Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included Volumes 4 and 5 Review

When I last reviewed Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included, it was late 2023 and an anime adaptation had just been announced. Now that same anime has been and gone, having aired in the Spring season, but the original manga continues on and today I’m here to review Volumes 4 and 5 of this supernatural comedy series.

Volume 4 begins with the introduction of Shintaro’s aunt, Mari, who works as a mangaka and owns the apartment building Shintaro lives in. Mari is overworked (partly her own fault), but she’s finally handed off her latest manuscript and made it safely to her birthday. Unfortunately, while she hoped her editor would have some kind words for her or celebrate with her, Mari’s hopes were dashed. Now she’s fled to Shintaro’s apartment to celebrate with him and to spite her editor, should she need anything else work-related.

Of course, Shintaro hasn’t told Mari that the angel Towa is living with him, which leads her to assume that Towa must be his crush who is visiting. Now Shintaro must figure out a way to make Mari leave before Towa is forced to sleep on the balcony for the night…

Elsewhere in this instalment, Shintaro and his classmates attend a summer retreat at a hot spring courtesy of the Occult Research Club, which he still refuses to join but seems to have become an honorary part of anyway. With the air conditioner broken at the apartment, it does at least give him and Towa the excuse to get away from home and enjoy some downtime somewhere cooler.

And the summer fun doesn’t stop there as Volume 5 opens with Shintaro promising to teach Towa all about fireworks and sparklers. Although the two can’t go to a summer festival (since they’ve sadly missed them all), he still wants to enjoy this last staple of the season with her before returning to school for the new term.

Once Shintaro returns to school, Towa finds she has a lot more time on her hands and asks our protagonist to help find her a part-time job so she can save up some money of her own. Towa has been in the human world for a while now, so our protagonist is less worried that she’s going to accidentally reveal her otherworldly identity to bystanders. Of course, he still doesn’t want her to work somewhere that will take advantage of her somewhat naïve nature, so when Mari calls looking for someone to cook and clean her apartment, it seems like the perfect solution.

My biggest criticism of the first three volumes of Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included was the fact mangaka matoba kept introducing new character after new character without spending time developing them properly. So, I was relieved when, besides Mari, no other newbies were introduced in these two books and that Mari herself proved a remarkably good addition (not least because she’s an adult character compared to all the high schoolers).

Instead, our time is evenly split between Shintaro, Towa and his supernatural friends who all know Towa’s true identity as they enjoy their summer vacation (and several other holidays in Volume 5!). It’s these slice-of-life moments that matoba excels at capturing, similar to their previous series As Miss Beelzebub Likes. The chapters are charming, never outstay their welcome and offer us a fun read even if not a particularly deep experience.

I also appreciated that there’s at least one storyline without Shintaro, which involves the Snow Lady Noeru. Given she was introduced back in Volume 1, she’s stood by the wayside for quite some time as countless other girls came into the picture. It’s reassuring to see the spotlight return to her and offer some genuine character development.

If you watched the anime adaptation for this, you’ll recognise some of these storylines already. In a bid perhaps to escape the issues the manga has early on, the anime rearranged some of the content which made for a better experience. I find the artwork for the anime quite bland and it leaned into fan service more than the manga does, so despite fixing the pacing problems I much prefer the original work. Not least because matoba’s artwork is very detailed and cute in a way the anime didn’t manage to convey.

These two volumes come to the West thanks to Yen Press and continue to be translated by Kei Coffman with lettering by Katie Blakeslee. Both releases read well and come with extensive translation notes at the back, as well as colour images at the beginning. Volume 6 of the series is currently scheduled for an English release in December and Japan is only at Volume 7 so, as expected, the release schedule for this has slowed considerably now we’re caught up. Still, if these volumes are an indication it’s proving worth the wait.

Overall, Volumes 4 and 5 of Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included put the series back on the right track. With far fewer new additions to the (quite large) cast, mangaka matoba instead focuses on showcasing some fun and timely summer storylines. This is what I wanted this manga to be all along and I’m far more optimistic about its future than I was before.

Our review copies from Yen Press were supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.