Nezumi’s First Love Volumes 2 and 3 Review

Volume 1 of Nezumi’s First Love introduced us to the complicated relationship between the yakuza-trained hitman Nezumi and the seemingly ordinary boy, Ao. But now Ao knows about Nezumi’s work and has gotten himself tangled up with the yakuza, will their relationship survive? That is the question posed to us in these two new volumes!

Iruka, who leads the yakuza group Nezumi works with, has tasked her with training Ao to be an assassin; otherwise they’ll kill him: a compromise they came to after Nezumi threatened to kill herself, should they harm Ao. He’s gone through training and is now being sent on his first mission, but can someone who has lived their life in an otherwise normal manner really bring an end to someone else’s?

Ultimately, Ao manages to go through with his first hit while thinking of his everyday life with Nezumi. He struggles with it, of course, especially as he feels he should be helping these people immediately after causing deathly harm to them. But for Nezumi, he’s willing to do anything to ensure they can continue living in their romantic bliss.

While this is a life-changing event for Ao, it’s business as usual for Nezumi. As the days go on, the two continue to take on hits from Iruka, and these are only increasing in difficulty for Ao. One mission sees him tasked with killing three people at once, and it’s here that Ao finally makes what could be a fatal mistake. A child happens to witness his kills, but Ao can’t bring himself to harm her and lets her go (believing naively that she’s asleep and hasn’t seen).

Ao doesn’t realise that the girl, known as Messiah, is actually another trained killer, just like Nezumi. To make matters worse, she works for a rival group that kidnaps Ao for information. Iruka has no intention of getting involved, knowing that Ao would sooner die than reveal anything that could put his beloved partner in danger. But Nezumi is unwilling to leave him to his fate and bargains with Iruka once again.

Volume 3 is all about Nezumi going on a killing spree to save Ao. With no backup and over 60 enemies on-site as well as Messiah, our protagonist has her work cut out for her. But once again, these strong feelings of love seem to propel her forward, no matter what problems she faces. The real question is whether Ao will still be alive by the end of it all.

Just like the first volume, the story continues to be a depiction of an obsessive and unhealthy relationship. And Volume 3 in particular is very violent and grim, since there are none of the daily life scenes to help balance it out. Nezumi is desperate to save Ao, and that comes through in Oseto’s art, with hectic fight scenes where blood and body parts are flying all over the place.

However, even after these two volumes I still have a lot of questions that haven’t been answered,  especially surrounding Iruka, who seems keen to get rid of Ao but can’t go against Nezumi’s wishes. By allowing her to go in against the rival gang, was he hoping to kill two birds with one stone? Why are there other child assassins? And there’s still the question of why Ao is so happy to dedicate his life to someone that murdered his sister. I’m hoping Volume 4 may shed some more light on some of this, as right now I’m growing tired of the constant murder with nothing deeper to dig into. Especially as Nezumi’s rescue mission took up a whole volume without anything of real substance being revealed. I certainly think if you’re on the fence about continuing, these two volumes won’t do a whole lot to change your mind. Which is a shame!

Nezumi’s First Love continues to come to the West thanks to Kodansha under the Vertical imprint, and these two volumes are translated by Jonathan Thumas with lettering by Arbash Mughal. Both releases read well, but neither has any extras to speak of. Volume 4 is set for an English release in June, with #5 following in September.

Overall, Nezumi’s First Love continues to be fairly grim reading in these two further volumes. We’re watching Ao descend further into the underworld and lose his humanity, while Nezumi goes on a killing spree. It’s lacking a deeper hook right now, which I can only hope Volume 4 will provide.

Our review copies from Kodansha (Vertical) were supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).