Mitsumi learns the shocking truth of Shima’s childhood, but the present ends up being much harder to deal with. When the two end up in an argument, it’s Mitsumi’s forthrightness up against Shima’s laisser-faire and it turns out running from your problems isn’t always the best solution.
This series continues to surprise me with how nuanced its storytelling and characterization can be. It isn’t nearly as funny this volume, but the plotting is so good that you won’t even notice. It’s nice to see that there are still new grooves to be made in such a well-trodden path.
Everything people do here is justified and makes sense - nothing is strictly in service to the script or ratcheting up the drama and, as a result, the whole thing has a lived-in feel that’s hard to beat. It stands out amongst the crowded shojo school genre.
When the drama senpai reveals Shima’s history and his reasons for wanting to drag him into the club, Mitsumi… talks to Shima and respects his desire to not act again!? It’s refreshing! It happens to feed into Shima’s own issues, as we’ll see, but still… people as people, not props.
Other books would have dragged him into it for him to have a massive revelation of how much he loves acting still. A big thank-you to Mitsumi and the sparks fly, yadda yadda. Here, he had his reasons and the book firmly closes on that for now.
Things really start cooking when Mitsumi spends time helping out the hyper-focused student council president to learn how to schedule and make the most of her time. Without even realizing it, Mitsumi introduces a lot of conflict that subtly teaches the value of chilling out once in a while. It’s a very charming story.
Things get a bit sillier with the class competition, as Mitsumi tries to hide how awful she is at sports (despite everybody being quite aware). This leads to her asking the person who has been the meanest to her so far for help, in an interesting twist, implying Mitsumi is particularly clueless.
It’s a story of somebody who has put so much work in, but sees Mitsumi as getting a free pass and touches on weight and resentment and shows that Mitsumi isn’t actually so oblivious or cheerful that she doesn’t know what’s up. But her reasoning makes sense and she helps the other girl feel seen in a way that’s kind of touching. It’s really good.
Which leads into the big Shima v Mitsumi scuffle after Shima proves to be both the titular skip AND loafer and Mitsumi is horrified at his attitude towards his studies and the two exchange some pretty awkward comments. Shima is very content to coast and that’s absolutely appalling to Mitsumi.
Friends fight, it totally happens. Which is interesting here because it causes Shima’s mask to slip even further and forces him to acknowledge that he was pretty ticked by something said back in the first volume.
While his default is to ignore things that bother him, he doesn’t want to here and, even as Mitsumi is trying to figure out how to express herself (and does a good job!), he decides to be honest with her and it definitely starts the romance path for these two.
If I had a major issue with this book, it’s honestly that this art style doesn’t do a thing for me and that does foster a little ennui that the writing takes time to overcome. It’s worth the effort though.
Still, if you’re sick of school stories then this likely won’t change your mind, even though I think this is a cut above. It hits story beats that are, if not wholly original, at least less common and often tweaks them in interesting ways.
4.5 stars - without the preponderance of jokes it falls to the story to carry the day and the book is up to the task. For me the art keeps trying to drag things down, but the more I ruminate on the writing the better I like it, so rounding up on this one.