Suzuki Tanaka

I've written this review assuming that anyone reading it has either read the previous volume in this series or doesn't care about spoilers for past volumes. You've been warned.

Okay, so this volume basically has four separate stories. First, Sato is bummed because he's going to be forced to go on a family trip from Christmas to the start of the new year. Yoshida accidentally upsets him and then meets an old man who may or may not be Santa Claus. In the next part of the volume, Machiko, the show more student council president, comes up with a plan that she thinks will guarantee her a spot next to Sato at a warm kotatsu. After that, readers get to see where things stand between Azuma and Nishida. Sato proves to be more helpful than I expected. The volume wraps up with a class field trip, which is particularly special because it's Sato's very first field trip ever.

This is the first full volume since Sato told everyone that he and Yoshida are a couple. The first story, with the strange possible-Santa (okay, not really Santa, although Yoshida and Sato did manage to get a Christmas miracle) was a bit odd, but I loved how bummed Sato looked that he and Yoshida weren't going to get to spend that time together. I found Tanaka's artwork, which exaggerated his feelings by making him look particularly haggard and shadowed, to be surprisingly funny (and cute?), I think because the Sato of several volumes ago would never have shown so much of his true feelings in public.

Technically the next part of the volume, with all the girls fighting for the right to sit with Sato at the kotatsu, wasn't much different from any of the past “girls fighting for the right to be with Sato” stories. This difference, this time around, was that neither Sato nor Yoshida had to hide their feelings for each other. Sato gesturing for Yoshida to come sit with him while everyone was distracted was a lovely moment.

As for the bit with Azuma and Nishida, I'm not sure what to think of those two. If they became a couple, it would keep Nishida out of Sato and Yoshida's way, but they're so awkward together. Azuma can't seem to find a happy medium in his behavior towards Nishida – either he throws himself at him too forcefully, or he pulls back too much. Sato's advice to Azuma worked surprisingly well, but I'm not sure he'll be able to identify the right time to switch gears.

The field trip was the best part of the volume. I found myself smiling through almost the whole thing. Sato's open enthusiasm for the trip was a little weird after so many volumes of him trying to look as cool and calm as possible, but it was still fun to see. So much of this part was ridiculously adorable: Sato's anticipation of the trip, Yoshida enjoying Sato's anticipation of the trip, and the way all their classmates reacted. The girls managed to rein in their jealousy for once, just so that Sato could have a “nice and typical field trip.” Well, as typical as possible considering that girls from other schools all wanted Sato too.

As far as Sato and Yoshida being a couple went, most of the characters seemed to have either accepted it or decided not to think about it too much (it was tough to say, although at least no one went around saying “__ sure is a great guy! Even if he is gay!” the way they did with Nishida in volume 4). The school's boys were disappointed that Sato dating Yoshida didn't mean the girls had given up on him. The school's girls were just as determined to get him to themselves as ever, and yet they forced themselves to hang back during the field trip so that Sato could enjoy it with Yoshida. The most awkward moment came when everyone was about to go to sleep for the night (everyone in sleeping bags in the same room, girls in one room and boys in another) and Makimura ordered Sato and Yoshida not to “get it on” while he was sleeping nearby. Judging by the looks on everyone's faces, not even Sato had thought about doing anything until Makimura brought it up.

I really liked this volume. Sadly, I have now read all the volumes in this series that I had on hand. I definitely plan on buying more in the future.

Extras:

- A 2-page Torachin and Yamanaka update. I really could have done without this update, because I've gone from rooting for this pair to hoping that they break up (Yoshida agrees with me). Yamanaka should be in jail. He drugged Torachin and dragged him to a love hotel. Thankfully Torachin managed to get free and beat the crap out of him.

- A 6-page field trip extra. This shows a little of what was going on while Sato and Yoshida were off having fun. Yamanaka tried to cheat on Torachin (OMG, those two are the worst couple), and Azuma spent the whole time searching for Nishida.

- One color illustration of Nishida and Azuma.

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

Yoshida is secretly still stressing about being a virgin. When he once again meets that cute high school girl who inexplicably has a crush on him (and who he still doesn't realize is Murakami, a guy in drag), he wonders if he might soon have an opportunity to lose his virginity.

After that, the volume focuses on a new transfer student, Takeru Azuma. Azuma hates Yoshida on sight even though, as far as Yoshida knows, they've never met. Nishida may know what's going on, but first Yoshida has show more to track him down – the guy is constantly busy saving people.

