Shou Harusono

Juster reviewed volume 1, in which Kagiura was appallingly oblivious about the nature of love and romantic for sexual feelings. Here in volume 2, all that blasts into him like a falling ton of bricks, but Hirano reveals the depths of his blindness to the subject. He just will NOT see what's in front of his face until Kagiura practically hires a skywriter to fly around their dorm room with the declaration of feelings...and he stays slow on the uptake even then. We may be crossing the line show more from enjoyable sexual tension into full frustration for the reader, but for now, the fact that they're both determined to make things work so they can remain friends will keep me engaged. show less

06/16/23 Reread: Everything I said before still counts. This has to be my favorite volume at this point in the series. Of course I was reading it at work again so when I wanted to shout my love from the rooftops I had to stay seated at my desk, quietly.

I know, I've stopped rating volumes of manga, and instead rating the end of the series, but I can't this time.

This volume was the fucking best one and of course I was reading this at work so I couldn't jump around and scream and sing from the show more rooftops. This was just that fucking good. If I cried a lot, this volume, man it would have had me bawling. I loved this slow burn. I am going to pre order the next volume on Friday when I get paid, as well as order Hirano and Kagiura.

I'm dying, I'm dead. show less

I'd hope that Kagiura would become a character with whom it will be easier to identify as he matures (and, in fact, since I binge-read right through volume 2 without stopping, I know it's true), but for a while there, it was difficult to grasp his mentality. How can a 15-year-old boy be so very innocent to the point that he doesn't realize that romantic feelings usually accompany the desire to marry a person? Five-year-olds, sure; teens, not so much, as a rule. But he was cute, and Hirano show more was fun to read. A bit oblivious on his own, of course, but better. (Or so we think in this volume, but that's what we're reviewing right now.) show less

I’ll preface this by saying that I have read some of the Sasaki and Miyano mangas. Honestly, I’m not sure at all how comprehensible the light novels would be without having read the mangas first. The book summary referred to it as a “behind the scenes” collection, and that’s exactly what it is; going in blind would be like watching a reality show, but only the individual interview parts.

On the other hand, it actually did help add quite a bit of color to the stories in the mangas, show more so I liked it quite a bit for that. Some things in the manga that were shown but never explained (some of them confusing to me as an American reader) were spelled out by necessity in a text-based book. This is a good addition to a good manga series, even if it couldn’t stand without. show less