensei previously worked for as an assistant. It mostly comprises of Kumeta-sensei wryly commenting on how unrealistic this story is, and the fact that Hata-sensei's readers likely won't even be able to relate even though they're probably of marriageable age, because they're the kind of otaku who wouldn't get married. Normally, this might seem pretty harsh for a burn, but it was all said tongue-in-cheek, as the series itself grew plenty of popularity by the time the volume was released, even if it came out at a faster pace than most Sunday series. Kumeta-sensei is known for making harsh jokes but even in the short excerpt, his own characters were berating him for being so crass and inconsiderate of his junior. To our knowledge, this chapter hasn't been collected in a volume. Instead, for the Japanese volume release, the table of contents includes the corresponding issue for Sunday that each chapter ran in. Not only that, but we also get the question and answer that Hata gave for that week's issue! There were a handful of 4-koma skits in color, and one gag interview page about a youtuber answering audience questions. Funnily enough, the first volume's release date was actually advertised along with the publishing of the first chapter in Sunday. This was a first for the magazine itself! As for this official English release extras, we got the post-chapter doodles, the Excalibur skit, and it's capped off with Nasa/Tsukasa's original character designs and the Q&A from the end of the volume. It's a shame we didn't get the panel showing us that, had Nasa gotten the Death Note, he would become God within 2 weeks.

 

Extra from the Japanese Volume featring the Youtuber Yakumo Nanahi answering a question from a fan. 

Extra introducing Nasa. Take note of the third panel: A clear Death Note Parody.

For the official English release, you can find it in print and digital thanks to Viz Media. The content is far from similar, but people who enjoy Komi Can't Communicate will probably got plenty of mileage out of this series, due to the chemistry of the main couple and its breezy pacing. If anime is more your speed, you can look forward to the anime adaptation premiering on Crunchyroll later this month!

This review was written thanks to Netgalley and Viz Media for providing a review copy.