Three is a very fine balance in a story that has to be maintained. We have to care about the characters we’ve been asked to care about…we have to be invested in the ending. When a story adds characters, they have to maintain that balance or they distract.

Mayu, Matou, Volume 5 ( 繭、纏う) is so carefully riding that line here in the penultimate volume.

What appeared to be a love triangle in which one side had no idea she was involved, has become more complicated. Kujou is vying with the unknowing/absent Hoshimiya for Saeki Hana’s heart. But Kujou does not know that Yokozawa is also in the ring.

Kujou, trying her best to entwine Saeki, asks her to the dance…and makes it almost impossible to refuse. Saeki, who has no interest in being the school prince, acquiesces. But when the dance starts…Hoshimiya arrives…!

This whole manga is a fairytale in which the princess is absent, the prince is emotionally tortured by the witch and the heroine is ignored by nearly everyone in the story. I don’t even want Kujou to come to a bad end, I just want Saeki out of there and away from this mishegas of hair uniforms and creepy ritual. Frankly, the best thing any of these girls can do is to get the heck out of that school. 

Volume 5 and and Volume 6 came out at the same time in Japan, which I think was a very good idea – even moreso now that I’ve read Volume 5. I definitely felt the urge to speed into reading the final volume, in hopes that Yokozawa would free Hana from, not a cocoon, but a web,  built from her own desires and self-loathing. Instead I sat with it, and how deeply uncomfortable it made me. The cover, when unfolded, shows Saeki Hana reach desperately into a black void, only trailing hair visible, as whomever passes beyond the border.  Hara Yuriko-sensei’s art is quite outstanding.

Ratings:

Art – 9 It’s beautiful and repulsive
Characters – 8
Story – 9
Service – 5 As in Volume 4 this is dark, creepy, sexy in ways that are uncomfortable
Yuri – 8

Overall – 9

Volume 6, when it gets there, will change that narrative completely.

I hope.

(Spoiler alert for clicking the link and seeing the cover.)