Shikimori’s delinquent past is revealed… to be nothing more than a delusion on the part of the ‘coming next volume’ text from last time and the wild imagination of the reviewer.
No, Shikimori was a real follower, as it turns out, and tagged along with her brother, so when he took up karate, so did she. Cue Izumi’s desperate search for old photos of her and the manga being only too happy to deliver.
It’s an interesting story - Shikimori actually seems to have been really, really good at karate, which explains a lot of her general abilities thus far in the series, but it wasn’t anything she chose for herself.
Now, you can say that choosing to want to be a shojo heroine and swept off her feet isn’t the most feminist goal, but it’s hard to pick on her for making a choice. And even when her plan literally fails before even getting into high school, Izumi does give her the one thing that she wanted.
All this is set against the backdrop of the very disobedient Hayase, who continues to flaunt the school’s rules about clothing (this part with Shikimori as morals officer also lets Kamiya shine in an amusing moment).
I think how much you truck with this arc is largely down to your thoughts on school outfits and originality. Hayase has a history of wanting to dress herself her way and her teacher tries to help her, but to me it feels a lot like tamping down on her individuality.
Which I guess shows where I fall on the debate. But I also acknowledge that there are very good reasons for school uniforms, even though I just don’t go for ‘conform’ as the best message here.
And it’s not like Hayase is dressing like a trollop, she’s just got a hoodie on. She’s a really good kid and her attempts to fit in in the past just got caught up in that whole ‘bend the rules but don’t break them’ that rarely gets explained to people properly.
So, while I may not love the message, seriously, it’s a far cry from dressing to express yourself in violation of a dress code and setting fire to cars, I don’t dislike how it’s being delivered. Hayase has tried to walk the walk, but she got dumped on for not doing it right and that gave her a ‘damned if you do’ mentality.
This arc really gives Izumi a strong focus again, as he’s the one reaching out to Hayase, who clearly wants to be friends with Shikimori even as she’s driving the latter insane. The burgeoning friendship of Hayase and Izumi is really rather well done and without a whiff of romance, which is nice.
We pause mid-arc so there isn’t much else to say about that. Art’s as good as ever and Hachimitsu’s weirdness makes for a couple of solid sight gags, though most of the side characters are pretty uninvolved here. It’s not the best we’ve seen from the series, but I’m never upset at spending time with this series.
4 stars - this plotline has picked some real weird hills to die on, cultural differences mostly, but the core of the series remains strong. There was an amazing run of volumes for a bit that I hoped would stay that way, but even ‘just great’ Shikimori is quite acceptable.