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.

Despite the fact that Kazuha still hasn’t confessed to Maki, this volume is very much about how a couple starts off – awkwardly, with lots of blushes and little fights turning into SERIOUS BUSINESS. Kazuha’s general personality does not help here at all, of course.

Contrasted with this is Senko, who’s just as emotional but a touch more sensible – well, she thinks so, at least. Senko proves to be easily manipulated in an incredibly hilarious scene where Honjo talks her into going out with him. The expression on his face as she walks right into his trap makes me remember why I fell for this couple hard. (Later in the volume, Kazuha realizes that Honjo likes Senko, and the idea of them as a couple makes her freak out. This freak out leads to possible the funniest line in the entire manga, from her little brother Ichihisa: “Oh noooo! Senko-chan! Kazuha-chan is tripping!”.)

The ‘date’ turns out to be Mizushima’s wedding – Maki decided to trick Kazuha and make it a suprise. It’s a lovely wedding (western-style), though it does show one of the difficulties in translating Japanese to English. Manami, Mizushima’s bride, speaks in a ‘third-person cutesy’ sort of way, saying “Manami wants” instead of “I want.” Another character later in the volume also slips into this on occasion. It’s common in manga with ‘cutesy’ girls, but over here I think it just looks childish. (Another funny moment, when Kazuha discusses the wedding with her mother, and her mother starts teasing her: “Ichihisa takes after his mother 100%.” She does – we’ve seen that evil grin on teenage Ichihisa in the pre-IHYMTA Akiyoshi arcs.)

We then get Valentine’s Day, which leads to more angst for Kazuha – she’s never given anyone chocolate before, even her teachers, so has no idea what to do for Maki. It doesn’t help that Maki gets drowned in chocolates from all his admirers. Kazuha stresses, then eventually decides to not do the chocolates thing, as she wants to not be like all the other girls. (We’ll see what she decides on in the next volume).

The Valentine’s arc also has the one big flaw in the volume, however. A new character, Miharu, is introduced. She’s Arata’s childhood friend, and clearly has a crush on him. And coincidentally, she appears just as his crush on Kazuha is about to be resolved! I don’t dislike her, but her entire arc, here and in the next book, reeks of ‘I need to get rid of this guy, let me invent a girl to pawn him off onto”. It’s awkward, and I feel if this was how she wanted to do it then Miharu should have been there all along, especially as we had many scenes at Arata’s school before this. It underlines how Hidaka-san basically plots on the fly for this series (compare this to, say, Tears of a Lamb’s tight structure).

Overall, though, this continues to be funny and heartfelt, and even though the romance aspect is still going nowhere fast, you root for these people to find happiness. In fact, the only thing stopping Kazuha and Maki getting together now is her reticence, and that won’t last long. I’m sure that the manga will end next volume! Well, unless the author throws a huge spanner in the works. But she would *never* do that…