Title: Honey Lemon Soda Vol. 6
Author: Mayu Murata
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: July 23, 2024
The Story
In Volume 6 of Honey Lemon Soda, Ishimori comes to her senses and chases after her father after she realizes that he went out for a walk to clear his head. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who wanted to find him as her bullies from the beach set out to do a search as well. They all find him together (but separately) and Ishimori finally opens up and admits that she was bullied in middle school and that she had been lying to him so that he wouldn’t get involved or worry about her. After she clears things up and her bullies apologize, on top of her friends showing up and declaring their friendship for Ishimori, her father caves and allows her to continue attending school… although he still doesn’t approve of Kai.
After that, they end up changing seats at school and Kai is further away from Ishimori. She begins to notice that every time they get close, Kai seems to push himself away. She even went to the storage room to discover it was taped off. The teacher told her that it was Kai who reported someone going in and out of there. Ishimori wondered why Kai would tell the teacher about his secret hiding spot like that and then realized that he, again, is pushing her away.
She gets suspicious and ends up following Kai. She discovers what’s going on but doesn’t know the reasons why he’s doing what he’s doing. Unfortunately, she gets caught and Kai realizes that she knows her secret. He even tells her that it’s for the best that they stay apart for now; however, Ishimori doesn’t want to accept that.
Characters
While Ishimori growing a backbone was the theme of the previous volume, her confrontation with her father and coming clean about everything was the final thing needed to complete her new, rock-solid spine! Good on her to finally get over the hump and admit everything that had happened to her. Her newfound attitude even convinced her bullies to apologize for the way they treated her back in middle school. It clearly showed some great progression for her character and with the author’s note at the of the book for what is to come in Volume 7, we’ll see if that new backbone of hers gets put to good use! I like how she’s a bit more confident in everything and how she’s beginning to take a bigger interest/concern with Kai.
Ishimori’s father came to his senses rather quickly. I would have thought that this would have gone on for a bit longer but the resolution was pretty swift… even if he doesn’t still fully trust Kai I’m sure that was done because this will come into play later on. This is a romance series so it is inevitable that Kai and Ishimori will end up together and I fully expect him to become a roadblock for that in the future… otherwise, there would be no point to that line of dialogue.
Kai is hiding something; however, we don’t know what that something is. All we know is that Ishimori discovered what he has been doing but the reason remains unknown. A few times throughout the book, it was mentioned by several characters that they would describe Kai as someone who has a lot of things going on in his head but they don’t know what those things are. That’s pretty accurate but it seems that with the way this volume ended, we’ll at least find out some of those things soon… hopefully.
Final Thoughts
Despite the situation with Ishimori’s father getting resolved rather too quickly, I felt that this was a transitional volume more than anything. With Ishimori back in school, we went through the typical simmer before turning the heat back up. Now, it seems as if we are entering a new arc that focuses on Kai’s new mysterious circumstances. Also, if you read the note in the back of the book from Murata-sensei, then you’ll know that “set-up arc” where we get used to our characters and surroundings is over and that we’re moving into the true purpose of this series.
After six volumes, it’s about time because I don’t know anyone who calls their series a romance and waits six volumes to get to the actual romance! Nope! I don’t know a single person who would do that! (**whistles as he steps in front of his A.R. Dragonfly light novel series that did exactly that**)
Hey, sometimes stories need a good set-up before we get to the meat and potatoes! Call it the appetizer before the main course. Now that’s had our fill of crusty bread, and deep-friend cheese bites covered in chili oil, it’s time for the main course to begin and that’s exactly what Volume 7 is looking to deliver!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
