Kurosawa is now temporarily living at Adachi's place for the flimsiest of reasons. They get a grand total of one evening and morning alone together before Adachi freaks out and turns it into a sleepover party by inviting Rokkaku over. In general, Adachi is struggling with a lot of confusing feelings. He really wants to be loved as he is, and he knows Kurosawa would do that, but at the same time he's still not sure how he feels about being in a relationship with another guy. If he came across a woman who was as into him as Kurosawa was, would he prefer her simply because of the gender issue? Plus, Kurosawa has a pretty significant jealous streak that could quickly become a problem.

This was not nearly as much fun as the previous couple volumes, barely contained any content, and reminded me about some aspects of this series that initially made me uncomfortable.

Only two thirds of this was devoted to the primary story, and some of it was taken up by a twist that dissolved into nothing almost as soon as it appeared. Overall, this volume really was more of a bridge to whatever the next volume holds. Considering how short each volume of this series is, this irked me. I really wish Square Enix would do 2-volume (or even 3-volume) omnibus editions instead.

I share Adachi's concerns about Kurosawa's tendency towards jealousy. I'm crossing my fingers that once he and Adachi are officially a couple, Kurosawa doesn't give those tendencies free rein, or this series may quickly become unpleasant.

I wasn't pleased about the addition of a fujoshi character, either. Are there really people who watch people in their lives and fantasize about them pairing up? Do people actually do that? Because it's super gross. I keep seeing stuff like this played for laughs in anime and manga, and I don't get it.

In the last third of the volume, readers got to see a bit from Rokkaku's POV (he's not secretly in love with Adachi or Kurosawa, thank goodness, but he is a bit of an idiot), plus more of Tsuge's crush on the postal delivery guy, who I'm guessing will turn out to be a former friend and classmate of Rokkaku's. It was all okay, but I'm still not terribly invested in Tsuge's potential romance with Minato.

After winning me over in volume 2, the series lost a few points with me in this volume. I plan to continue on for now, but I wish it were a more consistent reading experience.

There is still no explicit content in this series, and yet Square Enix Manga continues to put a "Parental Advisory - Explicit Content" stamp on the cover. It annoys me. I know for a fact that that stamp is one of the reasons why the library I work for hasn't purchased the series, despite at least one patron request for it on Overdrive (no, it wasn't me, and in fact I was surprised to see it in the list).

Extras:

One strange full-color illustration in which Kurosawa and Adachi are inside a giant martini glass, a one-page bonus manga celebrating the release of the drama CD, a couple pages of translation notes, and a 12-page excerpt from the next volume.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )