Deep, dark pasts, and cheery present days.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Natsuki Takaya
Translation: Sheldon Drzka
What They Say
Things get unpleasant for Sakuya when Kanade finds out about Chihiro. Though her cousin is a hothead, Sakuya asks him to meet Chihiro once more and give him another chance. Next on the agenda: summer vacation! Sakuya is studying hard for finals, since low scores mean she won’t be able to participate in the last summer camp of her high school career. But then an unexpected visitor!?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Things start off kind of slow this time around, as Sakuya confronts Chihiro about the fact that Kanade found out about him, and… he honestly doesn’t really care. But our heroine gets something new to worry about, as she learns that she needs to study hard for her Earth Science final, since she’ll miss out on school summer camp if she fails it. Which is honestly just kind of eh, and lingers there as a real halfhearted, underdeveloped plot point for a lot of the volume. Oh, and Yuuri slowly starts to awaken to the fact that he has feelings for Sakuya, as well.
Things just kind of slowly but steadily meander forwards for a while, until Chihiro abruptly shows up at Sakuya’s place. The ensuing bonding scene between Chihiro and Kanade is definitely one of the high points of the book, as they play off each other quite well, making for a rather amusing chapter. The big scene for the volume, though, is definitely what comes next, as Sakuya has a brief run-in with her stepmom. In the aftermath, we dig deep into our heroine’s tragic past and trauma, and it’s rough and powerful stuff. It’s easily the highlight this time around, as there’s some serious emotional punch packed into those pages, and they do a lot to add some complexity to Sakuya’s character.
Anyway, things go back to the usual slow advancement of everyone’s relationships, until we at last hit on how Yuuri and Sakuya first met. It’s a rather nice complement to Sakuya’s backstory, and plays well off it to hit some interesting notes. Oh, and then we end on the camp, which is a nice enough little event, but nothing too terribly mindblowing.
In Summary
Things definitely slow down this time around, and a good bit of the book is spent kind of meandering in what’s more or less the status quo. Of course since the core cast has rather nice chemistry, none of this ever feels frustrating or overly bland, but it is just a tad on the slow side. Still, there are some noticeable exceptions where things really pick up, with the main examples being the two backstories we get this time around. They both have some solid emotional punch to them, and they play off one another really nicely, making for some very powerful scenes. I will say I wish the present day scenes had that same level of force to them rather than slowly moving things along, but like I said, that’s certainly not enough to make things feel like a drag. All in all, I’d say this adds up to a book that isn’t quite as strong as the first one, but should still prove plenty satisfying to people who enjoyed that volume.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: March 21st, 2016
MSRP: $19.99
