Manga Reviews (2010-2019): Go With the Clouds North by Northwest vol. 3 by Irie Aki

Irie Aki’s “Go With the Clouds North by Northwest” is an entertaining manga series and you can’t help but feel that these last three volumes are a build-up to something big. Something dark and possibly terrifying. We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m definitely hooked on this manga!

MANGA TITLE: Go With the Clouds North by Northwest vol. 3

BY: Irie Aki

FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: Kodansha Ltd.

PUBLISHED IN USA BY: Vertical Comics

RATED: ALL

RELEASE DATE: December 17, 2019

After a much-needed vacation, Kei returns to the beat—a boy has gone missing, and his family is desperate to find him. A girl named Sigrún leads him to a mysterious flophouse, and Kei uses his strange affinity with technology to crack the case, this time by communing with cell phones as well as cars. But he has a strange feeling he’s visited the apartment before, and tension builds to violence as seemingly unrelated mysteries begin to converge…

In volume 3 of “Go With the Clouds North by Northwest”, a question will be answered. If Kei can speak to machines, does his brother Michitaka have any special gifts?

Also, what happens when Kei investigates a case of a missing boy and a missing woman?

All this and more in vol. 3 of Irie Aki’s manga series!

What is “Go With the Clouds North by Northwest” about?

Irie Aki is best known for her series “Ran to Hai Irono Sekai” and was selected by the jury as a recommended work at the 2012 Bunkacho Media Keijyutsusai Manga Bomon (2012 Media Arts Festival Manga Division).

In 2016, Irie created a new manga titled “Hokuhokusei ni Kumori to Yuke” (Go With the Clouds North by Northwest) which is now being released in English courtesy of Vertical Comics.

The manga series begins with Miyama Kei, a Japanese teen living in Iceland and having rolled his car. Surprisingly, he begins to have conversations with his car.

Is Miyama crazy? Weird?

While camping out with whatever he has inside his car (and waiting for people driving by to help him out), while sleeping, a mysterious woman comes and takes his blanket.

Was it a dream? When Miyama wakes up, his blanket is missing. Who took it?

As his car is fixed, we start to learn that Kei takes on paid jobs of finding people.

Among one of the people he must find is an older man that a former actress is smitten with and has a distinguished laugh. Needless to say, this is an easy job for Miyama because the man is his uncle, and his home is where he is currently living at.

We learn that Miyama’s parents died in an accident. He has a young brother, who is currently staying with their aunt and uncle in Japan, while he lives and works in Iceland. And we learn that as a child, his interests were always trying to figure out how things worked. So, at a young age, he would take things apart all the time and would have this communication with things that are mechanical or electrical.

But Kei becomes concerned when his calls to his brother, aunt and uncle are not being answered.

What will happen when Miyama heads back to Japan? What will he discover?

For the second volume, Miyama Kei’s best friend from Japan, Kiyoshi, coming to Iceland and visiting him. And the second volume almost plays out like a travel guide to Iceland as Kei introduces Kiyoshi to the various, famous spots of Iceland and also Kiyoshi getting to see Kei around Lilja.

While, the second volume was a departure, from the much darker first volume, volume three focuses on both Kei and Michitaka.

On the Michitaka side, we can start to see more of the dark side of the youngest brother. Anger issues but also a special ability and how he uses it. I will leave it at that, as I don’t want to spoil his storyline.

As for Miyama, he takes on a case to find a client’s little brother Jon. And through his investigation, it brings Miyama to a home that seems quite familiar to him. Meanwhile, through his investigation, he meets a girl who sees him using his power to talk to machines. She wants Miyama to use his abilities to connect to a friend’s phone. The friend’s name is Freyja, who has gone missing and possibly the phone may have some clues of where she may be.

The artwork by Irie is fantastic and I love how she is able to draw her characters. For volume three, it was rather interesting because we see both Kei and Michitaka featured and we start to realize things about Michitaka that are downright scary. And that’s all I can say about this latest volume! But this will no doubt set us up for volume 4, which gets very interesting!

Overall, Irie Aki’s “Go With the Clouds North by Northwest” is an entertaining manga series and you can’t help but feel that these last three volumes are a build-up to something big. Something dark and possibly terrifying. We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m definitely hooked on this manga!

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