The answer still remains: no time soon. In the meanwhile, Christmas (year indeterminate), New Year’s, exams, and the dread spectre of Valentine’s Day all serve to inject their own brand of mayhem into our leads’ attempts to kick it up a notch.
A solid, if uninspiring, instalment of our shogi stalwarts, with neither of them taking the next little step towards coupledom, yet still managing to spend an awful lot of time together anyway.
It’s definitely a good volume, but it lacks the punch that some of the earlier ones had. I do like that the shogi challenge has become a contest that Yaotome sometimes loses, but not enough that Ayumu feels he can ask his senpai out. It also turns out that the handicap fuels a lot more competition in Yaotome than she previously had.
Most everything revolves around miscommunications and misunderstandings that serve to keep things from happening or just embarrass Yaotome to ribbons (the saga of poor Ayumu’s exam prep and the aftermath). This would be a lot less tolerable if these two weren’t so good together - I love the way Ayumu always goes the extra mile, especially when he messes up (ie, Christmas).
That all being said, my favourite moments this time actually resolve around Sakurako (of the 5-yen hypnosis and most impossible hair) and her would-be beau Takeru. His clever defence against her antics being completely effective and then completely ineffective when she uses even more devious antics is very well done. I love how they are basically mired in the same boat as Yaotome and Ayumu, but presented differently.
The only real problem is that there’s not a ton here that hasn’t yet been done, which is largely the same thing that Teasing Master Takagi-san boiled down to. I would still rather read this series, the dynamic here is much more enjoyable to me, but it’s fallen into a similar pattern.
And patterns aren’t inherently bad, but they don’t necessarily bring the spark that the earlier stories had, no matter how many adorable sweaters or blushes or unwitting lean-ins people manage to pull off.
3.5 stars - I don’t want to imply that this book isn’t great; in fact, I would say it is one of my coziest reads right now and I leapt right for it when I saw the new volume was out. It’s just been better in the past and that’s where I’ll be ranking it this time - average, but the good average.