Here we are at Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru, Volume 5 (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる) and Honami Koyuki is putting the brakes on her almost-not-even moving-life. Why would she do that? Well.

Koyuki has always been a model student, and the teachers have relied on her to do the right thing. But that was also used as a bludgeon by the teachers, who compared the other students to her, which meant that the other kids pulled away, even though they didn’t mean to.
The end result is that Honami Koyuki is horribly lonely – lonely enough that she finds it inconceivable to not be lonely. While Koyuki was stranded in this Saragossa Sea of emotion, Konatsu came into her life. And she’s still not entirely sure what to do about it. Especially as she’s planning on going to school very far away, in Tokyo.

Oddly, the person who breaks her free is not Konatsu, but Konatsu’s friend Kaede who can see the (kind of obvious) truth. Kaede has no skin in the game beyond seeing her friend happy, so she’s free to force Koyuki into admitting the burden she carries. Even as we’re finally thinking something might break for the better, Konatsu sees Kaede and Koyuki walking together… and, naturally(????) fears the worst.

This volume was pretty annoying, I’m not going to lie.I get that Koyuki is not a happy character and this is a very slow-moving romance, but holy heck, what was that last bit about? Folks. Let me assure you your lover smiling while being next to someone else does not mean automatically mean anything bad. Sheesh. Nonetheless, I feel like something has got to happen now, surely. ^_^ (No, I kid, nothing is going to happen now.)

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Service – 1 on principle only, there really isn’t any
Yuri – 2

Overall – 7

I hope Volume 6 will move forward, but not moving forward is kind of this series’ thing.^_^; In the meantime Volume 3 in English is headed our way in May (with possible delays because of the pandemic.)