For “building manager” Hina Sakata, Anzu Shinohara has been a thorn in her side — from the constant mess being left around the building to other escapades — but with the latest incident (and her Dad not being around), she finally decides to personally speak to Anzu herself.
She ends up learning two things: one, Anzu is actually a guy, not a girl. And two — probably best not to break anything while inside someone else’s apartment.
Well, whoops on that last part.
Rila Kirishima’s World’s End and Apricot Jam so far presents a number of emotional beats, which revolves around two things: music and the past. The music part is pretty key, as not only is it something Hina loves, but she also broke (an already broken) keyboard, so at her insistence, she lets Anzu know he can request any favors from her. One of those favors ends up leading her to bring some food to a local club, and that leads her to discover he’s in a band. This then leads her to soon find out that this goofy, seemingly irresponsible man in Room 304 is actually a hot and talented musician. From then on, the two end up in on-and-off comedy-romance relationship, where her insistence of keeping a manager-tenant relationship clashes with her burgeoning feelings for Anzu.
The comedy and romance works out well enough, but the real heart of the story for me is the past for these two, and how that will play a role moving forward. While Hina acts as building manager at the Apricot House, she’s doing her best for her Dad, who is the actual building manager but is not always around and is currently separated from his wife. At this point it’s not confirmed if they’re divorced, but something led to the three being torn apart, and it seems to have happened once Hina was born. Now Hina is at a point where being by herself feels wrong, and for the most part, Anzu has been the one to try and break that up for good.
But despite her attempts to get closer to Anzu, Anzu himself is also hiding something that affects his moods and who he talks to. There was a comment by one of Hina’s friends that she didn’t mind if one of the hot guys in a band cheated on her — seems like a typical comment a high school age person that’s into bands would say — as long as he came back to her. And then not surprisingly, Hina ends up seeing Anzu kissing another women — and right when they seemed to make a breakthrough! So what gives?
Well, it may have to do with his own relationship with his family, whom he doesn’t want to see immediately. The other is a women that Hina sees in a photograph that Anzu carries in his car. There’s still little to go by regarding his past, but whatever it is, it’s clear he’s certainly changed because of all of this. And Hina has to try and figure that out, and maybe figure out how she wants to handle it.
World’s End and Apricot Jam happens to have the potential to be a pretty interesting romance manga, with a nice dose of humor and backstory included. The art isn’t always special, but the moments where we need to see Hina’s expressions whenever Anzu does something dumb or where Hina ends up becoming conflicted at how she feels about him is drawn really well. So I’m certainly interested to see where the series goes from here.