Title: Sakura, Saku Vol. 5
Author: Io Sakisaka
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 197
Genre: Romance
Publication Date: November 12, 2024
The Story
Summer vacation is ongoing and Saku is heading to see her grandmother. She wants an excuse to see Sakura; however, she can’t think of a reason to. When she says that she will bring Iryu a gift back with her, she realizes that she can buy one for Sakura and that would count as an excuse to see him. We get a time skip to when she comes back and she meets up with Sakura to give him his gift. School starts right after so she’s happy that she can see him again every day.
Meanwhile, an issue between Saku and Iryu begins to brew. Apparently, Iryu might be her guardian angel… the one who brought Saku her grandmother’s bag that one day. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case but Iryu did return the bag to her once. The only problem is that Saku doesn’t remember anything about that other time and it irks Iryu.
The volume closes with Saku remembering what it was but can she smooth things over with Iryu?
Characters
The main focus was on Iryu where he always seems bothered to walk Saku to the station but he does it anyway because it’s something that Ryuosuke asked him to do. For some unexplained reason, he cannot refuse a request from him. When he becomes irked that Saku can’t remember the day that he returned her bag to her, it raised some flags that there could be more to the two of them that we’re not being told. More on that in the final thoughts section.
As for Ryuosuke, Dai has visited the café a few times. Once with Sakura and the other with another person who has yet to be revealed. Dai stopping by has piqued Ryuosuke’s interest; however, more so with the unnamed second person. There could be something brewing there that could lead to some nice backstory for him so we’ll see.
As for Saku, she’s overthinking again. Needing an excuse to go see Sakura during summer vacation is a bit weird. I mean, if you want to see him then see him. It’s just as simple as that. Not sure why she felt as if she needed a reason but it is what it is. She found one but despite that, I don’t feel as if she has grown as a character outside of her practically confirming (silently) that Sakura is the one for her and no one else.
Final Thoughts
Without venturing into spoiler territory here, I will say that the ending to this volume was highly disappointing. It did a great job building up to the ending which was Saku remembering what happened when Iryu returned her bag to her but the reason itself felt really REALLY flat. So much so that it was tough to believe that’s why Iryu was upset… especially since that very same reason was muttered earlier in the volume without any issues whatsoever. Plus, because the reason was muttered earlier, it made even less sense for that to be the reason why Iryu was mad.
A part of me wants to believe that there’s more to it that we’re not being told but if that’s truly the end of that little mini-arc, then that was just… bad. On the subject of Saku needing a reason to go see Sakura… look, I understand love causes our brains to take a vacation when you need it the most but overthinking the simple act of just texting your crush and being like “want to hang out today?” is a bit much. The series treated summer vacation as this invisible barrier that prevented them from seeing one another. I get that they established that in the previous volume but it still seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Other than those little gripes, everything else was fine albeit on the short side with only three main story chapters and one bonus chapter. There are four volumes left so I would expect the series to kick it into gear and head towards our conclusion. We’ll see what happens when volume six rolls around.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
