Nana to Kaoru: Last Year

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I've read this while it was being released and recently got to re read it again. I was surprised to see there was not that many positive reviews so decided to leave my own. The last arc of the original series is SO bad and random I remember how excited I was when Last Year was announced. Black Label is still the peak of the series for me story-wise, but I feel this is an integral part of the Last Year developments. And it closes the series with a satisfying development and ending.

What I like the most is how it gives a lot more of ... Nana's perspective than the original series, especially after Tachibana gets more and more involved in the story. Also, her and Sarashina's addition addressed one of my biggest pet peeves in the original series of how it never actually presented actual S&M. This is actually mostly in Black Label but Last Year develops on it, how now they're both looking into new stuff, and shows how their experience with S&M is also improving along with their relationship as Nana gets more bold and trusts Kaoru more and more. I love that. Also, the complications in this run seemed more interesting than just the "school social status" from before.

The art is very inconsistent during the original run, but in Last Year the author is at their best. I still dislike Kaoru's gigantic frog mouth but especially Nana's expressions got a lot better since the first volumes of the OG series.

As a fan of the two previous mangas, I have to say that this one has disappointed me.

That doesn't mean I didn't like it, but I expected more and it also makes certain mistakes that make me and many other fans not like it as much.

Forced situations, the truth is that this already happened in previous ones, but at least there was a coherence in the feelings of the characters.

The Nana to Kaoru Black Label manga was already a good ending, this has been unnecessary and should be taken more as an alternative ending, since it seems to omit Black Label situations.

It's not all bad ... though, it's been a light and fun read and shows much more of something previous versions don't: the pain and fear you feel when you're happy, the duality of losing and getting, quite a philosophical theme that It is not seen that frequently, and on top of that they tell you about it with a bdsm story, it is certainly unique.

Now, do I recommend this reading? It's been 3 years since I read Nana to Kaouru and Black Label, so seeing these characters again has been fascinating, and the ending is quite good, (although there are some things that are too stupid
and nonsense in between). So yeah, I recommend it, but you should either watch it as a spinoff, or just not take it too seriously,

Review contains no spoilers and was written after completing the series

tldr: One step forward and five steps back. DON'T read it. It ruins what has come before. It undermines character development and lessens the overall story. It's a waste of time.

Nana to Kaoru, to me, has always been somewhat special. The manga has been around for quite a few years and I have the original and black label on my shelf so I am quite invested into what happens with these two.
I didnt expect there to be a sequal since I felt that Black Label left of at a very high note where one could ... guess what would happen to the two and this is where, to me, the main problem comes in.
A lot of the development that has been made in the previous two series gets ignored to create drama.
Some reactions and interaction come seemingly out of nowhere and feel completely out of character. Some of these left me quite irrationally furious and I wish I hadn't read it.
I'm vague on purpose so that maybe someone will read this review and decide not to read this manga.

4/10 due to the breathers still being nice but this is being VERY generous.