Wash It All Away Volume 3 Teases Wakana Kinme’s Past

Wakana Kinme, the heroine in the Wash It All Away manga series, is something of a mystery. We know she’s an amnesiac from the start. She’s incredibly good at doing hand-washed laundry. However, we don’t really know who she is, where she’s from, and what happened to her. Some tiny hints came up in earlier volumes in the series, but it’s the third one that starts to build up her story and suggest even more about her past in a satisfying way.

Editor’s Note: There are some light spoilers for volume 3 of the manga Wash It All Away below.

While Wash It All Away is a slice of life type of series about a traditional laundry in the tourist town of Atami, it’s more than that. It’s a peek into the life of Wakana Kinme and the effect she has on people around her. She’s generally a lovely young woman who cares about folks, wants to help them, enjoys communal bathhouses, and is fantastic at cleaning and restoring clothing and other fabrics. However, there’s also a bit of a mystery lurking in the background of each installment. Wakana’s last name, Kinme, comes from the hand-wash laundry where she works, and she’s an amnesiac throughout Wash It All Away. 

Now, prior to volume 3 of the manga, these have been a little far between. But with this third installment, we get multiple hints at Wakana’s past. These are both overt and more of a possible aside. But in each case, they’re helpful insights. 

The most notable one is a whole story segment with Uka Hatsuayu involving a photo shoot for a government-sponsored tourism article for Hatsushima. Uka asks Wakana to help. Because of her amnesia, Wakana says she doesn’t think she’s been to that city before. And for the most part, the focus is on that modeling experience. She has a wonderful time with Uka, and the group gets the photos of both of them that are needed. Except… as things are about to end… Wakana wanders off. 

What happens after that raises so many more questions. Not only about Wakana and her past, but I feel like about Hatsushima too. In the past, hints about her life in the previous volumes were so brief. We didn’t get any major clues. There seemed to be a sense of sadness, but that’s it. Now here, there’s an even bigger clue, but also a mystery about her actions at the end of the visit.

I especially enjoyed how that paired with another insight into Wakana. During a storm later in the story, she runs into Kyusho Ishimochi. Her reactions to the weather seem over-the-top. It struck me as more than a simple phobia. Which makes me wonder if that’s tied in to things as well.

Volume 3 of Wash It All Away also continued a pattern for Wakana backstory reveals, as it hints at her past and teases details while still maintaining the slice of life atmosphere. In the first volume, it happened during a summer sort of rain. Here, the hints happen in similar ways. In Hatsushima, the focus is on the trip, but we see Wakana sort of branch off toward the end in a way that doesn’t totally take away from the main purpose and trip. When the storm happens again and we see her reactions, it’s framed in a way to accentuate who she is and perhaps get us wondering why.

It means the mystery of Wash It All Away still gets to be paired with the slice of life ambiance we’ve come to expect from the series in a satisfying way. Wakana Kinme still gets to be a bright, dedicated, energetic, and welcoming young woman who helps others. However, she does also still get to experience these moments that leave us wondering as readers. The mystery is maintained without tarnishing the other elements we enjoy about the series. Given Square Enix teased an appearance of Kinme Cleaning’s previous owner in volume 5, it makes me wonder what insights could appear next.

Volume 3 of Wash It All Away is available now, and Square Enix will release volume 4 on October 14, 2025. An anime adaptation of the series will appear in 2026.