The connection between Konatsu and Koyuki is extremely tenuous. They both are aware of this, but whenKonatsu begins to avoid club…and Koyuki it comes to a head. Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru, Volume 7 (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる) is fraught.

(I appear to have not reviewed Volume 6 in Japanese.  It will not radically affect this review. I’ll review A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, Volume 6 in English when it comes out next month!)

Faced with a future without Koyuki, Konatsu is unable to move forward. It’s not until her father comes for a visit and comes very close to throwing his own future away for his idea of his daughter that she realizes what she’s giving up to avoid having to look ahead. For once it’s Koyuki who can be strong for Konatsu.

In a series which has had a number of very good “talking it out” scenes, this volume has several which stand out. As much as this series looks like a shoujo series about girls in school, it runs in a seinen magazine, Dengeki Mao. What stands out  about that for this series isn’t a matter of fanserivce at all, but unusually instead, we get adult characters who act like adults and function as parents for their children, something that is surprisingly thin in manga as a whole, which tends to rely on hyperbolic daily situations. ^_^

So here, Koyuki has a heart to heart talk with her mother that helps her decide what she needs to do, Konatsu overhears her aunt and father talking about her and then has a conversation with her father about it. Finishing up the volume was something that I don’t think I’ve ever read in a manga before – Konatsu’s father and Koyuki’s father have a conversation about their daughters that was…really nice, and supportive, of both the girls and of each other. It was so absurdly pleasant to see fathers in manga being decent, concerned, and supportive of their children and another parent. I’ll take more of this please! (Also a feature of I’m in Love With the Villainess, by the way. Rae’s parents when we meet them, are super supportive, and Claire’s father dotes. ^_^)

And in the meantime, Konatsu and Koyuki open up to one another a little bit more.

And this, in a nutshell, is why I am still reading this story. Nothing is “happening” but everyone is growing.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

We know that this series will end with Volume 9, so I’m even more interested to find out what will become of them.