« It’s my father’s sword…! » and a well deserved hug ✨

Chapter 25 is finally out [in English], and wow do I really wanna draw some fan-art inspired by it now.

Thoughts under the cut.

I know there’s been a bit of flower language/symbolism in this manga already, but it’s still interesting to get an overt reference to flower names in the title page here. Obviously the whole crossroads thing is pretty basic imagery for representing a decision that needs to be made, though I don’t quite know how the flower names relate to that concept. I read a post saying that the flower in Futaba’s hair is probably the same sort of flower referred to here, but if both of the names fit, then I’m not quite sure what the hypothetical choice is. Either way, it’s a neat detail.

I like the little detail of Taichi idly reading through some sort of miniature English textbook while he’s waiting for the others. It’s not really touched upon or anything, but it’s still a nice touch.

I said before that I wasn’t sure how far into the future the fireworks festival would be, but I definitely wasn’t expecting us to IMMEDIATELY get into it. I mean, I’m glad that we’re getting right to the point, but it’s still a bit surprising. It makes me wonder how long this little arc of sorts is gonna last.

Futaba and Masumi look amazing in this chapter and I really wanna draw some fan-art of them now.

I know that it’s fairly common for guys to go to festivals like this in casual clothes, but I can definitely feel how awkward Taichi must feel, being the only one in his group not in yukatas.

I was not expecting Taichi to pull of a goddamn Kazuo Umezu face, but that was absolutely incredible.

And on the topic of things that are absolutely incredible, we got a whole chapter of incredibly blessed Touma-in-a-yukata content, and I couldn’t be happier.

I always love how casual Touma is with complimenting people. It’s so cute. It’s also pretty amusing seeing how Taichi feels awkward about complimenting girls because he’s embarrassed about acknowledging and expressing that sort of attraction, while Touma doesn’t really have those same hang-ups because there’s no romantic/sexual element to him complimenting girls. I guess Masumi summed up their difference pretty nicely, lol.

Futaba and Masumi holding hands to stay together in the crowd was so adorable, aaah. I wish Touma could have gotten some hand-holding action too, but Taichi had to go and be lame about it. Touma was fully aware of how awkward it might be to try and hold someone’s hand while also using crutches, but sometimes a dude’s just gotta do what a dude’s gotta do, if it means holding his crushes hand.

Touma looks so happy to be leading the Friendship Train, lmao.

Even though we don’t really know that much about them, I still always like seeing all the random side characters show up once in a while. It’s pretty fitting that we’re now seeing some of them with new girlfriends and stuff. On this whole note, I really appreciate that Kensuke’s girlfriend is a larger girl who’s drawn realistically and not treated as some kind of joke. I mean, I guess that’s a pretty low bar, but you get what I mean.

We even get to see Einosuke again, and he’s actually apologizing about being rude to Taichi in the hospital, which I wasn’t expecting. It’s nice that that little bit of conflict is getting resolved so neatly, at least. I still think that if Touma can’t end up with Taichi, he should be able to get together with Einosuke.

There’s a lot of great outfits and hairstyles and whatnot in this chapter, but that one girl whose name I forget has a great look going on, with the choker and the hat.

And then we get back to the whole Mami debacle. I’ve been trying to figure out what her overall role in things is meant to be for a while now, and I think it’s getting a lot clearer now. So it turns out that Touma is basically too nice to actually turn her down, and so she keeps trying to get his attention in the futile hope that he’ll agree to date her eventually. I feel like part of the reason why Touma is hesitant to actually reject her plainly is because, as that one guy more or less laid out, as soon as he rejects her, suddenly the question will be when he’ll actually get himself a girlfriend. So in a way, I think that part of why Touma’s not putting his foot down in this situation is because he doesn’t want to have to face the messy and complicated topic of society’s expectations for him to find a girlfriend. Obviously he’s just putting off the inevitable, and that nothing will really change if he just keeps waiting it out, other than that it might make things even more messy if Mami ends up reaching a breaking point of frustration with him, but it’s sadly pretty realistic that he’d try and avoid the situation like this. We already know that his goal at this point is basically to go off and live on his own as soon as he can, so I think he’s hoping that he can escape all this before he needs to take any real action.

So I guess the main question here is where this thing with Mami will go in the long run, now that it’s more clear what sort of situation’s going on. It’s pretty obvious that Touma won’t be able to keep waiting things out forever. Push is gonna come to shove at some point, and he’s going to have to confront Mami’s feelings for him at some point. It’s mostly a matter of how that’ll inevitably play out. Will it involve Touma outright coming out, or will he still try and keep that a secret, and reject her for more vague reasons? I guess we’ll find out eventually.

It’s pretty painful seeing Touma in this position where lots of girls have crushes on him, and everyone’s expecting him to date one of them eventually, but he doesn’t actually want to be in a relationship with a girl.

It’s interesting to compare Touma’s attitude of method of handling socially expected heterosexual relationships by just avoiding them entirely, to Masumi’s method of going along with them, only for them to continually fall apart. In general the point is just that expecting people to enter into heterosexual relationships doesn’t always work out, and you just shouldn’t place those burdens and expectations on people in the first place.

I know that some people have an issue with Kaito for depicting this sort of thing, but I honestly appreciate that he’s acknowledging this and treating it realistically, and showing multiple different ways in which people like Touma and Masumi react to the idea of compulsory heterosexuality. Not that there’d be anything wrong with a story like this glazing over this sorta topic and letting it’s gay characters be treated by others as they should, but this is a valid way of handling things as well. Obviously I still want to see these two find partners of their own who they can have loving relationships with, but I appreciate Kaito for depicting these sorts of struggles.

It’s always kinda hilarious seeing these characters try to clumsily set up moments of alone time between each other. Especially because there’s all sorts of conflicting intentions and goals going on between all of them. I figured that Futaba would end up going with Taichi, but I like the little scene of Masumi basically telling Touma that he should have gone instead. It’s nice that she wanted the two of them to have some alone time, but I get why Touma decided against it.

I continue being so conflicted whenever these sorts of shippy moments happen with Taichi and Futaba, because on the one hand, in a vacuum I think it’s a cute relationship that’s set up relatively well, but in the actual wider context of the story and it’s cast, I feel sad about the entire idea of it happening because of what it’d mean for Touma and Masumi. So I just never know quite how to feel in scenes like this. At the very least I still hope that if Taichi and Futaba get together, Touma and Masumi can find their own people to date.

I think I read before that the next chapter won’t be out until the end of the month, so now I’m just gonna be suffering for the next few weeks as I wait to see what happens next. Especially since I think the next chapter should mark the end of volume four, so it’s probably gonna have some sort of cliffhanger-y ending.