Our Rentaro and his twenty-five girlfriends’ number twenty-six is a not-so-surprising “oddball”: singing idol Saiki Himeka. Despite being seen as cool and talented, Saiki instead wants to be seen as an eccentric person and she of course fits in no time with our family that’s far from normality.
The girls return to their idol group singing and as they all practice their quality dance styles, the other girls who weren’t there the first time get help from them through encouragement, advice and touching words with the big show being a hit.
After that, we see Rentaro and Naddy having a very “huggy” date and the girlfriends hanging out that involves line waiting, relaxing and learning the ways of eccentricity. The bonus chapter shows how Saiki first wants to be weird during her singing career.
A very nice and unique volume as we see all the girlfriends hanging out while also seeing them help and comfort each other without Rentaro being there despite still being the best boyfriend.
Okay, I like the new girlfriend. That is literally half the battle sometimes with the series. I mean, we have some who the mangaka clearly don’t have any clue what to do with, so strong personalities win the day.
Saiki is an idol, you can tell because she is sporting a pair of eyes stolen from Oshi no ko, but that’s not enough for her. No, she wants to be seen as an eccentric genius, which ends up coming across like she’s a bit of a ditz.
The reason Saiki works is because of how straight-up confident she is about her own cleverness. Every time she tries something, they added the ‘smuggy’ effect to the page and whether clever translation or original intent, it absolutely makes the character.
Needless to say, she is more than happy to fall in with a group that’s nothing but eccentrics, making her transition into the group relatively easy. And giving an excuse for another idol arc.
This arc is, well, fine. Sometimes you see something and feel like it’s maybe written for the anime that might not happen (probably will though!) and that’s this. It smartly features the back half of the cast predominantly and that’s a nice touch.
At this stage, I feel that the strongest stories are the ones that pair the girls off in little side couplings, whether romantic or otherwise. Such is the case here.
The first involves food monster Kurumi and Momiji, the masseuse, fighting through a line to get daifuku. They make a fun pairing and Momiji proves to be a good foil for a change - she’s definitely one of the girls who doesn’t have much going on in my estimation.
The last chapter pairs Saiki up with Uto and, as you may know, Uto is far and away my favourite character. This story ends up drowning Uto in imposter syndrome when Saiki wants to learn her ways, which we already know are total BS. One could say it is fun and has a nice message to it. Then again, one could say it does not.
Overall, a decent volume. I do think the series is absolutely over-reliant on fourth wall breaks. They need to be applied way more judiciously than they are here. It also has a bizarre fixation on breastfeeding gags that I could live without.
Saiki is a good addition, however, and her introductory chapter has some of the most goofball humour I’ve read in ages from the series. The story of the abandoned bathroom gave me a good laugh because of how tortured it was.
3.5 stars - I mean, new girl good, some fun chapters, a great focus on Uto, and a reasonable number of laughs. I wish it was more consistent, but this felt better than the last couple of volumes.
All these girls are so damn gay for each other. They are all dating each other not just Rantaro I don’t care. Anyway, Kiki is a fun character! I love idols so maybe I’m biased
Also yes I have been here this long and I am freaky. Glad they called me out lmao