Not the best volume of this series, although a lot of what I like is still here. I have a pretty good idea why this doesn’t come together for me, but it’s not a complete failure of a story.
Hajime is on the cusp of confessing to Emi, but one of those incredibly convenient story beats decides to rear its head and scupper it before he gets a chance. I don’t love seeing this dragged out again, but it’s not terrible.
Largely because there are a couple of grand gestures throughout that manage to nudge the romance a bit and make me somewhat less grumpy. The card that Hajime makes as a gift is really cute, plus he’s almost honest later on in a moment that would have been stellar had he not laughed it off.
A huge chunk of the story is taken up with card battles this time, which is a blessing and a curse. These are quite dynamic and pretty easy to follow, but keeping track of all the various cards being thrown at the reader can be a little much and I’m an old-school Magic player.
The big change on the personal front is Hajime and Emi winding up in the same class, although this has the delicious unintended consequence of pushing them farther apart rather than getting closer (although it’s clear that they’re already closer than either will admit).
Partly this is because Emi still keeps her playing secret, which makes her keep the game (and Hajime as a result) at arm’s length when they’re at school. This building friction bubbles over when another girl gets involved, with very unintended consequences.
The other girl, Lou, is where I have issues with the volume because she’s such a trope. The foreign exchange student, in this case French, who happens to play Magic and latches on to Hajime.
I appreciate that she ends up not being a love interest for him, that was great, but she still causes unnecessary tension and just has that whole stereotype and precious little else. She’s not a bad character, per se, just unnecessary.
She even wows all the boys and every other thing you’ve seen before, right down to driving Emi crazy with jealousy even though Hajime isn’t interested in anybody else to begin with. Ah youth… that we’ve seen go through these motions a dozen times.
At least the ending drops a more unexpected bomb into the mix, on top of Emi’s own new complication. There’s definitely enough good stuff here still, it just didn’t sparkle quite as hard.
3.5 stars - can’t win them all, you know, even with some good duels and a cool twist to the core pairing. It’s still a really fun time capsule, just one that has done this better on other occasions. Worthwhile, but not its best effort.
Uuuuh, das war wieder soooo spannend!!! 😭🔥 Zu Beginn versucht Hajime endlich den Mut zu fassen und seine Gefühle zu offenbaren… doch dann fängt es an zu regnen, damn! Allgemein gab's in dem Band wieder viele witzige Momente, aber auch sehr hitzige - natürlich genau dann, wenn gerade ein Magic Duell ansteht ❤️🔥 Neben Hajime und Emi gibt's auch viel von Yakumo zu sehen. Diese Szenenwechsel fand ich ganz interessant und hat alles nochmal etwas aufgelockert, ebenso wurde der Spannungsbogen damit weiter aufgebaut. Kurz vor Schluss taucht ein neuer Charakter auf und die Verbindung zu einer anderen Person ist schon ganz witzig irgendwie, haha. Und dann dieser Cliffhanger!! 😱 Wieso ist es zum Schluss immer soooo spannend!? Hach, ich mag die Reihe immer noch sehr gern! 🫶
The description on the back of the book lies! Hajime does not tell Emi how he feels. But he gets very close! Then a transfer student from France shows up to add more drama to the situation, Lou is her name and she wants to join the competition Hajime is entering, so they compete against each other and become friends. Also big news, Yakumo and Kuon finish their battle. School starts and now Emi and Hajime are in the same class! Since Emi has to pretend not to be friends with Hajime, this adds more tension to their relationship. Lots of drama.
A fun volume but it sucks that Hajime didn't confess to Emi. We have a new character that is pretty over the top and when you see who she has her eyes set on it will surely make for a nice plot twist.
story is still great, but there were some frustrating translation issues in the english release that make me suspect they're cutting corners (machine translation or something like that).