Shoya is trying to right his wrongs from elementary school when it comes to Shoko. But, when he re-meets an old classmate, Naoka, his life transforms again.

This series is really picking up in its storyline and I am here for it! The balance between cutesy, adorable, love puppy scenes, and serious ones are evenly balanced in my opinion. Shoya is really trying to better himself and you can see the conflict he has with his past self and where and what he’s trying to do now.

Most characters have their own struggles and I like that this series is showing that, because it makes it more real and I connect with the characters more. Except Naoki - I don’t like her.

I love this story and I’m excited to continue with it. ( )

Shoya successfully rekindles Shoko and Miyoko's old friendship (Miyoko was Shoko's friend who completely stopped coming to school when the other kids started being awful). However, the experience leaves him feeling a bit off, so he decides to try fixing more things he ruined back when he bullied Shoko. His next effort is to find Naoka, but that goes badly, resulting in both Shoko and Tomohiro getting hurt. Naoka liked (and still likes) Shoya and blames Shoko for driving them apart. Shoya feels more and more unworthy of being around Shoko. Shoko, meanwhile, finally confesses her love to Shoya, but she does so verbally, and he misunderstands her speech.

Wow, this was a painful read. My vague recollection of volume 2 indicated that Shoya had started to move past some of his negative feelings, but clearly not, because he was a horribly guilt-ridden and self-loathing mess here.

Shoko is still an enigma. While I had guessed that this series would eventually pair her and Shoya up, Shoko's “I love you” in this volume was a complete shock to me. It made no sense at this point in the story and felt uncomfortably like the series was being made more and more about Shoya. There has still hardly been anything from Shoko's POV, and I found myself wondering how she really felt about Miyoko's “fun” day. Did she enjoy it as much as she seemed to, or was she just pretending in order to keep things from becoming awkward?

Also, I absolutely hated the addition of Naoka to the story. Thinking about it now, I've realized that something about her reminded me of FLCL's Mamimi, another character I disliked.

While I was happy to have discovered that the series was only 7 volumes long and that I could therefore finish the whole thing during my vacation, this volume made me doubt whether that was something I really wanted to do.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

4.25 ( )