Title: Sakura, Saku Vol. 6
Author: Io Sakisaka
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 197
Genre: Romance
Publication Date: February 11, 2025
The Story
We open up with a bit of a backstory with Iyru and how he despised wagushi (Japanese sweets). That all changed when Saku came to his family’s shop to buy some for her grandmother’s birthday; however, he didn’t know that and questioned her why she wasn’t with her grandmother. Because she did it for her birthday, it caused him to get over his resentment of Wagushi. This would come into play later on in the volume.
Back in the present, it’s time for everyone’s favorite trope… the school festival! It starts off with a haunted house where you have to wear a heart monitor. If your heart rate goes over 100, you lose. Sakura wears it but his meter doesn’t budge until they leave the haunted house. He asks Saku if she wants to check out the rest of the festival with him and that’s when the monitor goes off! Because he looks too calm and nonchalant, Saku thinks that the meter is broken… that is until later when Iryu wears the same meter when Saku is volunteering as one of the monsters. She trips and hits her nose and when he checks on her and gets too close, the meter beeps… despite that, she still thinks it’s broken.
Then, Saku and Sakura play a couple’s game where they are asked a question and have to write their answers on cue cards. If they match, they get a point. They don’t match at all; however, the final question is ‘Have you kissed anyone’ and when Sakura answers yes, it short circuits Saku’s mind and causes her to worry about his past. Then, in the worst-timed event ever, a childhood friend named Hazuki arrives with Dai. She seems to have a past with Sakura!
This sends things spiraling out of control between Saku and Sakura. Through it all, Saku has to put that on the back burner as she admits that she agreed to cover a shift at work after the festival. After she works her shift, as per usual, she walks back with Iryu; however, when she tries to leave, Iryu makes a bold move!
Characters
Iryu was the major focus of this volume, although Sakura did get a lot of development as well.
With Iryu, he was tired of being made fun of for living in his family’s wagushi shop which caused him to loathe wagushi… that is until Saku showed up to buy some for her grandmother’s birthday. Later on, Sakura and Iryu run into one another and after learning about how they both wore the same heart rate monitor and figuring out that it wasn’t broken like Saku thought it was, Sakura flat-out asked him if he liked Saku. He reveals his feelings as does Sakura, officially making them rivals. In the meantime, Iryu decides with Sakura hot on his tail, he’s going to make a bold move showing that he’s not going to let anything fall to chance. Given his previous attitude throughout the series, it makes sense that he would try to jump the gun and beat Sakura to the punch.
Speaking of Sakura, his development came when he knew that the heart rate monitor wasn’t broken. He fully admitted his feelings for Saku and throughout the volume, you can see him become a bit more protective of Saku. When they played the couples’ game, he was hoping that she would recall the incident when they fell and accidentally kissed. He boldly asked Saku if she wanted a do-over which shows that, like Iryu, he has a very forward side to him as well. Also, when Saku gets the wrong idea and runs away from him, he chases after her so that he can clear the air, showing just how much he cares about her. If that wasn’t enough, there was the introduction of Hazuki, his childhood friend. He acts very coldly towards her which means that they have a past together… one not quite revealed as of yet!
Meanwhile, poor Saku. She’s caught in the middle of all of this. Thinking the heart rate monitor was broken, Meeting Hazuki and thinking that she was an old flame of Sakura’s, getting into one big misunderstanding of his final answer in the couple’s quiz, and more. If anything, she was akin to a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth from scenario to scenario. Then, she had to deal with Iryu making a move on her to close out the volume. She had it pretty rough!
Final Thoughts
I hate to sound like a broken record here but the problem I’m having with this series is the same problem I have with a lot of romance series… and that is setting up a supporting character in a role where it makes it seem as if they have a chance at stealing away the main girl when the story has already established the obvious… that the two main leads will get together. We are six volumes deep into a nine-volume series. It means we have three more to go after this… if you honestly think Iryu had even the slightest shot in the world, you are absolutely fooling yourself. There is literally zero point in even exploring this as a story option this deep into the series.
Had this series established Iryu and Sakura on equal footing from the beginning and made them compete so as to not make it painfully obvious, then I would have been on the edge of my seat with Iryu’s bold move… but… it wasn’t like that. It was even confirmed to Sakura’s face, that Saku had feelings for him in this volume which right then and there, nullifies any drama and impact Iryu might have on this series. This is a simple filler and a waste of time but… I get it. Nearly every romance series I read goes this route. They have multiple characters and at some point in the story, give those side characters a shot at taking the main girl even if they have zero chance.
Some people love this because it allows them to fabricate ‘what if’ scenarios in their heads (and if you’ve read my reviews, you would know that I am one of those people) but when you see it time and time again, you kind of stop wondering about the ‘what ifs’ and, instead, you start sighing because you know this plot point is futile and won’t go anywhere. Just once… I would love to see a series shock the world and actually ship the side character with the main girl. Be bold and be different but, I cannot for the life of me see that happening here which means it’s just another empty pointless dramatic scenario that will amount to nothing.
Outside of that, great volume! I know that’s rather contradictory but aside from my little rant about this and every other romance series going for that pointless angle, there was a lot of great stuff here and some actual real drama and tension to be worried over. Iryu is starting to give off creeper vibes, Sakura is starting to realize he needs to make this relationship happen, Saku is still dumber than a box of dead, wet rats, and we have a piece of Sakura’s past that doesn’t seem so pleasant that we need to explore. All around good stuff.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
