[CW: Animal Death]
I normally wouldn’t make big hay about the above, but that moment in this volume hits like a truck and almost moved me to tears. It is the saddest a tub of pudding has ever made anybody feel.
Because this situation involves Tomoko, it hits extra hard. Tomoko, as we’ve seen, doesn’t have many friends, so losing a pet that was her companion through high school is a huge deal. Enough to make her rely on Ryouhei, even.
Parental dynamics make up the other good parts of this volume. We get a real feel for the relationship between Tomoko and her mom, which seems to have love, but is very distant and not just physically.
We also have an unexpected encounter with Ryouhei’s father and there’s so much there that needs unpacking and I wish they’d gotten into it more than they do. On the one hand, treating the subject as nothing is really progressive. On the other, I’m not sure that was the intent.
Other dramas continue to pop up, as Tomoko learns to stick up for herself a bit more and comes to defend Ryouhei as well. I’m glad his delinquent look isn’t just breezed over, plus it’s making Tomoko stronger, which will come into play as her safety net at work sees a coming shakeup.
You’ll notice that this kind of skips around the dating quite a bit and that’s because I don’t find these two very interesting together. Tomoko has so little personality that her confidence boost is the most notable thing about her.
Ryouhei is nice but looks mean. That’s as old school as they come. They’re dating, but there’s no spark between them that comes across on the page. It feels very perfunctory and not exciting in the least.
And that’s a problem when this is supposed to be a romance. No matter what I think of the rest of it, and parts of this land like wild, it isn’t achieving its stated purpose and thinks it is, which is unfortunate.
3 stars - this is kind of bland, but a really good bland, oddly. It has an oatmeal quality, where some of the stuff added to it makes it taste better for a while, but the base itself is kind of nothing.