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イリヤの空、UFOの夏 (Sky of Iriya, Summer of UFO) Vol. 2Title: イリヤの空、UFOの夏 (Sky of Iriya, Summer of UFO) Vol. 2
Author: 秋山瑞人 (Mizuhito Akiyama)
Illustrator: 駒都え〜じ (Eiji Komatsu)
Book Size/Pages: A-6, 325pp.
Volume: 2/4
Original Serialization: Dengeki hp 10/01-12/01
First Printing: 11/25/01

After the first chapter of this volume, things got really boring until the bonus chapter. It's not that the story was bad, but after Iriya's narration, I really wanted more. Unfortunately, Iriya only makes a few very brief appearance after the first chapter. The focus is more on Akiho's relationship with Asaba. I really hope that the animation portrays Iriya's story about her past as well as I imagined it while reading. It's a very beautiful and sad monologue and I would hate it if the animation doesn't do it justice (but it's an OVA, so it should be better, right?).

There's a lot more insight into Yuuko's and Akiho's personality. My opinion of the those two supporting females has changed in this volume accordingly. The one drawback is that the story jumps around a lot. The author might write about a situation and then at the climax, go back in time to explain how the situation arose. It can be a little confusing at times.

Bonus includes the movie poster-like table of contents similar to the previous volume. The pullout is nice drawing of Akiho and Iriya. There's also a message from the author in the back.

4. 正しい原チャリの盗み方(後編) (How to Properly Steal a Mini-bike, Last Part): After the movie ends prematurely, Iriya and Asaba go to some food. Suizenji and Yuuko follow and stay close by so that he can hear Asaba's conversation. Iriya realizes that Asaba is bugged and has him go into the bathroom where she makes him strip. Iriya then hot-wires a scooter and tries to leave, but Suizenji and Yuuko follow them on their bike. Iriya manages to outmaneuver her pursuers and send them off the road into the river.

As they sit on the riverside, Suizenji and Yuuko start talking. Yuuko doesn't like Suizenji because she thinks he's the cause of her brother's trouble, especially with that incident with Iriya during the air-raid drill. Word had gotten around at school that Asaba was found on top of a naked and unconcious Iriya in the shelter and everything thinks Asaba is a perv. Suizenji calms her down by telling that those are just rumors about Asaba's motives and explains to her what he thinks really happened (and his intuition is pretty good).

Meanwhile, Iriya dumps her stolen scooter and walk away. Asaba assures her that no one is following them anymore and they decide to call it a day. They go to a bus stop and wait for Iriya's bus, which will be coming in half an hour. In the meantime, Asaba decides that rather than waiting at the stop, they can go to the park nearby. There, Iriya confesses that a fellow comrade died during training.

She used to be the youngest of 5 test pilots training in the Nevada deserts. The next youngest was a boy named Jamie Zachary, an ace pilot, but someone who would always pick on Iriya. One day, during training, his plane crashed for some unknown reason. The remaining four pilots decided to go to the crash site and sneak out of the base. After some hitchhiking and some tension among the members, they reach the location. But what they saw out there in the middle of the desert wasn't a scene of an accident, but rather, a newly constructed park, much like the one they're waiting at. That's when she realized that she and her comrades was alone in the world, children that no one wanted.

5. 十八時四十七分三十二秒(前編) (6:47:32pm, First Part): At the beginning of the school year, Akiho came into the second year, class #4. One of her classmates, Kiyomi, seemed very down and withdrawn and Akiho finds out that it's because her dog, Jubei, had passed away. She becomes more open, and one morning, she comes to class explaining to Akiho how the spirit of her dog visited her in her sleep. Their teacher though, scolds Kiyomi saying that there are no such things as ghosts. Asaba then interjects saying that the teacher might be right, but it's none of his business, much to the surprise of everyone in the class.

It's several days before the school festival, a big deal in such a small town. Suizenji has the idea that their club do a scale map of the base, complete with the secret planes they have there. Akiho doesn't like the fact that Suizenji did this without consulting the other members. She tells Asaba that they should do their own reporting on the events as their activity.

Iriya has been missing classes more frequently. She gets phone calls at school and leaves soon after. However, Asaba gets to talk to her about the festival and she says she'll do what he does. Asaba shows him Suizenji's models and she finds a dead locust. She weeps.

One night, when Asaba is going back to the club's room to work on their project, he sees Enomoto waiting for him. They go on the roof and have some ramen. Enomoto tells him that Iriya might not make it to the festival, but if she does, he wants Asaba to dance with her around the bonfire. As Asaba is about to leave, Enomoto tells him to wait 30 seconds and then look at the sky. Asaba sees a faint figure flying in the night sky. When he looks around him, Enomoto has disappeared.

6. 十八時四十七分三十二秒(後編) (6:47:32pm, Last Part): Asaba's parents close their store and attend the festival. They visit Yuuko's play (which she told them specifically not to watch) as well as go to the newspaper's club room. The father and Suizenji start talking about the happenings on the base. Suizenji asks if his father as seen the picture in the photograph he took of the mysterious people at the theater (Enomoto). The father hasn't. As the parents are later resting, a girl comes up to them and introduces herself as Akiho, Asaba's classmate and clubmate.

On the night of the festival, it's revealed that Suizenji has been videotaping everyone coming in and out of the club room. Without Iriya, Asaba decides to accompany Akiho to the bonfire after a conversation about practicing dancing as children. However, she gets herself (even more) drunk and tells him about how grateful she was that he stood up to their teacher for scolding her about believing in ghosts. Asaba is pretty sure that it was Kiyomi, not Akiho.

At one point in the night, there's a new report about escalating tensions (with Korea? It mentions 38th parallel) and suddently, all the pagers of military personnel at the festival go off. Asaba soon gets a page from the office telling him he has a phone call. It's from Iriya telling him to go to the training grounds at exactly 8:45pm. He rushes over there as soon as humanly possible. He reaches there one minute late, but looks up to see planes flying by. One in particular breaks formation and does some maneuvers before disappearing. He looks down and notices that his watch is stopped at 6:47:32pm.

Bonus. 死体を洗え (Wash the Corpses): In a girl's dorm on the base, a girl, Chumi is calling a friend of hers to tell her about a strange guy who asked her out on a date. She has to use the public phone because they're not allowed to have room phones for security reasons. It's easier to monitor calls with one phone.

Chumi explains that the guy took her out to dinner and told her a story about his "friend" Kimura (an alias) during his second year in college. Kimura supposedly had the ability to see ghosts and apparitions. He didn't get along with others, but this guy and Kimura became friends. One day, Kimura comes to him saying that he's found a good job at the base, treating corpses. Since the guy is almost broke, he takes the offer and works with Kimura at the base.

They are taken there in a windowless van. There are hundreds upon hundreds of containers that contains the bodies of the dead with the story that they were spies that had been killed on duty. However, all the bodies are Caucasian. As they worked day in and day out, Kimura starts becoming strange until one day at work, he breaks and starts going crazy screaming that the bodies are aliens. The two of them get whisked away and he doesn't hear from Kimura again.

After the story, there's some static on the line. Chimi asks her friend to answer a simple yes/no question about their past, but the receiving end hands up the phone without answering.


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