Nakano’s B-Shock, on the other hand, is an entirely different proposition. It’s on the whole more outlandish, more ridiculous, a high concept series. It’s about two engineering students who, thanks to their mad professor, get bombs stuck to their wrists that don’t allow them to be more than 10m apart. In essence, it’s a series where two unlikely people are forced to be together at all times. It’s also a romantic comedy.

Part of the fun of the series is seeing the realistic response to the situation. The characters begin to ask themselves: what happens if I have to use the restroom? How do I keep a job like this? Things gets even more funny/interesting when the distance gets reduced to 1m. The scenes where the characters have to constantly stick together (this means pretending to be boyfriend/girlfriend in public because otherwise why are they holding on to each other) have an absurd, but iron-clad sense of logic to them. It makes sense to tie a rope between you – what would happen if one of you fell out of bed and one of you got separated?

When the series has that laser focus on the particulars of their situation and the growing affection between the characters, it excels. But I keep getting reminded of the long stretch in volume 2, where the lead characters have to deal with a pesky ghost, and I can’t help but feel that it’s wasted time. It’s space that is being taken away from the most interesting relationship/dynamic.

copied/pasted from my blog: www.thenextthingblog.wordpress.com