Creative Staff
Story/Art: Amu Meguro
Translation/Adaptation: Katherine Schilling
What They Say
Although Nao Kogure was once afraid of the delinquent Taiga Onise, she was soon touched by his kind soul. Nao and Taiga plan a romantic date on Christmas, but Yashiro, Misaki and Futami push their way in to make it a party at Taiga’s house instead. Though their friends leave early to allow Nao and Taiga some time alone, someone else interrupts them—Taiga’s mom!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
It’s Christmas and Onise and Nao are ready to go on a date alone. They are overhead and Misaki, Yashiro and Futami decide to join them. Once again, their promised date gets postponed.
Christmas is celebrated at Onise’s and he cooks up a feast. All is going well, but Futami suggests to Misaki and Yashiro that maybe they should leave sooner than later. They leave Onise and Nao in an awkward moment of not knowing what to do with each other. However, in walks Onise’s mother and the awkwardness sky rockets.
Onise’s mom gives Onise some chocolates that happen to have liquor in them. Being weak to alcohol, Onise passes out quickly leaving Nao and Onise’s mother alone. At first, Onise’s mother challenges Nao’s intentions, but soon admits that it’s an act to get to know Nao better. As a reward, she indulges Nao by showing her Onise’s baby photo album.
Onise’s mother cannot stay long and leaves Nao to watch over Onise. During the commotion, she forgets to notify Sousuke what is going on and that she’s staying over. When she confronts him the next day, he is indifferent to her despite her plea to be forgiven. This causes a rift between the two, and Onise is forced to get involved to help the two properly make up. Onise bravely tells Sousuke that he is jealous. Sousuke realizes this is the truth and that he misses the little Nao of the past that adored him.
The last chapter of the volume is Valentine’s Day feature. Nao and Yashiro decide to make chocolates for Onise and Misaki. Yashiro does her well the first time, but it takes Nao some time to get it just right for Onise. While they are making their chocolates, Yashiro suggests Nao should consider kissing Onise. This blows Nao’s mind with embarrassment. She gives Onise her chocolates and when she sees his cute reaction, she impulsively tries to kiss him. She does poorly and kisses his chin, because she is so short. This surprise Onise, but he takes the opportunity to kisses Nao properly.
In Summary
This volume wasn’t as strong and interesting as the last one, which was a disappointment. But, it was fun to get to know Onise’s family more and delve into Nao and Sousuke’s relationship. I also enjoyed the little bits of interactions between Misaki and Yashiro, which I would like to see more of.
It is nice to see a healthy relationship in a manga, but Onise and Nao’s relationship is over the top pure. Unfortunately, in this case with nothing else to create a great story, there isn’t much to this story except a series of cute slice of life scenes. In the right mood, this can be good and relaxing, but most of the time this simple type of storytelling isn’t very exciting to me.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Shojo Beat (Viz)
Release Date: January 3, 2017
MSRP: $9.99