Title: Honey Lemon Soda Vol. 5
Author: Mayu Murata
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: March 19, 2024
The Story
In Volume 5 of Honey Lemon Soda, summer break has started and they all head to the beach. Of course, Ishimori didn’t bring a swimsuit as she just couldn’t see herself doing something like that. While there, she runs into a group that used to bully her back in middle school. She tries to grow the backbone that Kai keeps telling her to grow and strikes up a conversation with them. Despite the feeling that she’s annoying and wants nothing to do with her, they humor her until the conversation comes to a dead end. After that, they simply leave feeling that bullying her like old times is just a waste of time now.
From here, summer break draws to an end and Ishimori realizes that she never asked Kai for his contact information. Then again, she doesn’t have LINE installed on her phone but she did promise to ask for her dad’s permission first. This is where things head into a bit of a flashback about Ishimori’s father. Suddenly, things take a huge 180 with him and he goes from sweet and understanding to completely overprotective of Ishimori… so much so that it’s about to have a massive impact on her school life!
Characters
The theme of this volume is all about Ishimori growing a backbone and there are several instances of her doing so. The first was during their beach trip when she talked to some of the kids who used to bully her in middle school. Then, right before summer break ended, she worked up the courage to ask Ayumi and Serina for their contact information and even began engaging in text messages with them. Furthermore, she went out to karaoke with them! The fact that she’s making friends who truly care about her is a great reflection of how she has come in just five short volumes. However, thanks to her father, we kind of understand part of her social awkwardness.
When we first get a glimpse at her father, she seemed like the kind of parent who always cherished their child and wanted them to have the best upbringing possible. He wanted her to get into one of the best all-girls schools around; however, Ishimori didn’t want to go. Since the school doesn’t offer any second chances, she had no choice but to go to Hachimitsu High School where she is now; however, her father, while disappointed, seemed fine with it.
That all changed when he saw her hanging out with Kai, Ayumi, and Serina at karaoke. This triggered the overprotective gene laying dormant in his body and he completely flipped the script. Then again, one could say that he was always like that and he just needed that one trigger to put away the smile and show his true colors. Then again, Ishimori was an obedient little girl so there was no need to show any true colors until now. He went from an adoring father to someone you just wanted to beat senseless Dokura-chan style.
Outside of this, we end up getting some closure between Serina and Kai. She finally worked up the nerve to talk to him about their past and to get a definitive answer out of him. Of course, the answer was everything that we had expected and ever Serina realized that between her and Ishimori, Serina got weaker around Kai while Ishimori got stronger.
Final Thoughts
This was a pretty good volume of Honey Lemon Soda. The summer break stuff seemed like filler at first but they managed to turn this into some great character development for Ishimori. The old her probably wouldn’t have gone to the beach at all and she even monologued that very same point to herself during the volume. It’s been fun watching her growth as a character and I see this situation with her father as a test to see how far she truly has come. It’ll be interesting to see what she plans to do about her now overbearing and overprotective dad in the next volume.
The relationship between Kai and Ishimori didn’t get all that much closer but it didn’t need to. What this volume did was wrap up some loose ends between Kai and Serina and put things in the order that they needed to be in to further their relationship down the line. I guess you could say that they were finishing up on laying the foundation and now it’s time to build it out from here.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