At the start of this series, Sato essentially forced himself on Yoshida, and Yoshida was too nervous/confused/attracted to turn him down. However, their relationship soon developed into something more mutually affectionate and loving. For that reason, Yoshida really annoyed me in this volume.

It really bothered him that Sato wasn't a virgin while he was, but instead of thinking about how their relationship had been progressing to the point where they'd soon be having sex, he seemed to be stuck on the idea that he wanted to have sex with a girl. A guy like Sato wouldn't count. At one point, he thought, “Sure I want to lose my virginity...but!...I've got the overwhelming feeling that I might give up something even more important. What's the matter with me lately?” (12-13) Gee, I don't know, maybe it's your conscience reminding you that you're in a committed relationship with Sato, who would almost certainly be hurt if you had sex with someone else?

Thankfully, he did get past this without doing something stupid and irrevocable, but I wasn't 100% convinced that he knew why it would have been a bad idea to hook up with the one girl who seemed interested in him. It made me feel bad for Sato, which was a little weird, since I used to hate the guy.

The second part of the volume was lots of drama, more about the transfer student and Nishida than anything. I loved the flashback to their childhood, which included an amusing moment of fourth wall breaking, and I'm interested to see how things turn out for Azuma. I'm not sure it's a good idea for him to enlist Sato as his teacher, though.

There was another development in this volume that I really enjoyed but can't say too much about without spoiling things. At any rate, I was pleased at how smoothly it went. It would have been easy for Tanaka to use that moment for extra drama and even cruelty, so for once I was glad that the girls continued to be just as cartoonishly jealous and scheming as they had always been.

Extras:

One full-color illustration and a brief non-spoilery author's note ("Then something big but sorta not so big happened" is a perfect description of the moment near the end of the volume).

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

I'm starting to think that the first volume of this series was the roughest, because everything after that one was much better. Volume 4, in particular, was really good.

At the beginning of this volume, Yoshida gets upset when some of the girls call him “ugly” and say that he looks a lot like one of the monsters in an amusement park haunted house. Although Yoshida is terrified of haunted houses, Sato forces him to go to the one the girls mentioned. After that, we get an extended flashback show more to Sato's elementary and middle school years. When he's 12, his parents tell him he'll be going to a boarding school in England. What they don't tell him is that the “boarding school” is actually a brutal fat camp that uses dangerous and unorthodox methods (like combat against wild animals) to help kids lose weight. The volume ends in the present, with Nishida and Sato battling for the right to date Yoshida and the school's girls battling to win a contest that will give them a full day with Sato.

The beginning of volume 4 was probably the weakest part. I felt a bit sorry for poor Yoshida, being forced to go through a haunted house when just the thought of being there terrified him. Sato couldn't seem to decide whether he was being too hard on Yoshida or whether he was enjoying Yoshida hiding behind his back too much to stop.

The flashback, though, was excellent and gave me something I've been wanting for a while, an extended peek into Sato's mind. This entire part was from his POV: being saved from bullies by Yoshida; the day Yoshida got his cross-shaped scar; being shipped off to England by family members that didn't seem to want him around; surviving his three years at that brutal school and even somehow making friends there; and the weird and upsetting feeling, after he returned to Japan, that his fat self had somehow been erased as though it had never existed.

Sato was about as screwed up as I had expected. In elementary school, he emotionally distanced himself as much as possible from the people around him and the things being done to him. His family members didn't even get proper faces, just big black spots with “Sis,” “Mom,” and “Dad” written on them. He even tried not to care too much about Yoshida's efforts to stop others from bullying him, probably so that Yoshida wouldn't have a chance to disappoint him later on.

Tanaka kept the section set during Sato's middle school years from being too grim by making certain elements over-the-top ridiculous. There were races conducted with wild animals running behind the kids as motivation, and combat classes in which the kids had to either defeat wild animals or be carried away on stretchers. I thought it was a little bit too ridiculous, at first, but, combined with some of the other things going on at that school, I think this section would have been too dark if Tanaka had played it all completely straight.

You know how Yoshida found out in volume 3 that Sato wasn't a virgin? Well,Sato's first time having sex was with one of the school's teachers. He'd have been maybe 15 at the time. Apparently the teachers made a regular practice of having sex with any students who turned into stereotypical hotties after they lost weight, and Sato was one of those. That was also how he figured out that he could use his good looks to make weak-willed people do pretty much anything he wanted them to do.So yeah, even with the wild animal combat sessions this section was a bit dark.

