Title: Honey Lemon Soda Vol. 8
Author: Mayu Murata
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: February 18, 2025
The Story
In Volume 8 of Honey Lemon Soda sees Ishimori and Miura start dating… sort of. Even though they had confessed to one another, Ishimori wasn’t sure if they were actually dating because she had a different idea of what dating meant versus telling someone that you like them. Miura respects her opinion and lets her decide what she wants to do until his feelings cannot be contained anymore. When it’s his turn to speak in front of the class for homeroom duty, he confesses to Ishimori in front of the entire class and officially asks her out.
Now that they are dating, things take a one-month time skip where they haven’t done a single thing at all. No dates, not even a phone call or even a text message. Everyone gets together and wonders if they should go and do something. It’s suggested to bring Ishimori to a place to eat that Miura likes so he takes her to a restaurant where the owner’s daughter, Emily, has had a crush on Miura. What seems like an odd choice, Miura makes it clear to Emily that he’s dating Ishimori now and that she needs to leave him alone.
Things take an even weirder turn when the teachers at school corner Ishimori after learning about her relationship with Miura. They state that they don’t approve because of Miura’s grades, and they feel as if Miura will be a bad influence on her and that she could be heading down the wrong path. This guilts her into spending less time with Miura and more time studying. On the other side of things, Miura is told that since he has no plans to go to college, he will be placed in a separate class next year and won’t be with Ishimori any longer. Suddenly, Miura applies actual effort to school and ends up scoring a perfect score on his text alongside Ishimori!
Lastly, we fast-forward again to the new school year. They end up in the same class but things are a bit weird between them… again. Apparently, Ishimori ended up getting a new phone and started using LINE but she hasn’t told Miura yet. Miura barely even checks his LINE but when he does, he sees her name under his recommendations section. He confronts her and she tells him that she got LINE and has joined the art club. She wants to know if she can message him on LINE every day.
Characters
I, honestly, have no idea what to make of any of this character development. We have Ishimori and Miura who came together as a couple, but Ishimori somehow thinks confessing your feelings and dating are two completely separate things? That’s a bit odd but let us give her the benefit of the doubt here. Next, Ishimori is swayed into staying away from Miura to focus on her studies by her teachers? Okay, that’s a weird situation in and of itself, but then she doesn’t bother telling Miura that she’s on LINE and it’s somehow a big deal until he has to go and confront her about it? Then she casually just says she has it and asks to message him?
Sorry but in what world is this considered development? I get it… they are in a relationship now and it’s all new to them and things are a bit awkward but this is beyond awkward to almost painful. With the way things were handled, I feel as if the characters regressed more than anything else.
In Miura’s case, it’s easier to see the growth in him… at least in the second half of the manga. In the first half, not calling or texting Ishimori for a month is just weird. I can expect that from Ishimori because she is introverted and was probably waiting for him to make the first move, which is why I gave her the benefit of the doubt earlier, but Miura? I thought this guy was the brash and forward boy who didn’t care what he said or what anyone thought? He sure seems that way when people question him about why he hasn’t texted he,r but to not bother with the girl YOU CONFESSED TO IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE CLASS? That’s… odd. It’s like you have the guts to tell everyone how you feel about her in a public setting but you can’t privately message her? Not even once in a month? That makes no sense.
At least in the second half, he was thoughtful about her birthday after she was thoughtful about his. When he learned that they could be in separate classes, he secretly started to care to get his grades up so they could be together. Little things like that are sweet and precious and that’s the kind of stuff I was expecting from Miura. The whole LINE thing was a bit weird. I get that he doesn’t care and doesn’t check his LINE and that Ishimori is introverted but so many time skips happened that they should have been more comfortable dating one another. To be that wishy-washy this far into a relationship without any courage or advancement is just a weird choice for development.
Final Thoughts
This one was all over the place. Again, I get the whole thing with Ishimori being an introvert but some of the choices here made no sense whatsoever. The whole confusion over whether or not they are officially dating, bringing Ishimori to a restaurant just to verbally smack a girl and tell her you’re taken now when you could, I don’t know, just never go there again and put Ishimori’s priorities first… then, the teachers sticking their noses into a student’s private life like that… all of that made little to no sense.
Maybe it’s a culture thing? Is this kind of stuff normal in Japan or something? I can understand the Emily part a little bit… I get wanting to tell someone who is infatuated with you that they need to stop, but how many times in this series did we truly see Emily? When was it ever an issue at the forefront of the story? What was the need to even do any of this? If they had switched it up to everyone encouraging Miura and Ishimori to go on a dinner date and just turned into a one-on-one at any other restaurant, it would have still worked (and worked better, in my opinion). To go out of the way to create a plot point that wasn’t significant throughout the series is baffling.
The whole thing with the grades was extremely weird. There were so many other ways they could have gotten Miura to study and get his grades up; however, to have the teachers band together like some sort of secret society hellbent on making Ishimori their champion… that was creepy and very awkward. I just didn’t understand the reasoning behind that… then to try and rope Ishimori’s father into it as if he were some secret agent hiding in the shadows as their trump card… yeah, I don’t know what to make about all of that.
Overall, this was a very weird volume. That’s not how I pictured their relationship to go and the scenarios failed to hit the mark in every single way. The only good parts were Miura and Ishimori’s birthdays, and Miura making sure they ended up in the same class. Everything else was just very poorly executed from a logic standpoint.
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