[DeepL Translation - needs review] Introduction to Volume 1: ◆◇ 6th Kakuyom Web Novel Contest 《Love Comedy Category》 Special Prize◇◆
I, Maki Maehara, who didn't even know anyone before, made my first friend, Umi Asanagi.
Asanagi, who is rumored by the boys to be the "second cutest girl in the class" and follows the innocent No. 1 girl, Amami, around with great care, is...
She sneaks over to my house only after school on Fridays.
It's a fun time with her, who also shares my taste in movies, g...
I have to say - to my surprise - I was pretty underwhelmed with this book. Setting aside that I would have liked to see the love triangle events handled differently and given more focus, a huge chunk of the book just felt really dull. I particularly didn't care for the fact that the author introduced yet another character who's instant-charmed by Maki - and I couldn't help feeling that she was mostly a foil for some later Maki-Umi growth. Despite that, there were some very major, special moments that were very nice and made the book worth reading to the end.
To the book’s credit, the things that made me uncomfortable last book were actually dealt with in a satisfying way. But I really wanted the book to go in way harder on the love triangle stuff at the beginning, like you would have expected from the end of the last book. Instead the narrative brings it up for a bit (as something settled), but then shelves it for the last 1/3-1/4 of the book. On one hand, this final portion of the arc was a lot more mild than I was hoping for- and not exactly the most realistic - but it did showcase the characters' increasing maturity (especially Umi), and hopefully opens the possibility for some real character growth for Yuu, moving forward. That said in an AU, I still would have loved a poly conclusion!!
While the male acquaintances do show up a bit more, and Maki slowly connects with his classmates a bit at one point, as with previous books, I still think Nozomu is incredibly under-utilized, and that’s really disappointing considering Maki is constantly referring to him as being one of his core friends group (of which he's the only male member).
I'm still planning to read the next novel, but not quite as enthusiastically as I was looking forward to this one, unless the author really brings in something innovative.