In this volume of Eita Mizuno’s Otherside Picnic manga adaptation, the February Station arc concludes… for now. Then Toriko pulls a vanishing act.
This volume contains chapters eleven to seventeen.
The hunt for Satsuki continues, but a heated argument brews between Sorawo and Toriko when Sorawo begins to have second thoughts in the face of Toriko’s heedless urgency. Sorawo heads to Toriko’s place to apologise, only to stumble into a liminal space between reality and the Otherside. That’s where she discovers another strange, ominous entity – the Time-Space Man – and realises that Toriko’s crossed to the Otherside without her! Unable to locate Toriko, Sorawo must put her feelings about Satsuki aside and enlist Kozakura’s help in finding their missing friend…
The first order of business in this volume of Otherside Picnic is to continue the February Station story, where Sorawo and Toriko are forced to use their unique abilities. Which really doesn’t do them any favours with the soldiers, so their time at Kisaragi Station is brought to a pretty abrupt end. At least for the time being; Sorawo does make it clear that she wants to save them.
But before that can happen, Sorawo has plenty she wants to say about their trips into the Otherside. Some very reasonable things, considering all the circumstances that she and Toriko have faced up to this point. Which is all well and good until Sorawo brings up Satsuki.
So the next trip into the Otherside will be a solo one for Sorawo… until she realises just how much of a comforting presence Toriko is for her when they are in that bizarre world. So, she enlists the help of Kozakura, but only after experiencing some more bizarre phenomena.
Kozakura is understandably reluctant to get involved in all that, not that she really ends up having a choice. But hey, I’m always happy to get more Kozakura.
Good volume here. The Otherside phenomena are depicted pretty accurately from what I recall reading in the light novel. We also get an idea of what Toriko means to Sorawo, especially when they’re apart.
Rory Muses 