Loved this as I’ve loved all of these. I was really happy to move past the ending of volume 11, which left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I was excited for the main Nobuko/Hiroki relationship, but what really worked for me was the Nobuko/Fumi rehash of how they felt about graduating and their respective job hunts, and the pending changes to their lives and friendship.
It was hard having this volume end so quickly when there isn’t another to immediately follow like there was with the first 10, but it was so nice to have this one when I’d originally thought the series ended at 11 volumes that I’m more excited by the idea of an eventual 13th volume than I am disappointed at the brevity of each.
On a sort of meta level, I also loved the insertion of manga into manga. Very clever.