Eiko s aiming to perform at the world s biggest music festival VOICELL LAND But to make her way there she ll have to put on her first ever solo concert To her surprise Kongming seeks out the help of Karasawa to help produce the event But Karasawa s a lot stricter than anyone would ve imagined and told Eiko to redo her plans throwing her back to square one Meanwhile Kongming is trying to cozy up with the owner of the venue by promising to help him win a horse race But things go south when a rival horse comes into the picture Ya Boy Kongming Vol 15While Kongming is off horsing around Eiko is trying to figure out how her solo concert is going to work Her helping hand is applying a lot of pressure and she ll need to channel a very specific energy to sort this one out. A strong volume that features relatively little Kongming is always welcome and we get a lot of Eiko and her concert prep woes this time around She s than a little unfocused when it comes to her theme the sandwich joke is such a non sequitur but I laughed anyway and in real danger of being upstaged by her opener. Said opener is being run by Karasawa who was producing Azalea way back when except now he s working with Eiko which is some classic manga switched sides right there Except he s still a hardass and is not wrong with his critique that Eiko has disparate ideas and no overall theme. He could be plotting something but in this instance it s that he s putting his top talent in as the opener for his own benefit and if Eiko can t up her game then that s show business for you Which might seem callous but he is helping and it s not like he doesn t have his own skin in the game. When Eiko saves an overworked salarywoman named Suzuki from the train she figures out her own issues at the same time But not before she hilariously turns herself into bargain bin Kongming in one of the funniest bits the series has done If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery well I have no idea what this is. It s the usual heartwarming unreality that the story goes for and it does it well This far in it s kind of a distant memory that Eiko tried to kill herself before meeting Kongming and seeing her both return the favour and becoming inspired from that act is a nice touch. Then we re back to the races as Kongming tries to win a horse race while being sabotaged by a sneaky promoter Except Kongming isn t that stupid and knows the calls are coming from inside the military tent. His ploy might be the most obvious one yet but it gets the job done just not with the series usual panache It s still fun even if it follows the typical path of finding somebody who s fallen on hard times that Kongming raises back to greatness. A very strong volume and the race is yet to come Eiko focused chapters can be a gamble let us not pretend that Kongming isn t the draw here but these are really good and kind of outshine the parts that do feature our main male lead Which is a good thing frankly since we ve seen the Kongming side than once at this point. 4 stars really strong and a good set up It definitely stays inside the lines but that extra effort with Eiko makes it much better Ya Boy Kongming Vol 15