Title: Shortcake Cake Vol. 10
Author: suu Morishita
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Digital
Pages: 168
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: November 3, 2020
The Story
Volume ten of Shortcake Cake was one heck of a wild roller coaster ride. We open up with a hot and steamy scene where Riku and Ten are about to have their first time together when Riku is interrupted by a phone call. The awkwardness ends things before they start and Riku ends up walking Ten home. Still, Riku is determined to meet his birth mother and that causes Ten a lot of concern. In fact, it bothers Riku to his core that Shingen told her and Chiaki everything about his past.
The fear is that if Riku meets his mother and makes amends, then he will disappear forever. Part of those fears are enhanced when Riku and Ten have a heartfelt conversation that ends in tears. Riku is simply preparing for any scenario and even says that he’s looking for a fresh start with everything. Fearing the worst, Ten enlists the help of Shingen as well as an unlikely source… Rei!
Of course, Rei is being a little you-know-what about everything on top of being highly uncooperative. Shingen and Ten go to some extreme measures and hold a carp hostage. Yes… you read that correctly. The carp was a gift from Rei’s grandfather and is very precious to him. Combine the hostage situation with a photo they found of Rei and Riku together as kids and it finally breaks the shell that Rei was encasing himself with. He explains everything about the past we already knew about but from his perspective with some new details.
The volume ends with the fated meeting between Riku and his mother; however, one of the most unexpected moments happens!
This was a nice continuation of what was built up in volume nine. The emotions put forth in this book were at an all-time high as you really got to feel connected to a lot of the characters. There was one moment in the book that I won’t spoil that didn’t make much sense to me but it happened anyway. Especially after the fact that a certain someone still went to great lengths to be of aid to Riku. Being this deep into the series, it didn’t really make sense for that certain thing to happen but, alas, here we are so it’ll be interesting to see how it gets remedied.
Characters
Oof, there’s a lot to talk about here but a lot of it could be considered spoilers. This will be a bit of a challenge but here we go nevertheless.
The easiest one to talk about is Rei. After being confronted, we relive his backstory once again about how he felt Riku was always better than him at everything. Rei worked really hard to he could be the big brother that Riku deserved but all of that changed over a painting. Riku’s painting of Rei’s grandfather got awarded the silver medal and it was right after that Rei’s grandfather declared Riku as his real grandson. Rei overheard everything and became heartbroken and that was the moment he became spiteful and hateful towards Riku. Having an adopted brother come into your family and then steal your position in the eyes of your family definitely stings… especially to someone at Rei’s age at the time. It’s no wonder he held a deep hatred for Riku all this time.. but, as we suspected, it was all just a façade as Rei does still love Riku and hoped that the two of them could reconcile one day.
When it comes to Riku, he disliked the fact that Shingen told Ten and Chiaki everything. This prompted Chiaki to invite Riku to his house back in his hometown to meet his brother and his parents. Once there, Chiaki has a bit of a “Coming to Jesus” meeting with Riku and finally gets him to come around and open up a bit. Chiaki made Riku realize that he’s not alone in this world and he does have at least one friend that cared about him. Of course, while Chiaki wasn’t lying, he was hoping that knowing that, Riku would change his mind about meeting his mother and possibly disappearing. We’ll have to see if those efforts pay off in the long run.
Speaking of Chiaki, we learned a little bit about his past with his brother. Chiaki’s lovable personality was inherited from his brother’s infectious personality. The two were inseparable and that becomes even more evident when Chiaki’s brother tries to drive a wedge between Riku and Chiaki’s friendship as he felt jealous that Chiaki liked Riku as a friend as much as he liked Chiaki as a brother. It was a bit hilarious and seemed like a warped version of the Rei/Riku relationship.
Ten was kind of put on the backburner as far as development goes it doesn’t mean that there weren’t some moments with her. I’ll just let you guys read those for yourselves!
Final Thoughts
This is the second volume in a row where I have to just say “WOW!” So much is going on here but it’s all tying together into a possible life-changing moment for Riku. With only two more volumes left to go, it makes sense that everything is going in the direction of a big conclusion. We have Riku meeting his mother and coming to his big decision, Rei finally coming around and wanting to reconcile, and everyone coming together to support Riku.
The big moment is coming but I have a feeling that things will turn out fine. While this is being built up as a major decision, I see it as nothing more than just a bunch of bravado before an obvious happy ending. Then again, we could end up with a bit of a shocker, too… it has happened before… especially in romance series where things don’t really end up the way people expect them to (I’m looking at you Domestic na Kanojo!)
Who knows? Maybe we’ll all be in for a surprise that we’re not expecting! We’ll have to wait and see but we do know that Volume 11 is going to be quite the turbulent one. If you thought this volume took you on a ride, I feel the next will take us on an even bigger one!
Be sure to follow me on Twitter @JJPiedraTOH
You can also check out other The Outerhaven reviews on your favorite social media networks:
Subscribe to us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theouterhaven
Subscribe to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
Subscribe to us on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
This item was provided for review by VIZ Media
