By Banri Hidaka. Released in Japan as “Sekai De Ichiban Daikirai!” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by CMX.

We’re up to Eight Hate, and the revelations are coming thick and fast. Saki has come over to Maki’s place to essentially be smug at him and make threats. We hear about “Azumi”, who seems to be a girl in Maki’s past with much tragedy behind her. Maki is certain that Saki is going to do the same thing to Kazuha that he did to Azumi, so – oh, shades of Sailor Moon here – he breaks up with Kazuha for her own good, to protect her. Luckily, EVERYONE realizes how stupid this is, and it barely lasts a chapter.

This leads into the majority of the volume, which is a flashback into Maki’s past when he was in middle school. Every major series by Banri Hidaka has an extended flashback sequence, and this is no exception (we’ll see one in V.B. Rose 8 as well). The flashback is told partially by Honjo and partially by Maki, giving us multiple points of view, and introduces us to Azumi, the spunky yet fragile young woman that Maki was crushing on.

Big points to Kazuha, who grows up a LOT over the course of this volume. Yes, she spends a while crying and feeling unworthy (Honjo says, in one of the better moments, that this is the second time he’s told her to have more faith in herself), but she quickly snaps out of this and goes to confront Saki. Saki, meanwhile, is a truly efficient jerkass villain character. Once he realizes that Kazuha knows he’s the bad guy, he drops all pretense and starts being nasty to her. This leads to the best moment of the volume, which I won’t spoil, but which had me punching the air.

Kazuha continues to be mature by immediately going to Maki’s apartment (he’s hiding from the world) and confronting him. This is quite sweet, and leads to Maki telling her the rest of what happened, which will bleed into Volume 9, as we’re left with an ominous flashback. (I again note how Hidaka-san tends to undercut herself a lot. Much of the flashback is narrated in an ominous tone of doom, heavily implying Azumi is dead. Except we know, almost immediately, that she isn’t as Honjo tells us this. It removes some of the drama, but then again I don’t think I want dead girls in my fluffy shoujo.)

The majority of this volume is far more serious than the previous ones, though we still get some great humor. I was very fond of a subtle gag when Honjo is telling Kazuha and Chizuru about his discussion with Maki, and jokes about Azumi being dead. It’s a dark joke, and Kazuha, on hearing it, whacks her brother’s chest in an offhand “Osaka humor” way. Tiny little things that I love in this series. And she mocks the cartoon violence from previous volumes by having Maki be ready for it – Kazuha actually seems to CHOP OFF HIS HEAD, only to realize he’s replaced himself with a shop dummy Maki.

And, due to this volume being almost all Maki’s past, there’s very little Senko. However, we do get one fantastic Senko/Honjo bit where she goes to him to say that she’ll volunteer to be his cut model for the upcoming fashion show. Honjo’s reaction to this is so stunning that the rest of the customers in the salon break the fourth wall to boggle at it. “What was that smile on the last page? He’s never smiled like that before!” Of course, he’s quickly back to teasing her again, and it’s notable that she completely misses the smile. Their relationship has a couple volumes to go to resolve.

A good volume, with many things we’ve been waiting for since Volume 1 finally resolved. The next one will wrap up the flashback, and will catch me up on the series, as it only came out in North America 2 weeks ago.