A group outing brings Yoh and Haruma to the amusement park after Yoh was blindsided by Touya’s surprise confession. Of course, this outing is the culmination of Wakana’s tortured plan to screw Yoh over, so there’s plenty misery to go around…
When I write about enjoying books that are lurid trash, this (and Citrus) is one of the first I go to, since it is about as wholesome as a bag of melted cheese with crushed nachos in it, but you just can’t stop eating it (uh, so I’ve heard).
Everybody sucks here, is the problem, and people possessing anything resembling pure intentions are hard to come by. I don’t think a single character outside Yoh isn’t two-faced or pursuing some hidden agenda. That’s a lot of duplicity on the go at once.
Let’s talk about Wakana first, since we know she’s Satan’s child just from the fact that she refers to herself in the third person constantly. Her basic goal in life is to get everything she thinks she deserves, which is, in fact, everything.
With her sights set on Haruma, she starts spreading malicious stories and causing trouble, of course, though half of the fault here lies with Yoh’s idiot friends who let themselves get duped by a pretty face.
Wakana gets hers in the end, of course, but there’s a lot of harsh language thrown about here that I found rather unpleasant. There’s a strong vein of misogyny running through this section that I didn’t particularly love.
The author’s trying hard to make you hate her, but it’s one thing to have Wakana be a manipulative misery and quite another to see her get physically attacked (not precisely as bad as it sounds, but still) for things we only hear about.
Meanwhile, Yoh gets some advice that leads to her at least making a choice of her own, but how much of that is a result of her being backed into a corner? Yoh’s common sense and strength seem to ebb and flow in a way that makes her very hard to pin down as a character and I don’t love that about her.
Essentially Haruma wins this round because he’s more smothering than a fire blanket, and my eyebrow is up if the book wants this to come across as a good thing. But that’s the whole point of this series, the entire thriller/not thriller concept.
Then again, the entire section with the basketball game is rather fun (point of fact, I do think Yoh gets some great outfits this volume and I never notice stuff like that) and watching Touya and Haruma work through some things (and accomplishing nothing, because boys) during a friendly match is a classic bit that I liked.
The best character actually ends up being Sawako, who’s got some layers to her and ends up being a lot more clever than her outer appearance would suggest. I love seeing her turn to try and figure out what the hell is going on, although I can’t say I see it working out well for her…
Still, we’re not even halfway through this series and Yoh and Haruma are already dating and he’s being way too much and she’s kind of into it, which, girl, I have thoughts. The reveal at the end of this volume is another little bit of ‘oh boy’ that should send warning signals far and wide.
Honestly, my current favourite theory that I don’t think will come true is that Yoh had a very only-in-fiction psychological break when Haruma came back in her life because she’s the one repressing all the trauma for Haruma’s family tragedy and she’s been arranging all of these incidents against her person without being aware of it.
I mean, if you’re going to go thriller, go all the way, I say.
3 stars - it definitely wasn’t the most easy-to-read volume, but it’s no lie that I need to see how badly this series will implode at the end and that’ll keep me coming back (yes, I could be optimistic, but I feel this has earned a little pessimism on my part). It’s entertaining and I would be lying if I said otherwise.