It’s that most glorious time of the year, summer vacation, and Fumiya Tomozaki’s life councilor Aoi Hinami has given him his harshest challenges yet: befriending dudes and scoring himself a babe.
The Cringe:
Something this series has pulled off well is Tomozaki’s dialogue, but not because he speaks with the most wondrous Shakespearean prose. Quite the opposite. Just about everything he says to another human being is the most stilted or awkward thing he can say in a given situation. He finally takes a girl out on a date, and the most profound comment he has is pointing out how big a crowd is. It’s terrible, and it perfectly reflects his lack of social etiquette.
The Identity Issues:
Light novels generally don’t delve that far into introspective, if they touch on it at all, and this series hasn’t been an exception, at least not until this volume. The whole goal and selling point of this series is Tomozaki’s self-improvement, but this volume raises the question of, if you do improve who you are as a person, are you changing your whole identity? It just sticks its legs into this puddle and splashes around a bit, but for what it’s worth, it does make you take a moment to postulate this legitimate discussion.
The Afterword:
I usually enjoy afterwords. They all begin and end with the same “thanks for reading” and acknowledgment to the 9,000 people somehow involved with drafting the manuscript, but they offer some good insight into how the plot came to be what it is. Not this series. It takes home the Worst Afterwords Award because it would rather gush about some minuscule detail on the cover art. In the first volume, it was Hinami’s thighs. In the second, it was the charm on Mimimi’s backpack. And for this rodeo, it’s the slight translucency of Kikuchi’s blouse. It’s not funny, it makes the afterwords creepy, and I think afterword privileges should be revoked for future installments.
The Verdict:
Another worthwhile read. I thought this series was going to be a harem, what with the roll call of cute girls in the debut, but the middle of this volume is spent trying to pair up the one girl with some douche she’s apparently got the hots for, and another is MIA, so I guess this series has tons of cute girls for the sake of having cute girls.
CCC Yabbering 