[cynicalicious]

Well, I got my copies of Missing Mail vols. 2 & 3 today. I've had a chance to read volume 2, and I'm about halfway through volume 3. Great thing about shoujo manga is that with the giant pictures, there's not much in the way of giant walls o' text to slow you down.

Spoiler for This is a summary of volume 2:

Spoiler for If you press this button, you'll get spoiled:

Volume 2 starts off with Layfon having nightmares about the SCP telling everyone about his past. (If you remember, at the end of vol. 1, he had threatened to tell all of Fon-Fon's friends and platoon mates about his dirty little secret if he didn't cooperate.)

Anyway, Fon-Fon is on edge. Then Fon-Fon, Mifi, Naruki, and Felli go to the cafe, where Meichi is working in a maid costume. (Difference from canon right there.) Fon-Fon is Mr. Suave, and tells her that she looks cute. Meichi acts all Meichi and cowers. While she, Mifi and Naruki are off-screen, Felli asks Fon-Fon if he's into those kinds of clothes. He says oh, no! Then she asks, "What if I wore something like that?" Then his eyes get all far-away, and he says, "It would look great on you." Ah, fun stuff.

But the mood is spoiled when she tells him she has a message for him from her brother. He wigs out, and she leaves, because he gets a creepy look in his eyes, because he's terrified that she might know his secret.

He tries to write a letter to Leerin, crumples it up, then fails at squad practice, pissing off Nina, then there's a funny scene. After Sharnid and Felli have run away from a ranting Nina, Harley (who we haven't seen at all) comes in and asks if everyone's dites are ok. Fon-Fon has forgotten Harley's name, and calls him Harem instead. lol.

As the days before the first interplatoon match with the 16th come, Fon-Fon is miserable. He can't sleep, he's torn up, he feels tormented by the SCP.

When they announce the teams, he runs back into the locker room, and hears the other squads all betting against them. Mifi, however, puts a lot of money on the 17th, because they're her friends, and she believes in them. This inspires him, I guess.

Then Felli tells him that they're just normal humans, and whether they display their powers is their personal right. She won't hold it against him if he doesn't want to. Of course Nina ruins that mood by getting all... Nina. lol.

The people in the 16th aren't quite the same kind of jerks as in the anime, but they want to win, and they're trying to crush the 17th just the same. Different characters, too. (I don't know what the deal was with the dude leading the 16th in the anime. He looked like one of those 40 year old dudes acting in a college movie. Weird.)

Anyway, Fon-Fon and Nina are in a tight spot, Fon-Fon uses his 2-hour, and wipes the floor with the 16th, royally pissing off Nina, and totally depressing him, because now he realizes he's in the clutches of the SCP for good. "O noez! They haz seen mah powahs!"

Fon-Fon never shows at the after party, and is cowering somewhere in the city. Felli is trying to hunt him down. She finds him, and lets him know that the SCP won't say anything about his secret, but he realizes that Felli knows it, and he totally wigs out, and turns into Dark Fon-Fon. She tells him she doesn't care about his past, he calms down, and they decide to run away from Zuellni together!

Well, sort of. Fon-Fon decides to run away, and Felli declares that she's going with him no matter what. Fon-Fon is kind of confused, because he's dumb. You can definitely see Felli's love interest in Fon-Fon, but not necessarily Fon-Fon's interest in Felli yet. He's slow.

They agree to meet in an hour's time. Fon-Fon goes back, packs his bags, and finds victory cookies from Meichi. How sweet. Then he goes back to the farm to meet Felli, and feeds them to Flossie the sheep, who doesn't like them. He eats one and realizes it's good! Then he gets depressed, goes to the bus stop, where Felli meets him. She's pissed because he was trying to leave without her. Then she tells him to wait there, because she forgot her makeup case. lol.

She leaves behind a nen-i petal, which she uses to yell at him some more.

Then who comes to the bus station, but Nina, to yell at him for being so strong and hiding it, and then asks him what's up with that funny-sounding name of his... Volfstein... Fon-Fon freaks out, because now he knows the SCP has double-crossed him, and is going to leak out his secret to his friends if he doesn't come clean.

Nina crushes Felli's nen-i petal, then demands the truth. Then we get the flashback of Fon-Fon's fall from grace. It's the same as in the books, so I'm not going to repeat it.

Nina, of course, calls him a coward, but before she can start turning dere-dere, the Filth Monsters attack!

Fon-Fon, now in full "I'm running from everything mode" tells Nina to pack it in and run away. Nina of course berates him for *really* being a coward now, because she's going to use what little power she has in comparison to him to protect the city.

He walks off in a bad mood, then runs into the SCP, and he asks the SCP if he's going to threaten him again. The SCP says he got it all wrong. He's trying to protect 60,000 people, and he'll do what he has to to make sure that their lives are safe, and that he loves the city and the school. Then Fon-Fon asks him if he loves it enough to sacrifice his little sister for it. The SCP gets angry about that, and tells him to stop being conceited. Then the SCP says that he wants to be a good leader, and he'll find a way to save the city. Fon-Fon makes a comment along the lines of, I hope to see your solution. The SCP says, You'll definitely take action. Fon-Fon walks off, but has a chill up his spine. (Don't mess with the megane!)

Cut to Mifi and Meichi running to the shelter with the other cannon fodder, all panicky. They spot Fon-Fon wandering aimlessly, and ask him what he's up to. Meichi asks why he's not defending the city. He says he's not going to. She tugs on his sleeve, and says that she doesn't understand why-- he's strong, so why isn't he helping? He looks away, all mopey n' stuff.

Cut to Nina and Sharnid, fighting the bugs. Same stuff you've seen before. No Felli, no Fon-Fon.

Then Fon-Fon is back in his now empty room. (He had cleared it out to leave on the bus earlier.) He's all mopey until he finds a letter from Leerin. Surprise! Gee, I wonder how THAT got there... (I bet it was the Megane!)

She tells him to stop lying to himself. She's upset that he's managed to make friends and move on, but she's really mad at him for constantly dwelling on his past, and his failures, instead of what the future holds for him and what he can do instead. She tells him to stop sniveling, stop worrying about what could happen if he screws up, and move forward. Oh, and she hopes he can come back to Grendan someday. Lol.

He gets his dite retuned by Harem--err, Harley--then goes to see Felli to ask for her help.

Felli, of course, freaks out when he asks her to help him fight and slams the door on him, because just one hour ago, he was ready to ditch the city. How could he betray her like that and try to USE her like everyone else does? He realizes that she doesn't have a Leerin to cheer her on and straighten him out like he does.

So he's says he understands. He'll go off and fight them all himself to protect her. He may die without her help, but that's okay with him. He won't force her. This of course upsets her, but he's already run off. She opens the door to stop him, but it's too late. (Why doesn't she use her nen-i powers to tell him to wait up?)

As he's heading off to the battlefield (and certain death? lol), he runs across Mifi and Meichi, who are happy to see him going off to fight.

To be continued in Volume 3....

I'll post a summary of Vol. 3 some other time.

Major differences-- there's are a lot of characters missing in this manga. It's not just mail that's missing, it's the Queen, the other Heaven Blades... a lot of stuff, actually. Some of the plot elements are switched around a bit, but the major stuff is all there. It's just a matter of the details being reworked.

And the art is positively awesome. Shoujo Felli FTW. The color inside cover of volume 2 alone is worth the 580 yen for the book, but the back jacket drawing of Felli is even better.