Being a Kowloon Generic Romance fan is suffering. Since I last reviewed volumes 7 and 8 back in November 2024, only two further volumes have been published in English, with the eleventh due at the end of May 2026. The only bright spot in this purgatorial existence was last year's anime, which adapted the entire series, however, with an anime-original ending. Manga volumes 9 and 10 are roughly equivalent to anime episodes 10 and 11, but from volume 10 onwards, there are significant divergences from the anime. Author Jun Mayuzuki hasn't yet completed the manga, and her latest chapter (as of writing), 106, will eventually be collected into volume 13, which I expect will probably be the conclusion. Regardless, reading new volumes of Kowloon Generic Romance is a different experience now that the anime at least appears to have answered some of the most important lingering mysteries?

Where the anime rushed through the material, accelerating at breakneck speed towards the end, the manga continues its unrushed, almost languid pace, each chapter focusing usually on a single plot point or character. I particularly like the chapters where Kujirai A spies on Kujirai B's past life through her spectacle lenses. Mayuzuki is often playful with her panel layouts and page compositions – entire sections are comprised entirely of partial views seen through the spectacles, culminating in a dramatic image that reveals the stark differences between past Hajime Kudou and his present self. Past Kudou smiled naturally, joyfully even, around the woman he loved. Kujirai A laments that he's never shown that side of himself to her. She makes an understandable and sensible decision to break off their tentative relationship. Who does Kudou see when he looks at her? The specter of a dead woman, and clinging to her, isn't healthy for him, or for Kujirai. She deserves someone who accepts her for who she is, not someone who pines for who she's not.

The other main motif that Mayuzuki explores is of the talismans plastered all across Kowloon. When Kujirai peels them from the walls, many have what look like internet error codes printed on their backs, which is a major clue as to the seemingly synthetic, digital origin of this ersatz city. When she finds a talisman with the phrase “don't look for it any more,” which Kudou later repeats to her regarding her search for the truth of Kujirai B's death, she begins to put the pieces together.

Gwen is also gradually beginning to understand the underlying source of Kowloon's existence, and it most certainly has something to do with Kudou. Whatever Kudou doesn't know about the past Kowloon doesn't appear in the current Kowloon until he's told about it. This is probably subconscious, but it gives us the biggest hint yet that the whole city is somehow a reflection of Kudou's mental state. It still doesn't explain to us what Kujirai A is exactly, and Kudou doesn't know either. Multiple residents have disappeared recently, and that's either because their “original” from outside Kowloon has entered the city, causing their copies to disappear in a quantum physics-like “poof” of unreality, or because they've attempted to leave, and therefore ceased to exist.

A major, and extremely upsetting, plot event from later in the anime doesn't seem to happen at all in this version, which leads me to wonder why it was even included there at all. (I won't spoil it here, though.) Instead, the general shape of the story is similar, but it takes a different way of getting there. I suppose it's kind of similar to how Trigun's 1998 TV version and later Trigun Maximum manga handled the same story, with similar themes and events, but executed in drastically different ways. It's too early to say at the moment how far the two versions of Kowloon Generic Romance will differ as the chapters roll on, but I find myself pointing out bits saying “well that didn't happen in the anime,” which is a very different vibe to the pervasive mystery of my pre-anime experience of the previous volumes.

Ditzy blonde best friend Yaomay remains one of my favorite characters, and it's heartbreaking that she's separated from Kujirai. I get that she must pursue her own goals to “become her absolute self,” after all, it's Kujirai that taught her to do that, but it leaves Kujirai more alone than she ever has been. One of the major divergences between Kujirai A and B is that B never had someone like Yaomay in her life. The more we learn about her, the more we realize that her seemingly confident, happy exterior hid a soul spiraling on the edge. This was a woman who refused to visit new restaurants because she liked the old ones, someone who couldn't imagine a life away from Kowloon, despite its imminent demolition. And when a hopeful Kudou surprises her with a proposal as summer comes to an end… her bizarre decision brings nothing but tragedy and heartbreak.

It's not hard to blame Kujirai B for the current Kudou's brokenness. The whole Hebinuma subplot about their withdrawn psychedelic/poisonous drug feels like a big plot contrivance to me, and Kujirai B's decision to gamble her life away with it is frankly baffling. That's kind of the point, though. I don't think we're meant to empathize with her. We'll maybe never fully understand her motivations, but it seems that cowardice and possibly depression were major aspects of her personality. Kujirai A couldn't be more different, and I hope that by the series end, she'll be able to stand apart from the shadow of her predecessor, her broken ex-boyfriend, and the tomb-like city that entraps her soul. While everyone else around her remains prisoners of their own regret, pulled into Kowloon like insects by a pitcher plant, Kujirai deserves to fly free, away from this place.

Apart from some minor niggles about the background pharmaceutical conspiracy plot, these are another pair of strong volumes of Kowloon Generic Romance. It's maddening that it could still be another couple of years at the current pace before manga readers are blessed with their own version of the ending. There's enough divergence in these later chapters, and enough material in earlier volumes skipped by the anime adaptation, that I still heartily recommend that fans experience both. It's a series I've read and re-read multiple times now over the years, and Mayuzuki's hypnotically beautiful art never fails to draw me into her skewed world of not-quite-real people who live in a not-quite-real city. As much as I don't want it to end… I'm clamoring for some closure now. Guess I'll just have to keep being patient. Very, very patient.