One thing that hadn't really occurred to me, prior to reading this volume, was that it wasn't just Yoshida and Sato who'd gone to elementary school together. Most of the students at their high school had also gone to the same elementary school, and some of the guys who wanted to be Sato and some of the girls who wanted to date him might have been the same ones who bullied him a few years earlier. That had to be a bizarre feeling.

After all that heavy stuff, Tanaka decided to end the volume on a lighter note. I absolutely loved the “battles” between Nishida and Sato, even though I agreed with Yoshida that they should have talked with him first. Sato didn't even try to be a better person than Nishida – he'd have had to be a saint. Instead, he thoroughly embraced his role as the over-the-top villain, complete with a panel in which he shouted corny evil lines while looking down at Nishida from atop a cliff (“Yoshida is mine, and it's about time you knew that...in Hell!” (153)). This entire section had me laughing so hard I cried.

After a so-so beginning, this turned out to be the best His Favorite volume yet. I can't wait to see what else Tanaka comes up with.

Extras:

This volume includes one full-color image and a short postscript.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

The series continues to have a bit of an episodic feel, as each chapter has its own “story.” In this volume: Yoshida feels stressed and preoccupied because a cute girl has asked him out; Yoshida gets upset when he learns that Sato isn't a virgin (I had thought he and Sato had had sex already, but apparently not); a heat wave makes everyone feel gross and cranky; Nishida, an openly gay student, confesses his love to Yoshida; and readers get to see more of Torachin and Yamanaka now that show more they're a couple.

This series has grown on me, even though I still have some issues with it.

I'm glad that Sato seems to have mellowed out some. He's still a secret jerk, but he doesn't mess with Yoshida quite as often as he did in previous volumes, and there were some nice panels of Sato and Yoshida just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. I still wonder if Tanaka ever plans on digging a little deeper, bringing Sato's emotional issues out into the open, and really dealing with them.

One thing I did not like, however, was how Sato acted during the heat wave chapter. He was absolutely awful to Akimoto, Yoshida's overweight friend. He absolutely destroyed the guy in only two sentences. He claimed it was because Akimoto got between him and Yoshida, but I imagine that his own usually hidden feelings of self-hatred and fat phobia played a large part as well. He's gone from being the guy who was bullied when he was fat to the guy who spews hateful words at Akimoto when the heat causes his “nice guy” mask to slip.

I cheered when Yoshida immediately jumped to Akimoto's defense and demanded that Sato apologize. However, Yoshida seemed to forget how awful Sato had been to one of his best friends the instant he realized that Sato was probably just as stressed out by the heat as everyone else. Okay, yes, the heat was making everyone cranky, but only Sato reacted so viciously. I wish Yoshida had continued to be angry at Sato, or given him the cold shoulder.

I enjoyed most of the rest of the volume, though. Nishida, in particular, was a fun new character. He was ridiculously and hilariously kind, at one point simultaneously helping an old lady carry heavy things, catching a thief, saving a little kid's balloon, and saving a drowning puppy. Although Yoshida didn't seriously considering dumping Sato for him, Nishida's wonderfulness did highlight how much more awful of a person Sato tended to be. I'm still waiting for a satisfactory answer (beyond “Sato won't leave him alone”) for why Yoshida continues to go out with Sato.

I was thrilled to see more of Torachin and Yamanaka, although the end result wasn't quite as good as I had hoped. Torachin was perfect – the tough guy who's a secret softie. The problem was Yamanaka. Falling in love with Torachin did not cure of him of being a good-looking sleazeball. He and Torachin haven't had sex yet, and he wanted their first time to be good...so he asked Yoshida “Is it okay if I screw you once?” (142) Thankfully, Yoshida gave that proposal the response it deserved.

It sort of helps that both Yoshida and Torachin are aware that the guys they're going out with kind of suck...and yet it doesn't. I want better for both of them.

Oh, one thing I should mention: throughout the series so far, almost all the female characters have been boring rabid boy-chasers. Tsuyako, who made a brief appearance in the first volume and who was basically a female Sato, was one of the few exceptions. Happily, this volume provided readers with another. Inoue was one of the few girls who wasn't afraid of Torachin. She acted as a middleman, asking Torachin for help on behalf of a female classmate, but she also made it clear that he was basically being used and that she wouldn't blame him if he decided to refuse. I liked her attitude and her pragmatism, and I hope she becomes a recurring character.

Extras:

This time around, the entire volume is devoted to His Favorite. There's a 4-page one-shot in which Nishida and Sato publicly fight over Yoshida (their classmates think they're practicing some kind of comedy skit). There's also a short postscript and one full-color illustration.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less