This volume skipping some of the mild stones of these characters, imo. Graduating high school and any scenes with the baby. It skips forward to walking/toddler age. There were some cute scenes with the little guy. There was a small bonus scene of the guys getting together right after their graduation ceremony.
I really liked this volume, but I'm confused by how massive the time-skips were. I guess Memeco is starting to speedrun it a bit - realizing the story can't drag out for 800 volumes with very little happening? But we just blasted through a ton of really big stuff.
Volume 14 ended with the Ohshiba pregnancy, so this one begins with some good stuff about the dad finally moving back home and being a part of the family again. Mostly. It's awkward at first because Setagawa isn't able to live with them for a while, although he still comes over basically every day to cook for them. Which surprises Ohshiba dad and leads him to offer Setagawa money...so does he know they're dating, or not? What's his level of understanding when it comes to their relationship?
He does recognize Setagawa in his crossdressing cosplay at the school festival, though, so I guess he's put those pieces together, at least. (Again, this is all formative family relationship stuff I wish we'd actually seen. But oh well.)
There's some good stuff about Kousuke's anxiety with the new baby coming, and worries about his mom, and constant friction with his dad, and Setagawa wanting to be there for him...but we skim past that, too, and suddenly everyone has graduated?? Off the page?? We go from the third year school festival to Ken & Hasekura living on their own, with Hasekura going to school and Ken working at the gamer place. So uh. I guess all that worked out fine?
Setagawa's in college (doing what, I don't know) and still working part time at the ramen shop, but living with the Oshibas again. Still in his own room, with Kousuke getting more and more pent up because they aren't doing anything physical anymore.
One of the things I continue to like about this series is that Kousuke never pressures him. He gets frustrated and stomps off but then comes back and kisses Setagawa and then just goes to hang out with his friends and blow off steam for a while. But they do need to talk about things more. There are all these oddly good moments, like Setagawa telling Ken and Hasekura that it weirds him out doing anything with the new kid in the house, because he hated knowing that his mother was sexually active, even if he wasn't seeing it. (Or, well, mostly. He probably did see or hear some of it during that first volume, when he kept leaving home to sit in the park at night.)
But those are conversations he should be having with Kousuke...and it certainly wouldn't prevent them from taking some date nights out at a hotel etc.
There's a lot I liked in this volume, and the funny mix of Setagawa loving the gentle domesticity of their family, and Kousuke being kind of miserable about it. And then a lot more that always leaves me wishing this whole series was just plotted a little bit more tightly.
Now we've suddenly got a random stalker, who's dressing up like crossdressing Setagawa for some reason? And some dug-up letter that Setagawa wrote during school? That's...all very strange. Plus Setagawa's coworker still appears to be Kousuke's ex, but nothing has come of that yet.
Oh, and I guess Yunge has finally given up on Natsuo, although that was just in a quick couple panels in the bonus stories at the end.
Would really like the next volume now! I guess it'll be another year's wait...
Sidenote: this is the first volume that didn't have a color plate, which is pretty disappointing. Don't love if all publications are going to start cutting back on print costs like that, but what can you do. At least, for now, we're still getting the stories.
Time passes too quickly in this volume. We go from the gang in their final year of high school and doing a cosplay cafe, that's really just a cross-dressing cafe, to them graduating and going their separate ways. During this time the Ohshiba's mother gets pregnant, has the baby, and the baby reaches around 2 years old from my estimate. It feels like we speed through everything because it would be took slice of life and nothing was really going to happen until months later so why not skip to that part? Because of that things felt a bit choppy at times.
This volume felt like most of it was there to end their high school ark and begin their college arc while setting up future drama and sexual frustration.