A little effort goes a long way – that’s what Sachiko Azuma, her fellow parents, and the teachers learn as they struggle to work together to make life a little easier for the children in the Special Education class. With the help of innovative gadgets and the support of more people than meet the eye, Hikaru and Miyu become better able to communicate with the world around them. but when a teen idol classmate sends some mothers into a flashbulb frenzy that causes Hikaru to panic, other parents begin to question his presence alongside “normal” students in the classroom. And when Hikaru’s first school trip also leads to chaos, Sachiko begins to worry that Hikaru may be losing his hard-fought place in society. Will bad news from her husband Masato’s workplace shatter the delicate harmony the Azumas have worked so hard to achieve? (from the back of the book)
I’m starting to think the summaries on the books are trying too hard to create reader intrigue. A school trip that leads to chaos? Bad news shattering the delicate harmony? Flashbulb frenzy? I hate to disappoint people, but all of that are kind of exaggerations. Sometimes bad things happen to Hikaru and his family, but nothing so bad that I would call it ‘chaos’ or ‘harmony shattering’.
Hikaru is in the fifth grade now. He definitely come pretty far since the first volume. He can use helping technology to communicate, he reads kanji now, he’s interacting more with the people around him, and he’s becoming more and more independent.
Even though Aoki-sensei is no longer there, Hikaru’s time at school is still full of wonderful experiences because he’s there with his friends and other teachers who support him, including Gunji-sensei, who is really starting to come around although she still has a long way to go (at least she’s listening to the parents’ requests now… most of the time).
Technology is briefly touched on in this volume. Hikaru can use a VOCA, a machine that speaks pre-recorded messages when buttons are pressed, now and he uses it a few times here. The quarter hour watch, a timer, from the first volume was mentioned, and almost every adult character has a cell phone that sends pictures and text messages as well as calls.
Also in this volume: The Crayfish Experiment. That’s something that’s apparently been happening since Hikaru’s first year of school, but is probably only being mentioned now because Gunji-sensei refuses to do it when Hikaru first brings it up. Time to overcome obstacles! Gunji-sensei is grossed out by crayfish, so she doesn’t want to do it. That’s when some of Hikaru’s classmates and other teachers step up. Nishiwaki-sensei, Hikaru’s mainstream class teacher; Gori-sensei, who doesn’t seem to have his own class but is always there, and Wakabayashi-sensei work together with Gunji-sensei to make the experiment possible.
The experiment is also where the ‘flashbulb frenzy’ from the book’s summary comes in. Hikaru’s friend Kanata, his example for the Mouse March, is an idol now (he’s a singer or an actor, or something) and he’s pretty famous. When Hikaru goes to his mainstream class to join in on the presentation on the crayfish experiment there are parents there who are loud and wanting to take pictures of Kanata. All the noise they make bothers Hikaru and then about two or three camera flashes go off and Hikaru has to leave the room. Later on Sachiko overhears some parents saying mean remarks about Hikaru being included in the mainstream class.
After that scene Nishiwaki-sensei starts calling Aoki-sensei for advice about Hikaru. He learns some things that eventually help Hikaru to be able to stay in the mainstream classroom for longer periods of time without panicking or covering his ears.
Masato’s mother also shows up in this volume, and this is really the first time that we see her starting to favour Kanon over Hikaru. She visits Sachiko at home and talks to her about Kanon’s schooling. She basically says that Sachiko and Masato should enrol Kanon into a private school near her house and that she could take Kanon in and raise her. She insinuates that Sachiko cares more for Hikaru than she does for Kanon because of all the trouble Sachiko went through to find a good school for Hikaru. Masato soon puts a stop to that kind of talk, but I doubt we’ve seen the last of this attitude from Azuma-san (his mother).
Not much else out of the ordinary happens in the first half of the volume other than Hikaru and Kanon both get the chicken pox at two different times. Both instances present different problems. When Kanon is sick Sachiko has to stay home with her, so she can’t take Hikaru to and from school. From this she learns to rely more on outside support for help with Hikaru by getting involved with the Sunshine House. Not much is shown about Hikaru dealing with his chicken pox other than Hikaru not being happy about being sick. Dealing with the itchiness and not being able to leave the house was probably especially hard for him.
The second half of the volume was all about Hikaru’s school camping trip, which is my favourite part of Volume 3. This is a totally new experience for Hikaru because he’ll be gone for four days and three nights without his parents.
This is a big step for Hikaru. He’ll be going to a lot of new and different places in the space of only a few days with only his best friends and teachers to help him (he also gets his own personal support teacher). Hikaru has a great time on his trip, and it was a great opportunity for his teachers and support staff to learn new things about how to make life a little easier for him. Principal Kouda, however, learns nothing.
Aoki-sensei is also on this trip since his elementary school is also a part of the trip. He’s there with his new student, Tomoya-kun. He and Hikaru don’t really interact, but Hikaru does remember him.
Now for the ‘chaos’. On the first night at the hotel/resort thing everyone is staying at, Hikaru gets lost.
Well, he doesn’t really get lost; he just disappears for a bit. On a hiking trip earlier that day, everyone passed through a tunnel, which Hikaru enjoyed but had to leave before he was ready to. He wanted to go to the tunnel that night but couldn’t express it to anyone and ended up going to look for it himself. He wasn’t missing for very long and was found right next to the building. After that Nishiwaki-sensei and the support teacher sat down to try to figure out what happened (while Principal Kouda just yelled at them). That’s really all that happened surrounding the ‘chaos’.
Like I said, the second half of the volume was all about Hikaru’s trip, except for one little part where Masato got arrested.
Yeah. That was the ‘shattering harmony’ part. I’d hate to disappoint everyone, but Masato was only in police custody for a few hours late one night because he got drunk and got into a fight with another man. The reason for all of this was that Masato got a transfer because the higher ups at his workplace are trying to get him to quit without outright firing him. I think that only starts to really impact the story in the next volume.
So that’s Volume 3. Things happened, obstacles were overcome, and most of the characters grew as a result.
I don’t think I ever talked about the art in this series, so I’m gonna do that right now: the art in this series is pretty simple. The character designs are all quite cute, and Tobe-sensei did a good job in giving each character a different design. The characters all look different, even the background characters sometimes, and it’s easy to tell one from the other. There’s not much going on for backgrounds most of the time, but when they’re there they’re done well. There are also some patterns, mostly on the clothes, that are often reused.
Another thing is that Hikaru and his friends are babies at the start of this series and they age as the story goes on. This is done very well. The children all look their ages (the adults never really seem to age, but that’s not important). I point this out because a lot of the other manga I’ve read have some odd designs for children, usually making them tiny and chubby. That’s cute, but not very realistic. With the Light has some very realistic children (that goes for how they behave as well).
Next is Volume 4, where we’ll probably learn more about how Masato’s transfer affects the family.
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